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EAT => Feeding Solid Food => Topic started by: K-JDA on June 10, 2013, 14:50:57 pm

Title: How to encourage drinking more water with meals
Post by: K-JDA on June 10, 2013, 14:50:57 pm
It's as simple as that really - DS is only having a few sips with meals. He is 8.5 months old. He doesn't really like the free flow sippy cup - it's either the plastic lid or the fact the water comes out too fast as he coughs/splutters a lot when he drinks from it. Have tried an open cup/my glass which works a bit better but v messy and again lots of spluttering! He is getting a bit constipated which I/the HV think is caused by his water intake although he has lots of wet nappies.

Any thoughts on how to improve the situation?
Title: Re: How to encourage drinking more water with meals
Post by: creations on June 10, 2013, 20:54:32 pm
Do you have a bottle?  If you give milk feeds in a bottle then try offering a bottle of water at a couple of points during the meal.  You will be able to judge then how much he really wants to take when he has a comfortable way of taking it.  If you've never used a botle then this isn't going to be a helpful suggestion.
In my experience some LOs just don't need to drink much, a few sips, they can also get a lot of fluid from the solids depending what you are feeding. If you are giving puree then each mouthful has fluid in it, if you give fruit as finger food then he can be getting a lot of his fluid from the fruit.  I think the key really is the number of wet nappies.
WRT constipation it isn't necessarily due to not drinking enough. Some foods can constipate very quickly. It will all depend on the individual LO but there are foods which can be quite common.  Have you seen the laxitive food thread?  I found it really useful when we started solids, discovering that carrots firm my LO up, and prunes loosen him up.  Using just those two foods I could balance up his poos and offer a varied diet because I knew how to manage the poops in a natural way if they went one way or the other.  It was a revelation to me that carrots would do this, I didn't stop giving him carrots, I just made sure he had a prune too.  Under ripe bananas can cause constipation (over ripe can cause diarrhoea) ...who ever knew poo could be so interesting a subject??
Title: Re: How to encourage drinking more water with meals
Post by: K-JDA on June 11, 2013, 06:47:57 am
Thanks - actually tried a different cup yesterday which has a top which requires an action similar to sucking a bottle/has a soft lip and he seemed much happier with it and drank loads more.

Will check out the laxative food thread - cheers for the heads up on that. I had read about carrots - who knew?!! Bananas definitely seem to cause problems for him. Need to dig out the prunes!

Thanks for the input.
Title: Re: How to encourage drinking more water with meals
Post by: creations on June 11, 2013, 13:24:05 pm
My boy LOVES prunes. I had to ration them and as soon as he was crawling/walking he would be at the cupboard door hammering for them!  They are very sticky and very sweet, and can't be all that good for teeth but they are full of other good things :)
Title: Re: How to encourage drinking more water with meals
Post by: K-JDA on June 11, 2013, 16:44:38 pm
Hi again - how many prunes did u give?
Title: Re: How to encourage drinking more water with meals
Post by: creations on June 11, 2013, 19:07:52 pm
No more than one or two in a day at that age.  I would give one as finger food and see how things get moving. Next day if there is still constipation try another one.
Mine just picked it up and ate it, but you can also make puree or puree mixed with yoghurt or make juice.  if you give as finger food just watch he doesn't try to swallow the thing whole, mine was pretty good and gnawed bits off before swallowing but he did have a phase of trying to just swallow the whole thing, no harm really just vommed it back up and had another go, but I tended to hold it back a bit to encourage him to chew it, or tear it into smaller bits for him to pick up with pincer grasp.