I have watched a lot of training videos but I don't recall seeing anything in particular about bridling for the first time.

Should I use my french link snaffle?  Or perhaps get one with the rubber coating?

Am I making a big deal out of nothing?    I mean, I guess I can just put it on?!?!?! 

I have been working with him lowering his head to pressure with the halter, but he still has his moments where he wants to pull away when I am messing with his ears.  Sometimes he's fine, other times he seems irritated.

Any tips or words of wisdom? 

Thanks!

I happen to like using french links on the youngsters myself, they seem to sit more comfortably in smaller mouths than the larger rubber coverd bits do and most horses seem to like them. The kind of bit you use doesn't really matter though as long as your horse is comfortable in it, especially if you aren't going to be putting any contact on his mouth. When bridling for the first time, I adjust the bridle at least a few holes bigger than I need it, so it slips nice and easily over their ears. I also like to flavor the bit with something sweet the first few times I put the bridle on (light corn syrup usually works REALLY well for me), not only does it make it easier to get them to open their mouths for the bit, but after doing that a few times they'll practically walk in the tack room and bridle themselves :) I hope this helps, don't stress too much about it though, I'm sure you'll do fine. It sounds like your guy has a great start :) Good luck!

I've done the 'first bridling' on a few babies, and from my experience the first time is super easy because they're clueless. After that, they wise up a bit and that's when you get a bit of resistance (sometimes).

Like Phizzy said, make sure the bridle is let down a hole or two so it's easier to pull over his ears. All of our other babies did just fine with any sort of snaffle the first few times. Nova, had to be different, of course. I actually went out and bought a (very expensive!) Happy Mouth D-ring for him which has helped a lot with his chewing. Now he only chews when I'm on him asking him to turn and stuff, but will carry the bit when I'm leading him quietly. I wasn't sure the bit would help, because it's a thicker bit and a lot of horses like smaller ones, but I suppose Booger is just different.

Once you get the bridle on, try to leave it on long enough for him to stop chewing (or at least until he starts to pause between chews, if he's anything like Nova was). If you have a stall/pen you can turn him out in and leave it on that would probably be the easiest. You might not want to do that the first time you bridle him, but at some point it would probably be helpful - I didn't have one to use, but I wish I did.

One thing I learned from Nova - be patient! When he started to get fussy about taking the bit (ie. he wouldn't open his mouth wide enough for the bit to slip in) I started to put my fingers in his mouth, wiggle them around on his tongue, etc. What actually worked in the end was just having one arm between his ears, and the other holding the bit, and waiting him out. It took probably 5 minutes the first time before he'd take it, but every time since then he's been much better. In fact last night it only took a few seconds of thinking before he took the bit.

And one other thing, when you go to take the bit out, try to not let him fling his head up. That scares them (as it did Nova) and you can have a real battle trying to get them to let go of the bit. If you feed Stitch crunchies or carrots or something, try offering it to him as you slip the bridle over his head and off. It worked with Nova.

(Can you tell Nova was the bad child? Lol. He's much better now though!)

We had really good luck using a routine I learned from someone who broke a lot of babies to ride.  It makes sense to do this as soon as possible after their first dentist appointment to make sure no wolf teeth would interfere.  She had us leave the halter on and use clips to add a bit to the side rings on the halter noseband.  That way we were only introducing one new thing at a time.  First we just let the baby stand around with the bit in for a bit, then removed it and gave him some sort of positive reinforcement, and we repeated that for a couple of days (depending on how quickly he adjusted to it).  Then we added long lines to the HALTER, running them through the rings on the bit but not attached to it.  That way he got the idea of rein pressure moving his head from side to side and that the bit was involved but without direct bit pressure. 

Once he was okay with that (usually pretty quickly), we went to a training headstall with a d-ring snaffle (loose rings can pinch, which is a bad thing).  The whole process was generally very quick and effective.  The switch from the training headstall to a full English bridle can be made easily at any point after that.  She (and, by reflection, we) generally started all the horses Western for breaking and moved to English.

Good point Nova, be ready to move with him if he flings his head in the air so he doesn't accidently yank the bit out of his mouth and hurt or scare himself. A small handfull of grain the first few times always seems to work for me to keep them distracted long enough to easily slip the bridle off. I would be careful about turning him out with a bridle on though as you don't want him to get it caught on anything and hurt himself (or break your bridle).