How to Clean Your Toothbrush

The other day when I was brushing my teeth my toddler wanted to brush his. He was having his evening bath and it was late enough in the day that I knew he wouldn't be eating anything before bed so I helped him out of the tub and onto his step stool in front of the sink. I brushed his and then handed him the toothbrush as he likes to brush his own teeth after I am done. He changed his mind and carefully stepped off of the step stool and headed over to the tub. I was not even a foot away carefully watching looking for a cue that he wanted to get back in. The next thing I knew he threw his toothbrush in the tub. I put him in the tub and picked the toothbrush up. I decided that it was due for some cleaning, it was relatively new still, so I didn't just replace it.

Here are the steps that I would take to get a toothbrush clean. Since the toothbrush only landed in my son's bath it didn't have any debris on it. Had it fallen on to the floor there would be a chance that you would have to be pulling out hairs. Remove anything that you can physically see from the toothbrush's head. Thankfully there was not anything that I had to remove. The next step is to boil some water to pour over the toothbrush. Since I couldn't leave my son alone in the tub to heat up some water I just turned the sink on to the hottest setting, which was steaming, and ran it over the toothbrush's head for a minute to get it clean. At this point I honestly felt that the toothbrush was clean but as an added security I poured some hydrogen peroxide over it. I chose this over rubbing alcohol because if my son used the tooth brush the alcohol could potentially hurt if my son's gums were bleeding. Lastly I ran the toothbrush under some more hot water to rinse away the hydrogen peroxide and placed in cup on the bathroom counter where it stays in when it is not in use.

Under certain circumstances it is better to just retire a toothbrush instead of trying to get it clean enough to feel comfortable using it again. This is true for me if a toothbrush was to fall in the toilet bowl. I admire that there are some people who can get past that gross factor and clean the toothbrush to their comfort level but I am not one of them. Usually after using a toothbrush for three months I retire it where it becomes a cleaning utensil for some heavy duty cleaning. After some very, very dirty jobs I retire the toothbrush yet again into the trash. So the next time that your toothbrush or your child's toothbrush become dirty and not yet ready for retirement you can remember the simple steps described above to get it clean again and ready for use.