Dental Hygiene for Children

My husband text me a link last week that he had seen on the BBC News* website. The article comes after The Royal College of Surgeons recommends that parents should brush their children's teeth until the age of 14 years old. This is due to the high levels of tooth decay in children, leading to the premature removal of baby teeth. 
This has spurred me onto writing this post, which I’ve been thinking about doing for some time. Rewind to April and my sister told me about the FREE Oral-B Disney Magic Timer App** for my ipad. The app helps encourage children to brush their teeth for the correct amount of time (2 minutes) thus helping maintain good dental hygiene.

To start using the Oral-B Disney Magic Timer you create a profile for each child in the household. This is simply done by adding the child’s name (for example ‘Kiziwoo’) no need to add personal details, just the first name. Next up you need to select your Disney character, this is the ‘avatar’ who you’ll see when you open the app ready for brushing. Then you’re ready to get started!

Oral-B Disney Magic Timer has a selection of ‘Albums’ you collect ‘stickers’ for each time your brush your teeth. As the timer counts down the bubble covered image reveals a new picture ‘sticker’ that will be added to your album. The screen also shows a toothbrush, brushing bubbles away - mimicking the area you should be brushing your teeth (top, bottom, left, right). I hope you’re following me! Once your 2 minutes are up, the alarm goes off and you see your new sticker which is added to the relevant album.

By default the first Album you access is Winnie the Pooh. You collect new albums by buying Oral-B products which you scan using the app, this unlocks new stickers to collect.  We now have the Mickey Mouse album and Cars album; each have their own Magic Timer theme tune and timer.

You earn extra stickers with repeat visits to the app as a reward which is a nice touch. Plus if you forget to use the app you can manually add the missed days on the calendar. You can also mark your dental appointments on there. Below is a little video I filming showing you how the app works -

We’ve found it a great app to use with Little Miss. She brushes her teeth along with the toothbrush on the app, then Mummy/Daddy does them again to check she hasn’t missed any areas. At the moment this works well and I only pop a tiny amount of toothpaste on her brush so she feels all grown up brushing them. Little Miss also enjoys selecting a new avatar; which seems to happen every day now! As well as seeing which sticker she has earned for each brushing session. For a free app I think it's well worth downloading if you have little ones in the house. Have you used the app? x

*BBC News link with arcticle & video report - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33517909

**This is not a sponsored post!