13 months and really doesn't drink enough...

[LHReturns]

I would so appreciate some ideas or advice. My DS is 13 months, and while he has a great appetite, he is not excited by liquids. He started weaning himself off milk some months ago....so now has one bottle at breakfast (half goes into his porridge), and one bottle before bed. Often he does not finish these. He has no interest in milk at any other time of day. (He still has formula, we haven't switched to cows milk yet).

The problem is that he isn't excited by water or diluted juice or any other liquid either! This has almost certainly caused his tendency to constipation, and we do use a fair bit of lactulose to keep things moving. His diet is excellent, and full of fruit, vegetables and fibre, but I am sure there is not enough water going through his bowel.

Has anyone else had a baby that reached this age and still didn't seem to want to drink? And any miracle solutions?

What we have tried:

• every cup and beaker on the market
• actual cups, like the doidy cup etc
• small water bottles
• juice pouches
• straws of every size
• ice lollies
• fruit smoothies of multiple consistencies
• milkshakes
• lots of different drinks of every temperature

Some things work a bit (especially if they are new so with novelty factor), but then he gets bored. In this hot water it is driving me mad!!! Once it drove me so mad and he was so constipated that I used a Calpol syringe to get about 50mls of prune juice into him...he seemed to quite like actually.

I am sure I am trying too hard, and I am sure he feels my anxiety about his drinking...he really doesn't care. He just pushes me and the drink away and scrunched up his eyes and shouts at me...poor thing must be so sick of having a cup thrust in his face.

Can anyone tell me what to do about this? Surely I need to do something as the constipation is an indicator that he is dehydrated?

Have you tried just not making ng a big thing of it?, I make my dd a drink in the morning and tell her it's on the table and make sure she see a where I leave it. Then she just helps herself when she wants, with her the more I say have a drink the more she does the opposite. Which is very frustrating and worrying beacause it's important but she picks up on my feelings and is more awkward. I Tend to give her very diluted sugar free squash or diluted fresh juice.

Princessvikki, I think that is exactly what I need to do. At 13 months he isn't yet expert on holding his cup at the right angle so I wouldn't be able to just leave it for him (if he tried he would likely miss), but I think I could be a lot more chilled about it and not appear to be so insistent! Thank you...

We get a lot of the liquid we need from our diets, so if he likes fruit and veg that may help. You could try Lots of snacks of things like cucumber, melon, tomato, and satsumas. Also will he eat soup? If you gave him a cup of quite thin home made veg soup as a starter at lunch and tea time it would get a bit more liquid in, and might help with the constipation.

You'd be surprised if he wanted it he would work it out quickly. Also I started my dd on a cup with a straw, like the kind you get with an older childs lunch box, so no tipping problem