Drinking Water

only do Milk and water for now No Juice, and start the meal with a cup of water, Milk after meals. you could try "Big Boy Cup" ( no Lid) with water at meal time. make a big deal about a big boy cup. hey and if it gets spilled It's only water. it took the last one of mine a few weeks to drink water regularly.
oh.........don't full the cup, just a few sips will do & you need to drink the same thing!!

Hi H.,

I ditto Tracey about the lemon or orange wedge in his water. He is getting his water and the acidity from the citrus is helping his digestion also. Now my girls order water with lemon or lime everytime we go out...even at the fast food joints!

Regards,

M.

Try putting a little lemon or orange in the water. Squeeze the juice in from a wedge, then put the wedge in his water if he wants. It will add flavor, but not a lot. I do it to my own water when I get tired of the plain water.

he is two. unless you are taking him to toddler thai kwon do or some other activity he probably isnt sweating enough out to get dehyrdrated. I would water down juice to at least 3/4 and just given in. unless you are on beach or out in sun non stop i just wouldnt worry about it. as he gets older in the next couple of years he will see mommy and daddy (by the way you need to show him that you drink it) drink it and that everyone else does. My son didnt really start drinking until he was 5 when he started sports. He figured out very quickly that he body was craving it and started asking for it. Now he will ask for it more than milk (which i thought was his favorite).

I fortunately don't have a problem with getting them to drink water. Their friends drank water from a water bottle so they wanted to do that to. I also bought floride water to put in the bottles and my son (he's five) knows what kind of water it is. I told him that it will make his teeth super strong like T-Rex and help keep cavities away and he's all for it. I also get propel power mix to put in it. The water bottles are usually the exact amount you need to mix with it and it's cheaper than buying the actual stuff. My daughter (she's going to be three in a couple of weeks) sees me enjoying a bottle of water and she wants it. If you need something more, try giving water during the meals and as a dessert or reward, give him his juice or milk if he finishes. Crushed ice is always a great hit and a way of getting water! Good Luck!

Hi,
I know water is good for you, but I would rather have another beverage......I have heard that adding a little juice to water helps, so now, I pour in a little apple juice, or cranberry juice. This gives the water some flavor, and it does taste better. You might try that. Since he's use to juice,(I don't know which juice, but) he knows what that taste like full strength, so if its diluted, he'll know it. Try adding a little apple juice, pineapple juice or some other juice that he doesn't know. You don't have to add much.

My kids get choked on regular water for some reason, So we got Propel and they loved it. Well of course thats expensive, but at Kroger they have kroger brand fitness water shake and pours. They have them for individuals and 2qts. and they taste just like Propel. The very Berry is awesome. And there is nothing in them! They are GREAT!!!

Have you tried watering down the juice?

We gradually did the watering it down thing until we are now at 100% water. We have diluted apple juice SOMETIMES like at nmeals but it is a treat for them. It took a long time...doing the gradual watering down, started with mostly juice and gradually transitioned to mostly water. Now it is so convenient and healthy that they will drink bottled water.
PLEASE DO NOT give your child vitamin water. It has bad ingredients in it....if you google it you will see. My husband just recently got VERY sick for a few days after drinking vitamin water and after I researched it we now have half a case sitting in our kitchen undrank. I can't imagine how sick it would make a child.
HTH! Good luck!

Hi H..... I think I might have some good advice for you... First of all I am a proud mother of two wonderful children. A 9 year old son and a 7 year old daughter... I found with the both of them that if I poured water into a cup.. They didn't like it.. but if I gave them a water bottle, they drank and drank and drank... also, they like the vitamin water it has flavor... now when they come home they are proud of how much water they drank during the day... They come home like Mommie, I drank x amount of water that particular game... now they are really into it...so I say that to say change the appearance of the water... (Water bottles; cute sippy cups filled with ice cold water, flavored water... make it exciting!

they have flavored waters.... grape and strawberry and lemon and etc. Have you tried these? I find them all over.. in the grocery and in convenience stores.

Add some food coloring to it. Emphasize the colored drink. Then he learns his colors too.

