Getting baby to take water or juice

zaksmum

My grandson's 7 months old and totally refuses water or juice from his bottle. Soon as he realises, with the second suck, that it's not milk he spits it out.

He's become quite constipated even though he has a lot of fresh pureed fruit and veg in his diet, and the health visitor feels he needs to have more water or juice.

Any tips on how to get him to take it?

Kimberley82

have you tried on a spoon or open cup rather than a bottle?

OrkneyStar

What sort of milk does he have ? Could you make it a bit more dilute than he would normally have ? Does he normally have his milk warmed ? If so have you tried slightly warming the water/juice ? Failing that you could just not offer anything else and he might eventually go for it.....though of course not for any huge length of time as that would just make him more dehydrated!!! The only other thing I can think of is watery or milky smoothies ?

go_cat

Have you tried a sippy cup - some are suitable from 3 months

Nicki

You can get an oral syringe, usually used for giving medicine and gently squirt some into the side of his mouth. They come in a range of sizes. The one I use to give my DD her medicine is a 20ml one. You wouldn't syringe 20 mls in in one go with such a young baby of course, but around 5mls in at a time and let baby swallow. 2 of those syringes at a time would be plenty of water for a little one.

falady

My HV suggested offering more diluted milk to my little one if she refused water. Make a milk feed as you normally would but use only half the milk powder for the amount of water. eg for a 6 ounce bottle, put 6 ounces of water in, but only 3 level scoops of milk powder instead of the usual 6.

Just to say, I never actually had to do this with baby as she started having water, so don't know how well it works, but worth a try. x

JC9297

Just give all drinks apart from milk in a cup, if the baby was breastfed and you wanted to give extra fluids at that age there would be no need to introduce a bottle at all. You might need to try different types of cup, some babies prefer the type of cup you have to suck on more (usually non-spill) rather than ones that the drink pours out of.

adamantine

i too would give juice/water from a cup instead of bottle. for him he seems to associate milk and bottle not simply a drink and bottle. i had to try loads of cups to get one that DS2 got on with when i stopped BFing at 6 months.

jakes-mum

DS was a bit of a pain to take water, as above he prefered it from a cup but also we found the boots own baby water that comes in a powder and you mix was really good, he really liked the strawberry one, we couldnt taste it at all but he could. This was 10 years ago so I have no idea if they still do them but I remember they had a strawberry flavour and a blackcurant flavour, there may have been more, really cant remember

We did try those ready made jars you could get and they were way to strong for him so he would spit it out constantly.

tod123

perseverance is whats required , dont give up, keep at it

Guinea_2

For my son I use a specific cup for milk which is only used in the morning & evening. For any water or juice, he has it from any other cup hecwakes. He knows the difference between the cups now & knows what to expect! Lol
Once when my MIL was watching him (in our home) for an afternoon, she said he refused to have any water. I saw that she had used the milk cup & I offered the water in another cup which he downed!! (I had already explained the use of cups to her...but that's another story!!)