Your child can maintain proper dental hygiene with their braces with the right tools and support. Here’s how!

Mouth Rinses

Since braces unfortunately make it easier for food to get trapped in the teeth due to the wires and brackets, it’s essential that rinsing become part of your child’s routine. This could be a simple rinse with water a few times a day to loosen trapped food, or you child may benefit from a mouthwash or fluoride rinse to further protect their smile. You can talk with your dentist about mouth rinses and how they’ll impact your child’s oral health.

Brushing Carefully

Your child’s brushing routine won’t change. They should still brush for the full two minutes two times a day. However, brushing may take a little more effort with the braces in the way. Your child may have to learn how to properly position the toothbrush in order to remove plaque effectively.

To do this, have your child gently brush their gumline first. Then, you can have them angle their toothbrush down and brush the top part of the teeth above the bracket. Finally, move to the bottom part of teeth below the bracket and brush upwards. This way, you’re brushing the entire tooth and floss can help remove everything in between.

Brushing regularly will help avoid stain marks around where the brackets are, so brushing is an integral part of your child’s oral care routine!

Floss

Although flossing will get a little trickier with braces, it’s essential that your child still flosses. By using flossing aids such as floss threaders, your child can get under braces and remove plaque that would otherwise be difficult to reach. Proper flossing is going to be essential to keeping up with dental hygiene with braces!

Checkups

No matter how well your child cleans their teeth, getting checkups with your dentist every six months is crucial. During these cleanings, your dentist can remove plaque that’s built up and give your child’s mouth a proper teeth cleaning. They can also identify problem areas where your child should focus more on. Your dentist may even suggest that your child come more often while receiving orthodontic care in order to ensure your child’s mouth isn’t at risk for cavities and gum disease. Checkups are going to be the best thing you can do to help your child maintain oral hygiene while they have braces.

Is your child getting braces? Talk with them about how their oral health routine will change in the coming years. Ask your orthodontist or dentist to explain proper brushing techniques to your child. You can also ask your orthodontist what flossing aids would be best to get under wires. Your child can have proper oral health and still have braces!

The post How Can Kids Best Maintain Dental Hygiene While Having Braces? appeared first on Your Dental Health Resource.

1. Begin by getting your hands clean with an antibacterial soap. If you haven’t flossed in a while, you may experience some bleeding, and you don’t want germs from your hands to infect your gums.

2. You will want to use about a foot and a half of floss (a guess is just fine – no need for a tape measure in the bathroom). Wind most of the floss around your two middle fingers. You only need about two inches to actually run between your teeth. The extra floss gives you stability and

allows you to change to a new section of the floss periodically rather than just transferring bacteria from one place to another with the same little piece of floss.

3. Use your thumbs and index fingers to hold the floss (aren’t you glad you wrapped it around your middle fingers?), and gently guide it between your teeth by gliding it back-and-forth.

4. Don’t use the floss like a saw. Rather, curve it into a c-shape and glide it gently up and down the side of each tooth.

5. Extract the floss from between teeth with the same gentle motion you used to guide it in. Note: Close teeth may make it tempting to push the floss in between your teeth or pull it out sharply, but that’s just a good way to cut your gums, so stick to gliding it back-and-forth.

6. Be sure to get below the gumline when sliding the floss up and down.

7. As you move from tooth to tooth, use clean sections of floss.

8. If you floss first, brush your teeth well afterward. If you brush first, you may want to use a mouth rinse afterward to make sure all of the bacteria your just loosened is removed from your mouth.

9. If you choose to use a floss pick, just be sure not to transfer bacteria. Floss picks have been proven to be effective at cleaning teeth. The main concern, especially if you are just beginning to floss, is taking bacteria from all over your mouth and accidentally pushing it into a cut in the gums. You can always use several floss picks during your flossing session. Just switch to a new one as they get dirty.

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