Hi H.,

My two year old wouldn't drink much water either, but if I have a cup full of water for myself to drink she will always want to drink mine. So try sharing your water with him if you don't mind the little baby cooties floating around in your cup. :-)

I got my son a 'cars' soccer cup. It's like a sports cup. Anyway we told him only water in it because you can't wash it in the dishwasher. He loves to drink out of it so he ends up drinking lots of water. Also I let my boys drink out of my husbands coffee mugs - the travel kinds but again only water can go in those. Now they love 'cool, fresh, water'. Good luck

H.,
My 27 month old daughter drinks watered down juice (50/50) and will sometimes ask for water by itself. She NEVER use to ask for it (and still hates drinking milk!), but started when she saw me drinking from a water bottle. Now, she likes to drink water from my bottle (like a big girl) and I let her. She will also ask for it when she sees her Dora cup (disposable one w/out the lid - like a big girl) on the counter. If you tell him that's what big boys drink, he will likely want to be a big boy too. And personally, I don't think there is anything wrong with giving kids watered down 100% fruit juice...I drank Kool Aid and "full strength" fruit juice when I was a kid and I'm perfectly healthy and turned out just fine! Good luck with the water, but don't beat yourself up if he takes his time learning to like it...I still don't really care for it unless it's really cold. D. H.

With my 2yr old (and I did it with my daugther too), I dilute the juice-either 50/50 or 75 water/25 juice per cup. He also drinks two cups (sippy sized) of milk a day one with breakfast and one with dinner. About the only time I can get him to drink straight water is if it is ice cold and sometimes it has to be in a straw cup so I bought the take and toss for that and they do great not spilling if he tips them up side down!! Let him see you drinking wtaer too!!

Juice is VERY good for EVERYONE in moderation and as long as it is 100% juice like Juicy Juice brand. I would steer clear of things like vitaman water, that could do more harm than good on his inside at such a young age. Gateraid might be ok in very small amounts but I'd hold off on that till next summer when your son is 3yrs old, even wait till 4yrs old.

Well H., as you can see, everyone has their own opinions as to that is best for a child. You've got plenty of ideas to try on him and I hope you find one that works best!!

Good luck!
S.

And this part is for Donna H-
If there is "no nutritional value in juice" then what do we get out of the juice from an orange, pineapple and other fruits we eat??

Amber V-
No, not all juice drinking toddlers become soda drinkers. My almost 8yr old daughter will pick water or milk when we are out to dinner (the only time she is allowed to chose something other than milk) over Sprite or any other caffeine free soda. It's parents that see nothing wrong with giving their 2yr old soad and sweet tea that causes soda drinking people. And I didn't say Juicy Juice was the best thing either, I said in moderation and I compared it to fresh fruit juice. If you gave me a choice between 100% apple juice and say HI-C (only has 5-20% juice) off the shelf, I'd pick the Apple juice because Hi-c is garbage juice.

Amber V-
That's ok. I know we all try to do our best for our kids. I'd rather my kids eat fresh fruits than drink juice and that's why I water it down cause of all the stuff that is in shelf juice. But as long as week keep stearing our kids in the right direction, maybe this crazy place called Earth will stick around for a while longer!!

Did you ask the doctor why he wants him to drink water? I think this is setting you up for power struggles over food and that is not some place you want to go. At 2, I do not recall any of my children drinking water.

Also, what do you and his father drink? Your best bet at getting him to model any behavior is to make the same choices yourself. He will follow you. If you are drinking coke, he is soon going to want to drink it because you do. So if the suggestion from your doctor is valid, make sure your son sees you and his daddy drinking water. :-)

Hope this helps,

S.

At mealtimes, our first beverage is water. After that, juice or milk is allowed. (And I still dilute the juice a little.) Carrying a bottle of water around is a great way to have 'em drink it. If it's there, they'll usually go for it. Get him his very own water bottle. There are some neat ones at REI that are made of metal -- Nalgene, I think. And then, just old fashioned talking it up -- when I drink water, I say, "YUM! Water is so good! It is good for my body and my brain! I really love water -- that's my favorite thing to drink!" Now my little one goes on and on about how much she loves water...

