Listering Oral Care Challenge Results! #SweetSmart

A little over 3 weeks ago, my family started on a 3-week Oral Care Challenge. I’m excited to share we’ve made it through our 3 weeks and I can now share our results! What better day to share our results then on the one day of the year known for way too much candy. This year, if you haven’t already, renew your oral care efforts with your own family challenge starting on Halloween night! There’s no better day to start than today!

Our Results

Staying on track with 3 very active boys and being 9 months pregnant was hard at times. However, the boys had so much fun with the challenge that they were often reminding me when it was time and rushing off to the bathroom to be the first to get to brush their teeth! Nothing like a bit of competition to make it fun for all of them! They loved checking off the calendar on the days we completed and overall we have really improved greatly over the three weeks and made really good progress! My kids now love flossing (with the floss stick) and my oldest really loves swishing the Listerine Smart Rinse too which he follows up with a swish session of water.

We did have some very good moments and successes during our challenge! One of the highlights was my oldest lost his first two teeth during our 3-week challenge!! It was very exciting and made brushing all that much more fun for him.

Tips to Stay on Track!

While we weren’t perfect while working towards are goals, there were certainly some things that did help us and worked well for us. Here’s what worked for us, hopefully some of this tips can help as you tackle your own goals for good oral hygiene with your family!

• New Toothbrushes! To start off our journey, each of my boys got a brand new toothbrush with fun characters they loved! This made them so excited to get started and also helped us all keep track of which toothbrush belonged to each kid. Our toothbrushes from REACH featured Phineas & Ferb and Batman!

• Keeping Track – We were given a magnetic calendar to help us keep track of our progress through the challenge. Every day my boys would check out the calendar and remind me that we needed to brush out teeth so they could add a check to the calendar! You could hang a chart in your kids bathroom and use stickers, markers, or dry-erase to let your kids excitement at success keep you motivated and reminded!

• Schedule / Set Time – Since my older boys often wake up before me and before I’m ready to spend a few minutes in a whirlwind of toothpaste in the bathroom, we set our up a plan with a set time for brushing teeth. For night brushing, that was simple as right before bed and their bedtime story worked well as both an incentive and a wind down activity to help our bedtime routine. Mornings we got a bit more creative, though. For us, what worked best was scheduling brushing for right after breakfast time, rather than the first thing rolling out of bed. This gave me the chance to wake up and get my morning going before rushing everyone off to the sink. Find times in your schedule that will help make the process go easier for your family.

• Flossing Made Easy! I had never floss my kids teeth before the start of our 3-week challenge. It just never realized it was something that needed to happen at their young ages. So, I was nervous introducing flossing and the idea of trying to stick my hand in their mouth somehow to use a string of floss seemed impossible. However, we were able to try out a REACH ACCESS Floss Stick which was fabulous for making flossing so easy that it was fun! In fact, flossing is now my kids favorite part of our routine!

Be Sweet Smart!

America’s ToothFairy, a non-profit organization that works towards eliminating preventable suffering of children’s dental diseases, is hosting their annual Trick or Treat for America’s ToothFairy fundraising campaign. Looking for a great way to give back this holiday? Then head on over to check out this foundation that helps children in need!

If you missed out on the initial start date of our 3-week challenge, don’t think it’s too late to start! Set your own goals and challenge for your children and family! Their healthy smiles will thank you! Enjoy your Halloween and be Sweet Smart this year!

Disclosure: I received products to use during my 3-week challenge from Listerine and Reach. I will also receive a stipend for the time and effort involved in this campaign. Thanks to Listerine and TheMotherhood for this great project!