Drinks - any problems with using sugar free squash?

[Naetha]

DS is 8mo, and loves eating - both spoon fed foods and BLW style.

He's not a big drinker though, I've tried him with just water (thinks I'm trying to poison him), and I'd rather stay away from the baby oriented sugar packed juices.

Are there any problems with giving him very very diluted Robinson's sugar free squash?

They're all FULL of synthetic chemicals and artificial sweetners.

Yuk.

They can cause diarrhoea and are generally not great

What about dilute apple juice (I often use 1 part juice to 10-15 parts water)

Fresh fruit juice with lots of water is better but we usually have some squash in the house for our 4.5 yrs old.

NO.

If you must give him anything, give him something like Rock's or Bottle Green.

IMO, he only needs water

Or, as other's have said, very diluted apple juice or something else not too acidy.

NO NO No to artificial sweeteners
Very dilute juice if yo must. Water's better though.

No, not for an 8 month old, they really are full of crap. he would be so much better off with some normal apple juice, diluted 1/4. I don't actually believe that the aspartame would hurt him, but it's not doing him any good, is it?

I don't see any problem with giving him a teeny tiny bit of very dilute squash. If it's as a treat then everything in moderation I say. Dilute fruit juices/water/milk are of course the prefereable option but it can be difficult to choose between the 'sugar free' versions (full of sweetners etc) and the 'sugared' versions (no nasty sweetners, but very bad for teeth) You could go for a nice 'adult' cordial such as elderflower which is much more natural but it is also quite expensive. I personally would vote for the sugar free option, very diluted though, as I would worry more about his teeth in the future if he developed a taste for the sugared versions.

water or milk only

Dd1 refused water so I gave her squash - and now she only drinks diet coke or orange juice!

Dd2 also refused water - but I persevered and NEVER offered her anything else - and now she loves water above every other drink.

chemical cocktails full of artificial sweetners are 'treats'?

yuk.

dilute apple juice a lot.

Katy's right, that stuff can cause bloating, gas and diarrhoea.

No no no, don't do it!

How about leaving a beaker of water with his toys? This worked with my reluctant-water-drinker dd1 - no pressure for her to drink it so she just played with it and then eventually started to drink it.

She is now 8 and will only drink water or milk.

Sugar free squash is full of nasty crap and is totally unnecessary IMVHO.

MIL once gave DD1 as 'Fruit' Shoot.

I tasted it instead.

And poured it straight into the nearest drain.

Tasted vile.

DD1 has muscle spasms from dyspraxia and I've noticed that they're much worse whenever she has any of those squash things, which is only at birthday parties she attends.

We never buy them or keep them in the house.

Sorry, maybe I should have added that I can't drink water (I physically struggle to drink more than a couple of sips at a time) so I drink sugar free squash all the time. I've never felt bloated, had diarrhea etc from drinking this. It's hardly the devil's concoction you seem to be making it out to be

Why is this stuff so much worse than orange or apple juice from concentrate, which still has plenty of additives and sugar added?

if you read the label for real fruit juices, you'll see they've just got, erm, juice in them.

compare with the labels on these squash drinks.

some artificial sweetners used here are banned in other countries, for good reason, as are some of the colourants used in these 'food' items.

it's not known what the long-term affects of imbibing this stuff is.

you can't drink water?

okay.

Naetha, try googling sugar free drinks or some of the crap that's in them, ie. aspartame and then decide whether you should be giving them to an 8mo baby. Several threads recently on this. You might be ok drinking them and so might he but doesn't seem right to be unnecessarily introducing any sort of chemicals at that age imho. Give watered down juice if you have to - at least the sugars in fruit juice are naturally produced.

Not sure where you get your info Naetha, pure apple juice/orange juice etc has no additives and no added sugar. pure fruit. Same from concentrate - just the pure stuff with water.
Sugar free squash is full of crap, much worse than sugared version imho. Neither should go anywhere near a baby.

AFAIK, artificial sweeteners are banned in foods that are aimed specifically at the under 3's. That's reason enough for me to say it's not a good idea to give them, to an 8mo.

I've C&P'd this from another thread about then evils of sugar free and diet drinks:

By eightthousendnames on Thu 04-Sep-08 21:57:38
I'm a chemist and I avoid aspartame like the plague. The phenylalanine is metabolised into a carcinogen. Aspartic acid becomes neurotoxic ie it overstimulates nerve cells until they die. The methyl ester converts to methanol which in turn converts to formic acid and formaldehyde which is neurotoxic. Thats the reason that meths drinkers go blind, methanol has damaged the optic nerve.

It is difficult to separate the facts from the conspiracy theories but based on the chemistry it is conceivable that aspartame is linked to cancer and nerve damage and mimics MS and Parkinson's. The Gulf war syndrome theory also has a scientific basis as troops were supplied with diet drinks which were kept in the heat. Aspartame breaks down at quite a low temp so the amount of methanol present increases in diet drinks at warm temps.

So devil's concoction isn't far wrong, tbh.

Plus, PURE friut juice is just that, even if it's from concentrate. 'Fruit juice drinks' are not pure juice and do have added extras. A quick look at the label will tell you which type you're buying.

I don't like sugar-free drinks either. I don't really want DD stuffs with all the artifical stuff. I also am very wary that DD (22 months) would love to drink sweet stuff all day, and that's not a habit that I'm keen to encourage.
The tip about having water freely available all day (with no pressure) is good. To be honest, when she was 8 months old my DD still drank an awful lot of (breast)milk, which was her main source of fluid.

Some babies don't drink that much anyway, do they?
If they are getting a lot of fruit and veg, then they will also be getting water in those.
Plus the water in milk, whether breast or bottle.
As long as lots of wet nappies and no massively sunken fontanelle, I would just keep offering water. Surely they will drink if they are thirsty? If they think there is no alternative, they will drink (maybe I am a meany mummy!)