# Drinking Dirty Water



## camelfam (Jul 31, 2008)

My DD has this obsession with drinking water that is dirty. In the bath or pool she gulps it down. She constantly sticks her head in puddles and laps the water off her hands or try to put her face in them and suck up the water. I think it is disgusting. Every time she does it I ask her not to and offer her a sippy of clean water. It is not about being thirsty though...she just likes it. Do I just let it go or is there something I can do to get her to stop? It is really gross to me and I worry about her getting sick, but then again she has not gotten sick from it thus far that I know of.


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## kiwiva (Apr 17, 2006)

How old is she? My DD does this too-she's 2. Not the puddles-she just jumps in those. Water is just really cool to her. She will pour it on plates and drink from them, the other day she was licking the drips on top of the tub. In the tub I try to make a game of it and stop her and offer her a glass of clean water but there is only so much I can do. I just let it go and assume she will get over this phase. Making a big issue of it makes it even more fun for her.


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## nathansmum (Nov 13, 2003)

My dd went through a stage of doing this too. A few things we did: in the bath if she started drinking the bathwater (she used little plastic toy cups that were in the bath to scoop it up) was to fill the same cups with fresh water out of the tap and that seemed to work eventually and the other thing was to fill little bowls of water and put them on the ground for her coz she went through a pretending to be a cat stage.


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## Jemmind (Nov 13, 2007)

I haven't dealt with this other than the occasional sip of bath water. This is what I would do though:
Tell her we only drink clean water, if she starts drinking for a puddle, tell her now we have to go inside, no drinking from puddles; in the bath, we don't drink bathwater, bathtime is over and finish cleaning her and take her out. And if she drinks it at the pool make her get out. For the poool though, since it's probably not at her house, let her get back in but if she does it again get her out and leave. If she likes playing then she'll probably learn to stop fairly quickly if she wants too stay in the water.
good luck!


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## beaner&tiegs (Aug 3, 2003)

I dunno, I suspect she'll get a great immune system from it! I would probably tend to say something like, "oh gross, that water's not for drinking, it's dirty" the first time, but if she insisted on doing it and knew it was dirty, it's kind of a losing battle. Depending on the age, I might talk about what can happen if you drink dirty water, get science books and videos, talk to the family doctor, etc - or if she gets an upset stomach and is unhappy about it, point out the cause and effect, but ultimately if they're determined they'll do it behind your back. If it really concerns you, and she's old enough, perhaps you could do science experiments and use a camping pump to clean the water? Or put iodine in every puddle you come across?!! But for now I'd tend to turn the other cheek and hope it passes quickly!


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## wrenmoon (Feb 6, 2008)

Oh wow! I could have written this post! I have a 3yo son who for the last year would drink water from ANYWHERE. Rainbarrel, puddles in the driveway, water catchers in the bottom of houseplants, spilled water on the porch steps...not to mention bath, sink, etc...

I just realized that he stopped doing it recently. Maybe because he has had a few stomach bugs recently and really doesn't like throwing up, and we _might_ have used that as an opportunity to illustrate to him about drinking yucky water.

We have a joke about his "daily inoculation". I shudder to think of it still.


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## redpajama (Jan 22, 2007)

Wait, I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean like this?









We usually don't make a big deal out of it, but I do try to remind her not to drink out of the bath/pool/puddle/whatever. I assume she'll eventually outgrow this, and I'm *terribly* concerned for her health in the meantime...just a little.


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## One_Girl (Feb 8, 2008)

I think that you should physically remove her from the puddles and immediately wipe her hands off if she tries to drink out of them. There are some pretty nasty diseases you can get from water that is outside. You might also consider telling her that some people do pee in the pool and that the bathwater is dirty from her body but I don't think you need to make such a big deal out of those because the chlorine in the pool water kills almost everything and unless she was naked her clothes kept a lot of the germs and such off of her body.


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## BellaClaudia (Aug 1, 2008)

I don't know if it runs in the family but my dd is like that too..
I keep repeating her over and over that it is bad, and she will get sick
and even although generally don't threathen with things.. say that
there are bacterias and they are like tinny spiders that is gross..

but she does not care much... it is very... impulisvely done..
she just has to go for it.. but then again she is very experimental
so I believe this is part of trying to taste it all..

now.. me.

I was the same way. I still remember drinking water from the puddles
that were literarly black in and muddy in the fresh pouring rain along with
my peers at maybe 3-4 or 5??? who knows but no older then that for sure.

did I get sick then? nope.. did I get sick later? yes  but much later..
at some 10 years I had joundice.. viral though.. so who knows...

either way.. seem like we are just the same.


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