DD isn't really drinking enough... Do you give your one year old anything other than milk or water?

[overbuurvrouw]

The title says it all really!

I've always avoided giving anything other than milk or water, for the sake of her teeth and in the vain hope avoiding a sweet tooth.

The thing is she really does need to drink a bit more and encouragement and praise have only upped her intake by about 2oz per day.

She way at a friends house for the day yesterday and drunk really well. It turns out she was being given squash, orange juice, apple juice and water with maple syrup added.

Is there actually anything other than milk and water that I can responsibly give her?

Fennel tea, chamomile tea etc

I let DD3 have very watered down apple or orange juice with meals sometimes, if her sisters are having it and she asks. I water it down for all of them, but for DD3 I do around 4 parts water to one part juice.
Outside mealtimes, it's strictly milk or water though.

You could try putting a bit of cinnamon in her milk to tempt her to drink more of it.

cammomile tea with honey, tiny blob of fruit juice with water

I give mine diluted fresh orange juice with breakfast, mainly to up his vit c intake. but the rest of the day it's water or milk.

LOL at 'bigging up' tap water.

Some good ideas there, thanks! I think I'll try her with some herbal tea first.

Mutt - I think she needs to drink more because her nappies aren't very wet. We use reusables and I'm pretty sure she could be in the same one nearly all day without it leaking, I change her at normal intervals anyway but it does sometimes seem silly.

She wees on the potty sometimes and her urine does look OK (a sort of champagne colour). Other babies nappies seem to get a lot wetter a lot more quickly though.

If her wee is a pale colour and her lips aren't dry then she's probably getting enough. But if you're worried, do try sparkling - DS calls it Bizzy Water and he LOVES it!

DD had a constipation problem because she wouldn't drink hardly anything. This even resulted in UTIs in long run, I don't know what her problem was about liquids! She still doesn't drink much (now 7yo). So I did give her barely diluted juice from early-ish (so ~15 months?) on to try to just get her fluids up. But she didn't like that much, either (sigh).

She didn't like fizzy water.

I've never noticed her lips being dry, I didn't know that that was something to look out for I'm really worried about the long term implications, her fluid intake has been minimal since she was about 8 months. I've made an issue of with her but it does scare me.

I suppose all I can do is try some of the suggestions here and keep on praising her when she does drink.

I don't have any sparking water in the house, but I'll get some next time I'm out.

I've not made an issue of it...

I feel sometimes that plain water can be unappealing and very hard for some babies to digest and that adding a little something can really help that.

I can see how plain water might be a little uninspiring, but 'hard to digest', you'll have to explain that one, I don't get it.

DD seems to find everything more interesting than drinking. I don't think she'd do it at all if I didn't prompt her.

She's still BF but never even asks for that!

My ds is a year and doesn't really drink much except for his milk, although I don't really think it's a problem with him as he has loads of wet nappies. I try to give him more juicy fruit and veg as a way of upping his fluid intake

I sometimes suffer from indigestion after drinking water, normally when from the fridge. Room temp water is much better. is is possible to suffer from this

My friend's little boy ended up in hospital because he wasn't drinking enough. My other friends 9 mth old was in hospital with crystals in his nappy because he wouldn't drink- so no not all children will drink enough.
The nutritionistmy first friend saw in hospital advised trying different things to drink out of such as open cup/straws/sippy cups. Letting them watch tv so the focus isn't on the drink (worked a treat with friend's son) - hydration more important than zoning out in this case.
Lots of soup, very weak hot chocolate and there is a prescribed thing that thickens drinks as for some children that helps.
You know there are now lots of sugar free squash with no aspartame added that if you offer her very very diluted once in the day I don't see the harm- better that than the headaches or worse that dehydration can cause.
Tbh I used the organic full sugar Rock squash for ages as I don't see the harm in limited sugar - lots of teeth brushing later and my 6 yr olds are teeth fine and now falling out for natural reasons!

That's scary stuff luckylady. Were they both alright in the end?

I really hope I can change DDs patterns, she's only very-nearly-one so I'm hoping (against hope) that I will be able to get her into good habits eventually.

Does anyone know if there are recommendations/guidelines for minimum and optimum fluid intake for babies and children?

mine has chamomile tea, mint tea and freshly squeezed juice and smoothies.

oh and also cocoa.

When I spoke to my hv about ds's fluid intake when he was under a year she said it was a myth that they needed extra water as they get enough from their milk/food unless they had fever, it was hot etc.
I would honestly ask your gp or hv about the advice for children over a year. I think it goes by what weight they are but I wouldn't want to advise as obv too much water can be as harmful as too little.