One thing that works with me is telling them they can have the drink they want after they drink the water. That has been a struggle at times but now they do drink it more willingly and more often.
My son who is now 11 loved apple juice as a little one (it was 1/2 and 1/2), now pretty much only wants water and has for years and he doesn't like fruit juices at all now.
I drink tons of water, let him see you drink it and love it.
Hope that helps.
God bless you

Hi H.,
Now with the summer heat it is a good time to get him to drink more water. Give him water throughout the day and if he's thirsty he will drink it. Take him outside to play or to park or pool and only have water with you and eventually he will drink it regularly. I would start weaning him off the juice and replace with water but still give him plenty of milk. My daughter, now 7, loved her juice and it resulted in cavities and she had to have crowns on some upper teeth and the dentist said it was because of too much juice (I even always watered it down). Good luck!!

Similar suggestions here. Try adding ice to the water -- but don't put ice in any of his other drinks. Maybe he will think it's "fun" to have ice banging around in the cup and drink it. My other suggestion would be to keep stretching out the water/juice mix. If you currently do 50/50 water/juice... start putting a little more water than juice, then 75/25. If you do it gradually, he may not notice. That way he's getting mostly water and just a little juice. He may be willing to try just water after that. And it all depends on your preferences, but personally I'd steer clear of the sugar-free and zero-calorie drinks/mixes. I'm not a fan of artificial sweeteners.

H., I had the same problem. The only thing that worked for me was to get myself a big cup of ice water and pretend it was something else. As long as the cup was not see-through, all of my children wanted some of what mama had. The next problem was having them fight over the ice after all of the water was gone. But that's another story. Good luck. L.

Hi H.,

I give my kids water only at meals, mostly so that they don't drink too much and not eat, and because drinking with a meal is not really good for digestion, as it dilutes digestive juices. When we eat out, servers are always stunned when my four-year old asks for water with lemon. Anyways, I sometimes offer fresh juice with snacks, and they each have a cool water bottle to carry around with them all day, that either has water or herbal tea or barley tea. The juice is not all that good for them, either - it's just sugar. Better to eat the whole fruit. And I suspect that juice-drinking toddlers become soda-drinking people, so it's better to instill good habits now. Which is another reason to avoid "flavoring" the water for him - you're giving him chemicals and bad habits that way. If he's accustomed to having juice and milk or anything sweet as beverages regularly, it will take some effort to make the change. But it's a lot easier to change a two-year old's habits than a ten-year old's, or forty-year year old's. Good luck.

Sharie G - I'll have to side with Donna H on this one. When you eat fresh fruit, you get fiber, and most importantly, live enzymes, which are not found in pasteurized juices, or anything cooked. I am a juice advocate - when I push the fruits and veggies through my juicer and drink immediately, yes, it's very good for anyone to drink. The only thing Juicy Juice has over Pepsi is a lesser amount of chemicals - but they're in the juice, too, mostly in the form of pesticides!!!! And I'm not just a health nut here - you can call up your local health department and ask to speak with a registered dietician, who will tell you that juice is no good, and that they are rallying to get it off of WIC.

Okay Sharie-
I'm sorry I misunderstood you. When you wrote "Juice is VERY good for EVERYONE in moderation and as long as it is 100% juice like Juicy Juice brand," I thought you were saying that Juicy Juice is good for people. Juicy Juice, like every other bottle of juice on supermarket shelves, is pasteurized, thus lacking the nutritional value found in fresh whole fruits or freshly made juice. I must have missed the part about fresh fruit juice. And I should have been clearer about the soda thing. No, I do not believe that ALL children who drink juice WILL drink soda. What I meant when I said "I suspect" is that all the talk about having to sweeten water or even milk in order to get kids to drink it speaks volumes about the preferences these kids are forming, so that later in life, for many of these kids, the drinks will still need to be sweet. I did not intend that as a blanket statement, but simply as a comment. Indeed, my own children could turn into soda-drinking people, despite my best efforts to deter the development of tastes for such things. I worry very much about the next generation, specifically my children, having to struggle to break bad habits, as I watch family members and friends (and myself) struggle with their health and behaviors responsible for the problems today. It's fantastic that your daughter doesn't opt for Sprite. And you are right - everyone has their own opinions about things. My opinion is that it's a good idea to understand facts.

Yes, Sharie - well put! I couldn't have said it better.

