how to teach her to spit?
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| Tue, 08-15-2006 - 11:09am |
I know that's a bizarre question... But as our tap water isn't flouridated, I'd like for Sylvia to be able to use flouride toothpaste at least a couple of times a week. She insists on brushing her teeth by herself, in the bathroom with the door closed, so I can't monitor how much she puts on her brush. We've tried practicing spitting into the sink by taking sips of water and spitting them out, but she really hasn't gotten the hang of it -- she immediately swallows the water and then just makes a little "Twee!" sound while pretending to spit. I even demonstrated by taking a big gulp and spitting it all back out into the sink, and when she tried to copy me, she took a sip, swallowed it, and then spilled the rest of the water from the cup into the sink while saying "Twee!"
I'll ask her OT when she starts up school again, but in the meantime, does anyone have any good techniques for teaching spitting to a child with motor planning issues?
Thanks!
Jennifer

I had the same problem with my 6yo a few years ago. When regular examples of spititting didn't work with her I worked out an exhageration game. Take large cups of water outside and some sidewalk chalk. Draw a bulls eye or distance markers on the walk or driveway and make a game out of 'distance' and 'target' sptting, using only your mouth to hit the targets. Pretend you're fountains, etc. Then, once she has that down have her do it in the sink... the drain is the target. It took a few times with my DD, but it worked.
~SG_1Niner
Thanks!!! I'll give it a try. She's definitely motivated to learn -- I got her some Disney Princesses flouride toothpaste, and she knows that she only gets to use it once she learns not to swallow it... I'll let you know how "target practice" goes! ;-)
Jennifer
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Floride is not good for your health. It messes with the thyroid gland and I'm sure lots of other things. My dd's DAN NP said we should stay away from floride and chlorine as much as possible.
Samantha
I'm in the same boat with my DS.
The problem with encouraging her to use a small amount of toothpaste is that she has trouble getting the toothpaste out of the tube, so basically she just squeezes the tube hard with her fist and whatever comes out, comes out. And she is in a real "independent" phase right now, and she wants to have complete privacy for everything having to do with the bathroom! I want to encourage the independence, but it does make things difficult!
What we've been doing is that either DH or I insist on brushing her teeth once or twice a week just to check to make sure that she's doing a thorough job, and when we do, we put just a teensy bit of the flouride toothpaste on her brush. But I definitely do want to try to teach her how to spit the toothpaste out! HOpefully target practice will work -- if you get any other ideas from your OT let me know, and I'll do the same!
And I'll definitely ask my ped and/or dentist about using flouride drops. I wanted to avoid those because I know that too much flouride can lead to discolorations on the teeth among other things, but as she's not getting any flouride anywhere else, it might be an option.
Thanks everyone for the ideas!
Jennifer