how much liquid does your 4 / 5 yr old drink a day?

[zenam]

Hi, My 4 1/2 yr old has no interest in drinking water or diluted juice, she will drink breakfast juice which I add some water to, she will drink water when nothing else is offered however if she drinks 1/2 a small glass of liquid per day that is it. I am concerned she is not drinking enough? Also she will drink fizzy drinks / flavoured sparkling water all day if I would let her but I do not want her drinking this on a regular basis. Any ideas? I have tried making drinks with a little fruit or juice but again she is not interested. She is healthy and active and goes to the toilet a couple of times per day at least, maybe she is fine, I drink loads of water each day so maybe my idea of what she should be drinking is off? Any advice would be appreciated.. (Also trying to get out of night-time nappies with little success so obviously there is some liquid in her!)

Does she eat alot of fruit? I was worried about DD2 for this until the HV told me to keep a food diary and I realised that she was eating several apples and oranges a day, which contain alot of water.

Does she drink milk?

Thanks for that info about the fruit bogeyface, that helps explain why dd1 never seems thirsty. I do make sure she drinks a cup of water with each meal, she'd quite happily just leave it sitting there untouched.

My DD is a similar age and doesn't drink much either. My only advice is to do what you are probably doing already, offer milk or water with each meal and make sure she has access to water all day, those twist up water bottles are good and they are BPA free. You could also offer lots of water rich foods like water melon, melon, peaches, cucumber, tomato and soup.

My main problem is that when she is at school, she drinks very little.

Have you thought of putting a drink of water in her bed too? Mine both have those flip up cups that they can help themselves to in a "I'm not getting out of bed to give you a drink of water kind of way .

Personally I only give fruit juice once a day as a absolute max and don't offer carbonated drinks at all as I don't want to rot their teeth.

There is some information on fluids on the BDA website which you may find helpful .

x-posted with bogey.

Yes she eats at least 2 portions of fruit a day, esp strawberries, bananas, peaches, grapes, blueberries, melon, they would mostly be water so she probably is getting plenty - I had never thought of that as a source of water - thanks! She will sometimes drink milk but very little, but could live on yogurt, usually has one a day - probably quite a bit of water in that too. Mind at rest now, will torture myself with getting her out of night-time nappies instead!

Ironically, the traditional cure for night time wetting is cutting down on liquids, but we wont go there...........:o

Nightime nappies are a different issue. Some children are incapable as they don't produce the right hormones to allow them to stay dry at night and other like my infuriating but lovely DD are a little lazy and need a gentle push, like putting them in cloth nappies .

When I was potty training DC1 I read this book and it was very useful. Think it does have some ideas on getting them dry at night, but you might want to start another thread on that one!

at bogey.

Thanks for all the advice, I tried last night with no nappy, intending to lift her at 11 when we went to bed as she only went to sleep after 9.30am. She had wet the bed by 11, we changed her as she slept and she was dry until 7am the next morning. Think that was quite good so will persist for a few more nights. This is my third attempt though the other times 6 and 10 months ago were half-hearted as she was upset when she realised she had wet the bed so I decided she was not ready. The cloth nappies sound like a good idea, as she def was wetting her nappy in the morning rather than going to the toilet. She never poos in the nappy and was trained in the day years ago, it only took a couple of days so can't really complain if the night time takes a bit of time. (She puts on and takes off her own pull-up anyway!)