Have you tried Vitamin water? It has fructose in it which is a 'natural' sugar so it goes through our bodies quickly w/o spiking our blood pressure like high fructose corn syrup or other artifical sugars will do. You could water it down 50/50 with plain water and try putting it in a Big boy cup wit a straw. Find one with his favorite character on it or one he really likes. Maybe even take him shopping for his own water cup and make it an exciting trip so he will look forward to drinking from it. Reduce the vitamin water down gradually and increase the plain water. Before you know it, I bet he'll be requesting the water is his new cup:)
Best of luck!

How come the dr wants him to drink more water.Can he drink flavored water

I would like to pass along something my parents did for my sister and I once when we were sick. They had two containers, one for each of us. For every cup of water we drank, they put an equal amount into our container, dyed with food coloring so we could tell them apart. Of course we raced against each other, but you could make a reward system out of it. Colored water only goes in his container for clear, water only, that he drinks. For each level, or container full, he earns a star on a chart. For so many stars he earns a special treat, or a nickel or whatever. Or if he fills his container to a certain level each day, the special reward is at the end of the week. Whatever works for you and he - but you get the idea. I hope this helps, the visual worked for us.
God bless you as you care for your little gift from Him.
A.

Hi H.,

Let him choose a reusable drinking bottle from the store that has some cool characters on it. Perhaps if he chooses it himself he'll be proud of it. Also add lots of ice to it and a little water so as it melts the water stays cold. It works for my girls. Another thing you could try is have everyone in your home convert to water, perhaps the example of the family drinking water will persuade him.

PamelaB
Hampton, GA
www.workathomeunited.com/income

To get my daughter to drink water I would have to put ice in a cup and put a straw in it. she will not drink it from a sippy cup, but will try from a bottle or a big kids cup.

Pretty much all we drink is water. There is no nutritional value in juice. I'd leave the juice alone. If kids know that there is juice in the house, why would they want water? It's so sweet and yummy. But water can be yummy too once they've got that sweet drink out of their palettes.

D.

Hi H.,
My three kids all drink water and have since they were 9 months old. There is no juice in my house and never has been. So my advice would be to first, stop buying juice period. Then, try giving your child the water bottles that are smaller with a squirt top to drink. They won't spill if he drops it and he might enjoy drinking like a big kid. This doesn't have to be a battle and eventually drinking water will just be a habit. I have several friends who have this issue, and as their kids grow, they become heavier b/c all they are drinking is empty calories. (Some even give their kids Kool Aid!!!) and then wonder why they are so heavy. As for the nutritional value in 100% juice, it is much better to have your child get that nutrition from real fruit, not juice. Having your child love to drink water is a good habit that will last a lifetime. Good Luck!

Trying buying the sugar free flavored water packs. I buy the Wal-Mart brand for my girls. The box has like 10 sticks of flavoring in it for less than $2 a box. They come in a variety of flavors. You just add it to the water. We buy bottled water and add it to them. They are drinking water, but it is flavored so they don't really care. They love the fruit punch flavor...they call it the red water. It is sugar-free so you don't have to worry about them drinking lots of sugar. I hope this helps.

Try putting somekind of flavor in it he likes maybe that will help.

I found that a "Special" cup or just straight out of the bottle worked. With Both my boys. They liked the different container. Usually a special cup with a straw or like I said straight from the water bottle. It works great and they down the water. Good Luck..

I am puzzled at some mom's answers, wondering why a Dr. would want your child to drink water. Hello! Water is an essential part of us, I think it is so important that I would stop juice and milk until he drinks water. Juices now are filled with high fructose corn syrup which is complete junk and milk is so processed that the body doesn't absorb any of the nutrients anyway. You are setting him up for the future now. Kids also learn from example, so make sure you are drinking lots too. One thing we have for our kids is a water cooler with the big jugs and disposable cups by it. So when they get thirsty they get it themselves rather than to always ask. Most flavored waters have artificial sweeteners in them, just be careful.... these can be harmful, do your research.
Good luck... being a mom is the greatest but it's still a hard job we all need encouragment!

Have you tried the flavored waters or letting him squeeze a little fresh fruit juice like lemons, limes, oranges or whatever squeezable fruit he likes. He would be getting the water and a little natural fruit juice. Letting him help he might get a kick out it and end up liking to drink water that he helped to flavor himself.