How on earth do I get DS to drink?

[lemniscate]

DS (3.9) has constipation - just posted another thread about this.

Anyway, part of the problem is that he will not drink. I am lucky to get one glass (250ml) into him over the course of a day. He will have a sip and then say he is not thirsty any more. He is very constipated and also has dark circles under his eyes despite sleeping well, and I think is very dehydrated.

The last 2 days we have really worked on him with this but it has been hard. Today I have managed to get him to drink about 4 or 5 half glasses of water and 1 big glass, so I'd say about 750ml total which is a huge improvement. That involved water, juice, straws, racing daddy with drinks, bribing with stickers and chocolate buttons and a lot of "I am your mother do as I say". It was very hard getting this amount into him, and we had tears and strops.

How on earth do I get drinks into him? I would forgo any concerns about his teeth for now if I felt he'd drink squash or juice, but that seems no more attractive to him than water. The constipation will never clear if he only has 250ml a day, probably not even at 750ml.

Any tips?

Ice pops? ice cream? high water content fruits like melon, tangerines, apples. Ditto high water content vedges, cucumber, squash?

Our food does contain plenty of water surprisingly. Think yoghurts. Does he drink milk of any kind?

If he is weeing a reasonable amount every 4 or so hours and it is pale straw coloured he is unlikely to be dehydrated.

I would not make an issue about drinking as outlined above, its a sure fire way for a stroppy child to show who's in charge!

Urine is bright yellow and smelly :(, apart from today when it was much paler :) So I suppose today gives us a benchmark of what he should be drinking at least.

I like the ice pops idea as those would go down well - he likes making them in the summer. I don't want to up milk stuff because of the link with constipation so don't want to increase yoghurt and ice cream although he does like those. Never drinks milk - only the milk on his cereal which we sometimes get him to finish with a straw just to get some liquid inside him :)

I'm going to give him free access to the fruit bowl too - that is a great idea. As is cucumber as he does like that.

ive got one who wont drink when has a temp.lollys,melon and lots jelly works in my house.the more they drink the easier it gets to tempt them to drink more as the thirst receptor seems to disappear if they drink very little

Yes it really feels like his body just isn't telling him he's thirsty. He probably only asks me about once a week for a drink - the rest of the time I have to offer it to him and then remind him to drink.

Sigh.

Ah, jelly is a great idea too. He loves that!

Really there is NO link with dairy produce and constipation. He definitely needs more fluid if your urine observations are correct. I read your thread about the constipation and lactulose is supposed to draw fluid into the bowel as its very sugary (osmosis I think?)

He sounds very bunged up and having overflow problems. the problem with constipation is it puts you off food and drink so its a vicious circle. I suggest you read the NICE guidelines for constipation in children (cut/paste and google). It says how to start to manage the situation and its what your gp should be doing (sounds as though he's made a start though).

Thank you. Am usually pretty savvy with medical stuff as worked in pharmaceutical industry for years but I hadn't thought about NICE guidance on this (constipation always seems like a jokey sort of problem, doesn't it? Until you have a very upset little boy suffering with it :() I'll go and take a look.

I've spoken to many distraught parents about constipation, soiling etc and it is not a joke for anyone in any way. Its also extremely difficult to manage in a young child, so dont feel bad about being overwhelmed with this.

I give DS a sports bottle full of water, one in his bedroom, one down here. He seems more likely to sip at it that way.

I know a little boy who doesn't like to drink much and it worries the parents esp when extreme, but he does like those crushed ice/fruity drinks - theres one sold, I can't remember the name, like slush puppy but for little ones made with fruit juices not sugar? You could make a homemade one, especially if you had an ice crusher, with sugar-free squash... you could try buying some kind of novelty straw cup maybe with favourite charactors on it as a treat... if you going to try more milk you could add freshly pureed strawberries and tell him its a milkshake treat... frozen lollies as some others have suggested... hope it sorts out soon for you, if you can get more into him on a daily basis it may soon become a habit, best wishes

I have this too with DD - have you tried warmer drinks like tea?? DD is super-sensitive to everything and anything and hates things that are cold, e.g., she won't drink drinks from the fridge and won't eat ice cream or ice lollies or anything like that.

DS actually fetched himself a drink yesterday! In the loo cleaning him up from yet another accident, random plastic cup left by some child or other (the house is full of them at the moment!) and he said 'Oh I'm going to have a drink' and proceeded to part fill the cup from the tap and drink it. Happy Christmas moment :)

Standing over him, forcing him to drink for the last few days appears to at least be switching on his thirst signals ever so slightly :o His wee is definitely less yellow and smelly when he has had a good couple of cups.

He seems to quite like drink races where we race to finish our glass - not overly enthusiastic as it is still forcing him to drink and he is wise to us :o but the competitive element is enough for him to try to beat us.

Thank you for all these tips. So very helpful. I'm going to try them all and see what works.

my kids both prefer warm drinks - so half fridge milk/juice/water and half boiling water. and straws help. v small cup helps - sense of achievement finishing it, and better than nagging thru larger cup.

how do you get on with regular "drink times" so a half cup at breakfast, half a cup mid morning ( when you also have a drink) half a cup at lunch, mid afternoon, tea time and before bed. once that routine is in place you can make the cups either slightly bigger or slightly fuller till your up to a decent drink each time.

DS is now at school and its OK IF they have the normal school routine as then he has a regular drink time structure, but days when the timetable is not in place he still won't ask for drink or tell any one he's thirsty.

I just wanted to post what appears to be working, a few weeks in and after trying several things, in case anyone finds this in future and wonders how we got on.

Trying to get him to drink a full cup was a nightmare - would only take sips, would complain, cry, we'd find ourselves getting worked up and he'd end up drinking about 2 sips before we'd abandon it so we didn't shout.

Juice/ice/warm drinks etc - interesting for the first drink but then no different to just drinking water. So we've abandoned that too unless he specifically requests something.

What seems to be working is letting him choose which colour cup to have (we have Ikea plastic beakers which come in 6 colours and are a big hit) and then only half filling it with water, so about 150ml. He won't drink it without prompting - usually still untouched at the end of a meal - but when we prompt and say he can't get down until it's finished he will drink it all without much fuss. Similarly at snack time, or when I think it's a while since he's had a drink, I give him a drink and say he can't carry on playing until it's drunk and/or we'll do something fun once he's had his drink. If he doesn't want to drink, we then offer a straw which helps make it a bit more fun, and even let him blow bubbles in the drink provided he alternates between sips and bubbles!

In addition, I'm making sure he has food with high water content like satsumas, cucumber, berries, yoghurt, ice lollies. Going to make jelly for tea tonight as he loves that. We also had a surprise hit on holiday last week with a cinnamony milk drink, so I think milkshake/smoothies might be popular.

He's getting about 5 drinks in him a day, so about 750ml in total, and at least he seems to now accept that he has to even if he doesn't particularly want to.

The result is that his wee is usually pale yellow and not smelly, and he's having about 4 or 5 wees a day with maybe only one accident late on when he's tired. Such a huge improvement on where we were before Christmas - yellow, stinky, about 2 wees a day and lots of small accidents, probably from an irritated bladder.

The constipation is also a lot better - still have small soiling incidents but nothing major but he is getting to the toilet now and he is actually pooing properly. I think his upped liquid intake is really helping.

Thank you all for your tips and support. This thread has been so very useful to me and DH, and DS too of course, even though he doesn't know or appreciate it! :o