Weaning and water

[beansprout]

Have b/f ds for 6 months now and will be starting him on solids soon. I'm hoping that he will progress fairly quickly and that I won't be faffing around with purees for too long [fingers crossed anyway). I'll still be b/f him though but I'm not sure when I need to start giving him any water (if any). I want to give him all the b/milk he needs and keep my supply up as well.
So, my question is, do I give him water as well and if so, how much?

Also, if I am giving him water would it be a good time to start him with a cup?

Any advice please? Thanks.

i gave my ds water after his lunch nap,2.30 / 3 or so, with a snack pre dinner at 5/5.30 and then his breastfeed at 6.30, 2 in the morn, 7am and 11am or so (if he wanted it).

i too started using the beaker at this stage

Thanks H. Anyone else? Seem to keep reading contradictory advice about this (in the books of course, not on MN )

i give my ds (8mths) water only with his three solid meals. plus sometimes if he is very warm or has hiccups.

My ds started going to nursery three days a week at this age and was given a beaker (NOT an anyway up or magic cup, he still can't get anything out of those and he's nearly 15 months) of water with every meal and milk was kept separate from meals. I carried on with this at home and although it took probably a couple of months before he really learnt to drink from the beaker and was taking substantial amounts, I think this is definitely a good age to start introducing a beaker. The nursery don't do juice, it is their policy and as a result he happily drinks plain water and plenty of it with meals and in between times as well as his milk am and pm. The only problem I do have is that he doesn't think milk ought to come in a beaker but that is another story

once DS was on 3 meals a day, I offered him water from a sippy cup with the valve removed. I BF him first thing in the morning, before and after each nap and last thing at night. When we're out and about I also offer him water every 30 mins or so.

It's very impt that you don't neglect his fluid intake during weaning or he'll get constipated quickly. It's horrible to watch The HV also advised me to limit cereal to 2 dry tbsps a day and to avoid banana until I'd (well, DS )had a couple of months of solids with soft poos.

well done on reaching 6 months, beansprout. I give ds (8 months) water with solids (from a Heinz sippy cup). he loves his cup - always very pleased with himself when he drinks from it!

hi beansprout

with dd1 i made the mistake of giving her a bottle of water when i started weaning her with solids and drinks of water. she had been 100% bf up til then (6 mths old) she absolutely totally and utterly refused to take a bottle. she would scream and scream and scream. this lasted 2 days (seemed longer!) by then i was going back to work and she HAD to take a bottle (of EBM as i was going back to work) it seemed for those days that she would rather starve

anyway

a few weeks later we had the exact same prob with beakers. by then i wished i had just bypassed the whole bottle thing and gone straight to beakers

dd2 is now 6 mths old (isnt it a gorgeous age? ) and i have given her a beaker to hold (shes keen to hold things herself) she chews it and occasionally gets drinks of water from it, which delights her no end! so shes getting the idea and im hoping to avoid the scenes we had with dd1

hope this is of some help, there are a million beakers out there but i would recommend the tommee tippee ones. if your wee one is not having much joy getting anything out of them try the cheapy solid teat ones that are not non-drip. but messy but it gives baby the idea

loads of luck! xxx

ooh Dinny, we're on a Heinz cup as well! DS really likes the softer tip

DS2 (7 months) refuses to drink from beakers too - but he'll happily take water from a grownup bottle, or an open cup. The grownup bottles are the easiest - I drink from a Volvic bottle (often filled with tap water), and he'll take from it very well.

I don't offer much water, anyway, as he doesn't take that much food.

Hi, my ds is 7mths old. He is on 3 meals a day and is also bf. I offer him water in a sipper with his meals and recently he has gone on a nursing strike during the day, feeding about 3am, 7am and then not until about 3 in the afternoon, I offer him the breast during the day but if he doesnt take it I give him water in his sipper to keep his fluids up. He has had a sipper from six months and can hold and drink from it himself now.

hi all, by sipper do you mean doidy cup?

Hi, Im not sure what a doidy cup is. In NZ a sipper cup is a cup with lid which has a spout. We started with a soft spout which didnt require sucking, I would assist him to hold it and tip it gently into his mouth until he got the idea. He now has one with a hard spout which requires him to suck the water out meaning that it doesnt spill everywhere when he flings it about as he is tendant to do. HTH