Chronic dehydration

[coneja]

Hi all lovely mummies and daddies. I need your advice. My DS would not drink enough liquid. He is 12 years old and in high school and he's dyspraxic. We have to remind him to have a drink throughout the day. Easily done when we are all at home at the weekend but it is more difficult during the week when he is at school and we are at work. Even at home we provide a selection of juices, milk, soda stream sparkling water, bottled water etc, we still struggle to keep him hydrated. As a result he suffers from constipation and often will get so dehydrated, that he vomits. Nagging doesn't work of course. We tried not to make a big deal out of it, but it's as if he doesn't recognise that he's thirsty. We are at our wits end. Have you been in this situation? Can you give tips?

Contact the school so they can put something in place and maybe provide more liquid type meals with roughage in them? Veg soups, casseroles etc. Cut down on stoggy carbs.

My dd with asd is not keen on drinking in the day at school. The dr said as long as she is drinking other times not to worry.

I would keep offering drinks at home and provide water in his room at night.

Keep a diary of what he drinks and when and how much.

Have you sought medical advice? Because if not I would do so.

Forgive my lack of knowledge of dyspraxia, All know is coordination and muscles can be affected?

Could it be difficult for him to get the lid off the water bottle if he is double jointed or is swallowing an issue? So he’s a bit reluctant? Fear of embarrassment?

Could it be that he doesn’t want to drink as then he will need the toilet and have to walk there and that could cause him balance issues so he tries to put off doing that walk by not drinking in the first place?

To be that dehydrated at his age seems pretty bad. I thought all students had to take a water bottle so it should be easy for teachers to keep track of fluid intake if you tell them about the issues he has been having?

We sought medical advice but it wasn't very helpful.

I must admit we haven't had conversation with the school, @Really123456. I will contact student support at ds' school and see what they can do. It is a bit embarrassing as one would expect a child of high-school age to be able to look after himself.

Alarms on his phone/watch to prompt him to drink?

Thanks for your advice @RoseMartha. I end up running after him with a glass of water
We have booked an appointment to have an ASD assessment. I'll try and keep diary.

@Elieza you made a few good points there. Walking to the toilet could be part of avoiding drinking at school. He is slow and easily distracted and worries about being late for the lessons. We need to have a conversation with school about this too.

As for the bottles, I think we went through every single bottle known to human kind. We had one with an infuser and now we have a nice bottle with time of day written at different levels and a nice screw top lid which feels nice to do and undo. It is still full when he comes home.

Thank you @Egghead68 . Perhaps it would help if we set up reminders at the times of day written on the bottle. Fingers crossed!