My 20 mo. boy can't stand having his teeth brushed. He didn't mind much when he was younger but now he hates it. Every brushing gets worse. He screams and thrashes his head around making it nearly impossible. Any tips?

I think every parent goes through a stage of this!

We started giving him a popsicle or something else that would change the color of his teeth or tongue before his bath.  Then after the bath, he stands on our bathroom counter and brushes his teeth to "get all the popsicle out."  Now, instead of a 2 minute fight, we have a 5 minute fight to get him to stop brushing!

Maybe he's teething and it hurts?  But I don't think this is uncommon at all for them to fuss about this even if he's not hurting.  You could try to make it a game, like have him brush your teeth or a stuffed animal's teeth while you brush his, or sing a song or watch a show or something that you only do while brushing teeth.  Also, an electronic or musical toothbrush might be fun for him.  What works for us right now is that my hubby brushes my daughter's teeth while I brush mine and she seems to think that is fun.  She also likes it better when we use toothpaste - we weren't for a while and then when she started getting fussy about it we just got a fluoride-free kind to change things up a bit and it helped.  Also, you could start encouraging him to brush his own teeth - it won't be perfect so you might bed to help out at the end but maybe it's a control thing and if he were in control it might help.  HTH!

 Man I can't get my son to not want to brush his teeth.

 
He used to hate it though so maybe its just a phase and he will grow to love it like my son does...

Amanda
 

It's not the easiest part of our routine, but I let him do it himself first and then I tell him it's my turn and I have to count all his teeth to make sure they are all in place.  Sometimes he lets me do it for maybe a minute at the most and sometimes I'm lucky to get in there for 20seconds.  He likes the rinse & spit part, and then we admire his pearly whites in the mirror.  I make faces and act like it's serious work I'm doing in there.