KiasuParents - Parenting in Singapore

My one year old girl just simply refuse to drink water. Any suggestions to make her drink?? She only likes to drink milk!!

try different straws? different cups? different colour water bottles? just don't give her water from the milk bottle. and you have to keep giving and giving until she drinks water.

Give her cold or ice water.
Sure drink one!
My kids will only drink ice water, otherwise they rather remain thirsty.
Rather than risking dehydration, i give them ice water and they have been happily drinking since young.

tree nymph wrote:try different straws? different cups? different colour water bottles? just don't give her water from the milk bottle. and you have to keep giving and giving until she drinks water.

Ditto

Maybe a cup based on her favourite cartoon character/colour?? Also, may I suggest that you start her of with very little amount of water in the cup so that she can finish it easily and quickly and gradually increase the amount as she gets used to the taste. I think the trick now is to make her get used to drinking water, and you do not want to put her off by giving too much of it in the first few times. Praise her as she is taking small sips so as to encourage her. You may also want to drink your cup of water while she is having hers ie teach via 'modelling.' If she still resists, I suggest you can take a break from this and try later (like a day or two) again. Seems to be the hard way, but I believe, the most effective.

Also, you may want to consider telling her stories about the goodness of water etc ... Books about water (pre-sch level, not sure abt toddlers, must check) can be borrowed from the library.

Hope this helps

Hi ningning,

Unfortunately how I made my son drink more water instead of milk (since he was 1.5 yo) was to dilute Ribena into his bottle so that the water has got some taste. It worked and he has been drinking quite a lot of water. But of course it is unhealthy due to the sugar level (although we do it very diluted).

As for plain water, I bought a school water bottle with a soft straw because he likes to suck and during meals, he will drink plain water in his water bottle. Initially he refused to suck because I got a water bottle with a hard straw and it took a lot of effort to suck! After countless rejections, I got fed-up and sucked on his bottle myself to try and realized what was the problem. Then I bought another one with a soft straw easier to suck and he drank happily (plain water).

Then another time he refused to suck from his soft straw water bottle again. After a few days when even his teacher complained, I took and smell the straw and gosh it was SMELLY! Took out the whole thing and found fungus already growing inside the straw which maid did not wash thoroughly! So after doing thorough cleaning, the water bottle got no smell and he drank properly again!

Now he is drinking more and more Ribena and I recently got to threathen him that if he just drinks Ribena and does not want to drink plain water, I am going to stop buying Ribena and he will never get the chance to have Ribena again! Seems to work for today.

Will see how tomorrow!

carebear wrote:Give her cold or ice water.
Sure drink one!
My kids will only drink ice water, otherwise they rather remain thirsty.
Rather than risking dehydration, i give them ice water and they have been happily drinking since young.

I do not think it is wise to give 1 year old ice water.

Not to worry, I hv came across so many little ones not drinking water. My girl too was one of them. I tried to dilute Rose syrup (Vitamin C) into the water, not too sweet, just a little drop for the taste. Can get them easily from Watsons, medical hall. As she grows older, now 6, she drinks plenty of water.

tankee wrote:

carebear wrote:Give her cold or ice water.
Sure drink one!
My kids will only drink ice water, otherwise they rather remain thirsty.
Rather than risking dehydration, i give them ice water and they have been happily drinking since young.

I do not think it is wise to give 1 year old ice water.

Says who?
All the old wives' tale!

Rather than give sweet drink and risk cavities and developing a sweet tooth or risk dehydration, i 'd rather give cold/ ice water than no water.

Anyway, my kids have been thriving on cold/ ice water since very young.

When i was in Korea, i learnt that Koreans drink cold water, especially the first drink in the morning! We were served cold water everday although it was chilling cold in December.

Make it fun to drink water first (juz my 2cents worth):

Try playing the "Cheers" game with your young gal... using her fav cup; put little water in the first few attempts so that she could drink in one or two gulps together with you.

To make drinking more fun, you can encourage pretend play with her toys using a plastic teaspoon (of course no water for the toy), and you can give her a few sips while she does that, implying she takes a turn.

Each session of the above shld end when she is having the most fun so that she finds drinking water FUN...

After that... bring her to buy a small water bottle of her choice to make drinking look more exciting but in the initial stage, juz encourage her to drink small little sips. Remind her gently and give her small sips of water thereafter (increase gradually...).

Hope the above helps....

Instead of giving cold water, i let my kids (when they refused to drink water) put a small ice cube into their water. and they will happily slurp them all up, even though the water is lukewarm to begin with. Occasionally i freeze pure orange juice into ice cubes to add to the novelty. They will drink even more water!