to give my baby cold tea?

[MrsKeithRichards]

He is 13m. Doesn't take much interest in water so I have been making up fruity teas, cooling them and popping them in his sippy cup. He drinks the lot.

Usually blackcurrant, lemon and ginger or green tea. About half the strength that I would have.

My mil looked like a slapped arse when she seen.

Aibu

Green tea has caffeine. Ginger and peppermint have medicinal uses. Others may be acidic. If you do your homework, you could find teas, like chamomile, that fit the bill but I wouldn't just substitute water without checking.

Hmm, green tea's got caffeine in so I definitely wouldn't give that one.
I personally don't think that fruit teas would do much harm every now and again, (even though I've never given them) but they would have a lot of fruit sugars in them so wouldn't have thought they'd be particularly good for your baby.

MrsTerryPratchett has a good point re: acidic levels in the teas too. Whatever happened to good old milk and water and the occasional juice?!

fruit infusions (not tea, there is no tea involved) is perfectly fine for children. Fennel, camomile, and mint are very common in lots of countries for babies.

Does nobody read threads? There is NO sugar in a fruit tea! (Or tea in there either, you are quite right OntheBottom).

Mine refused milk point blank from around 18 months, she genuinely dislikes the taste, and water was given up on after months of effort. Too much juice is bad for teeth - so tea it is.

green tea still has caffiene if I remember correctly. other fruit teas are quite acidic, so it might be best to speak to your dentist.

I thought they all had tannin in, which hinders the absorption of iron?

And some do have caffeine to some extent so I guess just check. I know some are fine

no tannin, because no tea! Green tea is tea, but fruit, herbs, plants etc are just infusions. There is no tea in them at all. no caffiene either.

In Germany and Poland you can buy special powdered teas for babies, all sorts of lovely flavours. Google Bobovita, thats a popular one.

I would persist with water too, start watering the tea down a little at a time over a couple of weeks until its just water.

Green tea blocks the absorbtion of folic acid

katiepoes i don't think that many posters DO actually read the threads before they post That's another thread though!!!

I do remember reading in one of my herbal books that you need to be careful with mint tea for babies so maybe don't give till he's older or give even more watered down than the fruit ones. You could also try giving filtered water, if you don't already of course (it tastes much nicer than tap or some salty mineral ones).

Rooibos (Red Bush) Tea is very popular in South Africa (widely avilable here) and is a popular remedy for colic. I have drunk it all through my pregnancy so far. There are a lot of recorded health benefits and it is caffiene free. Can be drunk with or without milk.

The Twinings website says ' Our Infusions range from 3pH to 7pH'. I have no idea how that compares to other drinks but it's not going to be hard to find out.

Hmm, that isn't particularly helpful, is it? I think fizzy pop is about 3 and water is 7 but you've no way of telling what pH your particular tea is (unless you fancied doing some fun experiments with red cabbage etc ).

Horry so even less useful than I thought!

I know bugger all about this, but find it hard to believe that fruit teas are worse than even quite dilute juice.