Choosing the right toothpaste
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I’m participating in The Switch & Save Challenge, trying a variety of Arm & Hammer products and sharing my experiences with you!
It’s now been several weeks since I switched to using the Arm & Hammer Spinbrush ProClean toothbrush and I have to say I’m really loving the “fresh from the dentist chair” feeling I have every day.
I know that choosing the right toothpaste can be just as important as the right toothbrush. Picking a toothpaste isn’t as easy as it used to be.
Choosing the right Toothpaste
According to Better Homes and Gardens, here is what to look for in choosing a toothpaste:
- Look for ADA seal – It has undergone independent clinical studies required by the ADA, and this seal means a toothpaste is safe and that it does what it says it will do.
- Fluoride – It strengthens teeth and reduces the incidence of cavities. —It’s not just for kids! Adults need fluoride too!
- Sensitive Teeth – If you have receding gum lines or are sensitive to cold you may benefit from pastes which contain potassium nitrate or strontium chloride. Than can help diminish the discomfort by buffering the nerve endings and shutting down pain signals.
- Whitening Agents – Most whitening formulas are abrasive, and — used regularly for long periods of time — may harm tooth enamel. If you want to use whitening toothpaste, try using it only every other time you brush, not all the time.
- Fights Gingivitis – The average person probably doesn’t need this product, but dentists say, they will recommend it to patients with early signs of gum disease.
According to Dr. Eric Spieler, D.M.D., a dentist in Philadelphia who also lectures at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine, “You can brush with plain old Acme fluoride toothpaste and have gorgeous teeth. If you brush and floss, use a regular toothpaste with fluoride, and get regular dental checkups — you’ll do fine.”
Remember if you don’t want to have to breath down your family’s neck to get them to brush…..you can print this great reminder to hang in the bathroom
find free Brush Your Teeth printable here
How do you get your family to remember to brush their teeth?
One more great reason to smile…you can save $4.00 and $2.00 on the Arm & Hammer Spinbrush and replacement heads .
A few things that I LOVE about the Spinbrush
- I love how the brushes spin and clean my teeth while I brush – I don’t get that kind of clean with a manual toothbrush.
- I love that I can buy replacement heads, no need to buy a whole new toothbrush
- I love that there are many different colors and styles available for my whole family (no need to which toothbrush is mine)
- I love how portable it is – I can just toss the Spinbrush in my suitcase and no need to worry about a charging base.
- I love the great price of just $9
- and last but not least……..the coupons!! The coupons make it so affordable you have no excuse!!
Guess What?! The great people at Arm & Hammer are providing another $25 Visa Gift Card for me to giveaway! So you can get your family brushing with all the right tools!
This giveaway has ended Congrats to #35 Kat ……..
No hoops to jump thru………….just leave a comment below telling me how you get your family to remember to brush.
Giveaway will end on July 1, 2011 at 5 pm CST. One winner with a valid entry will be selected at random using random.org. I will email the winner and they will have 48 hours to claim their prize. Open to US residents only.
Disclosure: This is a sponsored post for Church & Dwight Co., Inc, the maker of ARM & HAMMER branded products, who is compensating me to try different products. Get a $4.00 coupon for ARM & HAMMER Spinbrush then head over to The Switch & Save Challenge where you can enter to win $25,000.
Hi there, I'm Cheryl!
As a wife, mom, and caffeine enthusiast, my journey has taken me from bustling mornings with my family to sharing delicious recipes, home care tips, and heartfelt decorating insights with wonderful readers like you. My love for baking, photography, and tidiness shines through every post I craft. Dive into my world and discover the art of homemaking, one tidy moment at a time. Read more...
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I’ve been really lucky, we started brushing my 3 year olds’ teeth when he was a baby – before he had teeth. Now he LOVES to brush, he especially loves the “spitting” part. So for now he is always eager to brush! I know we’ll probably have battles later though!
My daughter LOVES to brush her teeth, so she is always letting us know that we should brush them! 🙂 We let her be our reminder. She would brush her teeth all day everyday if I’d let her! 🙂 Thanks!
