11mo won't drink milk/juice/water.

[babyglow]

Hi,

I could really do with some advice on how to get babies to drink alternative fluids to milk. My HV recommended giving FF milk and fruit juice in bottles but my son just will not drink them. I've got umpteen sippy cups of all varieties but nothing seems to be working. Been trying for a few months now.....

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.....

[GlassJar]

Will he take EBM from a bottle?

You could try mixing it with a bit of water first, then make it gradually more watery and less milky? Have you tried other milky stuff like rice milk, almond milk? You could do the mixing thing with those too?

[babyglow]

Hi GlassJar, thanks for responding. He's always been bottle fed on formula (very long story.....); but haven't tried rice or almond milk, will give that a go.

[GlassJar]

Ah ok, I've realised now that FF milk is full fat, not formula!

That's easier then, you can mix formula with other stuff like rice milk or gradually super-dilute it with water. (Probably not very nice with juice though!)

[bakingmad83]

Sorry, can't help with your prob (would like to know the answer, as DS similar!) but just wanted to say that rice milk isn't recommended for the under 5s due to traces of arsenic in it, so I'd steer clear of that at the mo :)

[babyglow]

Update: on the recommendation of my MIL (first time her advice has come in handy!), I gave my son a sippy cup to play with at bath time. He's loved playing with it, learning how it works etc. The upshot is that he has started to take a few sips of fresh fruit juice during the day. Result!

[TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams]

We mixed wholemilk in with formula to gradually adjust the taste which worked fine provided you are not too aggressive in trying to switch over. Once they get suspicious of what's in there, its a big set back. We also stuck with bottles mostly until onto cows milk after 12 months.

Try to encourage water rather than juice. It's better to give them fresh fruit rather than juice and when the weather gets hot you will start to stress about his teeth if he will only have cold juice.