Drinking water - boiled or bottled/purified?

[OliviaM]

Hi
We've been giving my 6mo boy sips of water since early months. Normally we buy bottled water, boil it and then cool it down. One nurse told me recently that we shouldn't be giving him bottled/purified water as it doesn't have fluoride in it, which babies need for teeth development. I was wondering if tap boiled water is ok. That's what we drink ourselves anyway but I though giving it to a baby might be a bit risky as it might have lead, copper and all those nasties in it.

[Katet]

I gave both my ds's cooled boiled tap water until they were about 12mo (ds#1) probably younger with ds#2 & then stopped boiling it (both were bf, so I felt pretty comfortable with that)... I drink our tap water (unboiled)
I think it depends on where you live, where I live the tap water is considered totally drinkable as is, so boiled is fine... I know other places it isn't so palatable / has high mineral content, so different recommendations apply, but if you drink your tap water then it should be fine.

[OliviaM]

Thanks for that, Katet. I've noticed you're from Sydney Australia - we're actually from Perth! Water is considered ok to drink over here, they serve tap water in restaurants. So I supposed it would be ok to just boil it, I might start doing that from now on...
Olivia