We had the sore gums thing too, especially when my oldest first switched to electric. Turned out she was pressing way too hard—she thought more pressure meant cleaner teeth. Once we showed her to just let the brush do the work, it got better. I still have to remind her sometimes, but the soreness faded pretty quick. And yeah, that gunk in the brush head is gross. I started soaking the heads in diluted mouthwash every week and that helped a bit, but it’s still a pain to keep totally clean.
We ran into that exact issue with my youngest—she’d switched from manual to electric and immediately started complaining about sore gums. Turned out she was grinding the brush into her teeth like she was scrubbing a pan. I had to show her how the bristles are supposed to just glide over everything, not dig in. Did you notice any difference in how your kid brushed with manual vs electric? For us, the electric made it easier for her to reach the back teeth, but I’m still not convinced it’s “better” overall if they don’t use it right.
And yeah, that gunk is nasty. I’ve tried running the heads under hot water after every use and even used those little interdental brushes to get inside the crevices...but they still get gross fast. Do you swap out brush heads more often now? I feel like we’re going through them way quicker than we did with manual ones.