When my daughter was just over one, I posted a picture of her brushing her teeth on Instagram with the caption, “Brushing her teeth is her favorite!” My wise friend told me to enjoy it because it wouldn’t always be that way. I immediately jinxed myself because I thought my kid was going to be different and brushing her teeth wouldn’t be a struggle.
Totally newbie mom move.
In the last year or so, getting my daughter to brush her teeth has been a daily struggle, one I didn’t fight every day. I knew how important it was for her to brush her teeth but I wasn’t ready to pin her down for it to happen. At her last dentist appointment, I was petrified that we were going to get lectured by the state of her teeth because we were lucky if we got in one session a day. Thankfully all checked out healthy but I knew it was fortunate and vowed to be better. Not too long ago, I found something magical that eliminated not only the daily fight, but made brushing her teeth enjoyable!
Disney’s Magic Timer is an app that allows you to set up different profiles for the brushers in your family to track teeth brushing via a digital calender. Each time someone brushes under their profile, they will earn half a star that will display at the end of the session.
This is motivating for my daughter to brush twice a day because she hates seeing only half a star. Also, there is a gentle consequence that if you do not brush in the first half of the day, you can’t earn a full star–as learned by my daughter who skipped a morning brushing and tried to brush twice that evening.
The other main feature, which is what truly makes this app magical for us is that it has a built-in timer for two minutes. As the time counts down, a digital sticker slowly starts to appear. My daughter happily scrubs her pearly whites for a full two minutes in excitement to see which sticker she will earn that day. There is also an album set up so she can look over the stickers she has earned in the past.
One last feature is that the app is compatible with Oral B Health Stages product and provides further interaction. This is not a feature we utilize (my daughter is obsessed with her Hello Kitty toothbrush) so I can’t write to that. But I am sure if your little one is a fan of those particular characters then it would increase motivation.
A couple of warnings: the app itself has crashed on me twice and does seem to be a bit of a battery drainer. Since we are utilizing this at home, it typically isn’t an issue as I can readily charge my phone.
Lastly since we are using this near water, I have to be very cautious my daughter doesn’t get a little aggressive with her rinsing and splashes the phone. Those “negatives” aside, I can’t praise this app enough as my daughter has sparkly teeth (as she calls them) each morning and night with no fighting!
Looking for other great tips like this one? Subscribe to Dallas Moms Blog’s newsletter and receive daily content straight to your inbox! No SPAM. Just great content!
[xyz-ihs snippet=”MailChimp”]
** This post was NOT sponsored by Disney Magic Timer or Oral B Health Stages. Just a helpful tip from one mom to another!