I’m in the dental hygiene profession and I actually recommend anti-gingivitis toothpastes to 90% of my patients. 1 in 2 people have gingivitis and the average person actually does have some form of it. As for the whitening toothpastes, the reason they can say that is because of it’s abrasive and it’s actually slowly scraping the enamel away. Whitening toothpastes will only get off extrinsic food staining. If you want your teeth to stay white, you need them professionally whitened.
We always do it at bathtime so no one forgets!
We try to keep the kids on a bedtime/ morningtime routine. Teaching personal hygiene through repetition helps everyone remember.
No matter how often I remind my kids to brush, it often gets skipped. Looking forward to reading the comments for some good ideas.
DDs love to brush since I get them their favorite characters toothbrushes.
Well, this isn’t specifically for teeth-brushing but my girls have a ‘marble system’ to keep them remembering all the things they should be doing. Everytime I ‘catch’ them being good they get a marble in their jar. When the jar is full they get a special prize of thier choice 🙂
My kids love picking out their own toothbrush and toothpaste, so this encourages them to brush.
My family loves the vanilla flavored toothpaste. I remind my girls that no-one wants to be close to someone with stinky breathe. How embarrassing it would be to see someone back away from you scrunching their nose up from the smell of your breath!
This is what works in our family now – http://sheskindacrafty.blogspot.com/2011/05/did-you-brush-your-teeth.html
My kids brush and love the dentist. I’ve always made it a pleasant experience and also informed them of what happens if you don’t brush. And when my 4 year old asked me to show him we Googled decayed teeth and he saw for himself. I didn’t sugar coat it (pun intended, hehe).
I only read bedtime stories when teeth are brushed!
It is just Dan (my husband and I) around here and we brush ours by habit. We hardly even think about the routine — it just happens and is part of our routine.
Whe we watch tv, we’ll often try and brush during a commercial so it’s happening while we do something else.
I had always told my four boys that if their teeth weren’t brushed by 9:oo,the cavitiy creeps would come !While they weren’t scared to death,they would rush to make sure their teeth were brushed way before 9pm each night.Worked like a charm,and we never had problems after that!
No kiddos to remind at our house…It’s just my husband and me. We’re each responsible for our own teeth-brushing, but at bedtime, he often asks to make sure I’ve remembered.
It’s just part of the routine, I yell at the kids to get in jammies and brush teeth. Wait, did I say yell? I meant politely remind. 🙂
Outright harassment. That’s the only way they’ll do it.
I just tell them to do it. But as they have gotten older they brush there teeth as part of there shower. So at least once a day they are brushing in the shower when they wash.
We have a little song we sing to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”
Brush, brush, brush your teeth,
Brush them every day.
If you don’t, they be rotten
And fall out right away.
I start my kids brushing their gums/teeth even before they turn one. I buy them 2-3 baby toothbrushes and let them use it as a teether. They love it. Then I try to make it fun by buying the character toothbrushes and toothpaste. I have a daughter who is 4 years old and now all I say is “Time to brush teeth” and to the bathroom she goes. My son who is 1.5 years old likes to brush when I’m brushing mine.
My sweet Alie Marie LOVES to brush her teeth and therefor we brush out teeth about 5 times a day!! She makes SURE we all do it together! It’s just so sweet! 🙂
I just tell them they have to go to the dentist more often if they don’t brush.
I stand over all 3 of mine with my arms crossed and threaten to ground them. Really not a happy nighttime routine. Any and all ideas taken here 🙂
I use Pronamel whitening everyday, but after reading this info I will use it every other day.
My dog gets normal brushings too. I decided to give Dentastix a try and have been amazed at how it removes the tarter on her back teeth.
At our house, teeth brushing is a very musical time. My kids don’t have a problem actually going in and brushing, it is brushing for the right amount of time to get the job done right, that we have a problem with. To remedy this my kids and I made a compilation CD that has short songs on it that they can brush their teeth to. When the song stops playing, they can stop brushing! Even their dad plays a song every once in a while!
