I think I have now heard it all.......

[Ppatime]

True anecdote. Child in class wanted some water. Teacher directed child to drinking water tap in class and a clean cup. Child said that mum did not allow water from the tap; child only allowed to drink filtered water. For context, drinking water in our area is wonderful and the child has no medical issues.
Mind. blown.

Can't you get water bottles with built in filters? I'm sure my old boss had one....

All UK tap water is potable. There are, however, regional differences. and fussy parenting differences of course

I started filtering drinking water while living in a 6th floor flat in Leicester - the water never ran cold & smelt sulphurous - I could smell the ice cubes in a gin & tonic [shock[

Next place I lived (Teesside) the water smelt strongly of chlorine, so I filtered it.

Where I now live the water is fine, so I don't filter it. County Durham water is delish!

emoticon fail

What is holstered water?

Think holstered water is an autocorrect for filtered?

@quizqueen Was just thinking exactly the same thing. In fact I can't imagine the reaction of my teachers if someone had started swigging water out of a bottle in class.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you're in England, OP?

In the places I’ve lived or visited in the UK, there’s been a lot of calcium in the water. I can’t drink it at all and it ruins my hair. I need to drink filtered water in the UK. And I’m talking from big London down to small town in Scotland.

These threads come up every now and then on mumsnet (often arguments with idiots who ONLY drink bottled water too) and I just don't get people who say water from a certain place tastes "horrid".

It's just water! Imagine being snobbish over water!

I visited Yorkshire and the air was simply horrid up there! I only breathe filtered air when I'm in the north and northeast.

And yes, children can (and do) bring water bottles from home but these generally don’t hold enough wAter for an active child for 7 (minimum) hours.

This is something I wonder about - why is this now a thing? when I grew up years ago we were out playing for hours at a time and we never had a water bottle or stopped for a drink of water (Ireland - not anywhere hot but am presuming OP is talking about somewhere in GB). Now children carry a water bottle everywhere and everyone seems very fixed on hydration. I can easily go 7 hours without a drink - even if active. Is this a bottled/filtered water marketing triumph?

As for the tap water - depends on the area you are in. I work for a big environmental engineering firm that does water treatment plants all over the world. not one of the treatment engineers I worked with would bother paying for bottled water - they think it is less safe. Most of them made their children's formula with water straight from the tap.

Probably could be just lost in translation tho. We only drink bottled water here and could imagine my daughter saying that to the teacher but I wouldn't care whether she had tap water if she'd ran out. Also, to be fair, she would be fine going without for such a short period of time so wouldn't create a fuss if she'd had nothing either

Such nonsense about tap water being bad quality - just nonsense pushed by filter makers to sell more units. . Tap water varies regionally because of different sources ( different rock types etc) but standards of cleanliness and purity are uniformly high.

when I grew up years ago we were out playing for hours at a time and we never had a water bottle or stopped for a drink of water.... I can easily go 7 hours without a drink - even if active

No, I think you're just unusual tbh. Most people have a drink more than every 7 hours, especially if active. When I was young our schools had water fountains and there was almost always a queue for them at break times.

@pallisers
Most of them made their children's formula with water straight from the tap.

The point of boiling the water is to sterilise the formula powder, not the water itself!

Such nonsense about tap water being bad quality - just nonsense pushed by filter makers to sell more units. . Tap water varies regionally because of different sources ( different rock types etc) but standards of cleanliness and purity are uniformly high.
Google the effects of drinking all the chlorine we have in our treated water In the U.K.

It may be a first world problem, but this is the first world.

Holstered water is definitely water that you keep in a holster and fire into your mouth out of a little water-pistol-type thing. I'm sure of that.

Google the effects of drinking all the chlorine we have in our treated water In the U.K.

I googled it and can't find any studies conducted in the UK, only in the USA where chlorine levels in drinking water are reportedly much higher. Do you have any links?

when I grew up years ago we were out playing for hours at a time and we never had a water bottle or stopped for a drink of water
I remember the same. We walked a mile to and from school. Nobody had a drink all day long.

I’m going to hazard a guess that the mother actually had provided a bottle of water but the child had already drank it all. I highly doubt that someone who insisted a child drink filtered water would send them to school and expect that to be provided. Come on now.

It’s May, the child has been in school for 7 months now. Mother knows the score about sending a water bottle. She didn’t just forget all of a sudden that filtered water wasn’t available on the premises. The child had finished his water bottle and was thirsty. It’s May and it’s warm. That’s all that happened.

I am not convinced that plasticy water is better than tap water.

I only drink filtered water and it’s what I give my children too I’d never fill their cups from the tap. It comes straight out of the fridge dispenser though so it’s just as handy as the tap but without the horrible chlorine taste. Some of us have more sensitive tastebuds perhaps?

Just saw the “mind. blown” bit!

😂 Behave!

I am not convinced that plasticy water is better than tap water.

I am not convinced that pasticy water ISN"T tap water - just decanted into an unnecessary plastic bottle.

@pallisers Most of them made their children's formula with water straight from the tap. The point of boiling the water is to sterilise the formula powder, not the water itself!

Really? not what I was told. So why do people give cooled boiled water to infants instread of tap water? (well maybe they don't anymore - its been a while since I was a parent of an infant) and why can't formula companies sterilize the f-ing stuff considering they charge a king's ransom for it.