We tell our girls (especially the youngest who is 4) that you have to brush away the “sugar bugs” so they don’t build a home in your mouth. My younger daughter loves it… she brushes and then my husband or I help her brush and tell her as we brush things like “Oh no I see one.. better get it!” Makes it fun for them. We also talk to them about where “sugar bugs” come from… candy, juices etc.. She actually will tell us it is time to brush.
We all brush as a family in the morning and at bedtime the two kids love to do it together…they remind each other and get very excited to brush!!!
I put toothpaste on everyone’s toothbrush in the morning. That way I can look and see who has taken care of their teeth rather than asking them and then wondering if it is true!
we make sure that it’s part of the bathtime process, after bath brush your teeth and wash your face
tbarrettno1 at gmail dot com
I usually have to say it, like a million times, then I have to smell their breathe. Gross, but a Mom has to do what a Mom has to do. Sometimes I have to threaten them with the whole “sugar bugs are on your teeth” story. It gets done that way!
Like most things in the house with the 3 boys, I make a game out of it. They don’t mind brushing their teeth, they just need a gentle prodding to remember! They also love getting them cleaned by the dental hygienist!
My 5 year old is very matter of fact, so all it took was for our dentist to tell her that mom needed to brush her teeth for her morning and night, until she was in middle school, for her to remind ME when I forget. Thank goodness for dentists! 🙂
I just used to threaten them with a jam-packed week of brussell sprouts, eggplant, zucchini and broccoli… =) Did the trick~
We work it into our bedtime routine so we don’t forget.
I’ve been a lucky mom, I haven’t had any problems getting my son to brush his teeth. I cleaned them with a soft cloth when he was a baby & we moved up to me brushing & then he brushing them himself. He’s 18 & has never had any cavities so I guess he’s done fine.
Nothing special — just routine. Granted, my daughter’s 2, so she doesn’t have a whole lot of choice… Right now the big struggle is teaching her how not to swallow the kids’ toothpaste so she can graduate to fluoride, since our water isn’t fluoridated.
It’s part of our routine. We have toothpaste they each like and special toothbrushes.
I simply keep brushing as a routine for the family. Morning and before bed for sure. Keeping it as a habit definitely helps. Thanks for a chance to win.
Amy [at] utry [dot] it
It’s just part of the routine around here!
Lol. That’s a tough one—just a natural habit. because brushing teeth is so en-grained into the schedule that no one can fall asleep or step out of the house without brushing away 🙂
It’s just part of the routine..we are all too afraid of the drill at the dentist! 🙂
For my little ones we play a little game. I tell them I see their favorite ( or not so favorite) character in their mouth.
So I will say…”Uh oh I see Mickey Mouse…whats he doing in there?!”
Sometimes they will be flying around…or doing other silly things. 🙂
It works every time!
It is part of our bedtime/morning routine. But my girls like for me to sing the “Brush Your Teeth” song. They brush as I sing. It goes like this: “When you wake up in the morning and it’s a quarter to one, and you want to have a little fun. You brush your teeth. Ch.. chchch chch chch ch. ” And it continues to a quarter to five. They love it!
It’s just part of our nightly routine – showers, get pajamas on, brush hair, brush teeth!
As we don’t have kids yet it is just my husband that I get to nag. And actually a lot of my work is done for me. My mother–in-law is our dental hygienist! So if my nagging isn’t enough it is his mother (who is a professional and is not using it as a tactic) tells him if he doesn’t get on the ball he will have gum disease within 3 years. Also, I make a big deal out of his bad breathe!!!
It’s just part of the morning/nightly routine!
I get my family to remember to brush mainly by nagging and trying to keep a routine.
My oldest (he is three years old) is very enthusiastic about brushing his teeth, I have no problem brushing his teeth with him helping and my youngest (he is nineteen months) fights me sometimes, but I try and make it fun by singing songs and distracting him, or letting him help me hold the toothbrush.