# How can I get my toddler to drink more?



## eles (Nov 5, 2003)

My daughter is 27 mo. old & hardly drinks anything! I've tried everything: water, juices, kool-aids, pop, choc. milk, strawberry milk...
She's never been a good drinker. She only consumes about 8oz. of liquid per day but recently she was sick & took in even less! Now she has recovered from her cold but still won't drink much. Her urine is very stinky. I'm really getting worried about her kidneys & such.
She shows no signs of dehydration at all.
Her drink of choice is water. She is already weaned & has never liked cow's milk at all but will take a swallow or two here & there.
How much does your toddler drink daily?
What can I do to get her to drink?
ETA: she'll try anything but just doesn't want to drink much of anything.


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## surf mama (Jan 8, 2005)

If she likes water best I'd stay away from the other stuff. Have you tried getting her excited about a cup. My dd helped pick out a cup at the store. She carries it around with her through out the day and ends up drinking enough. Also just recently I found a different kind of cup in the back of the cupboard and brought it out. She now gets excited to have a drink in the new cup.

I've also read that toddlers get a good amount of liquid from their food. Feed her foods high in water like soup, fruit, homemade juice only popsicles, etc.


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## kathipaul (Sep 24, 2004)

Sticky urine sounds a little alarming. Have you talked with her doctor about it?

My dd is 22 mos and a picky drinker but she play games with her various different cups and manage to get a lot of liquid into her daily. Some days, she will only drink out of a "mommy" cup with a straw (supervised so she does not dump it all over the place). Other days, she likes a toddler sport bottle which has a built in straw (also supervised). Today, she is enjoying a sippy cup because it has bugs and animals on it and we have been talking about them. The cups she likes are all by playtex. We tried other brands and this is what is successful.

I found this on dr sears website: Infants need around 1-1/2 ounces of water per pound per day. So, each day a 20-pound baby needs around 30 ounces of fluids, usually in the form of milk. Breastfed babies don't need any extra water, but a small amount of water is necessary for formula-fed infants. In fact, some pediatricians feel that offering excessive water to infants under one year of age may actually be nutritionally unwise because excess water may fill up baby and replace needed calories.

I would contact your child's doc and ask for advice before you have to deal with a health risk. Why wait? Don't worry about asking a question that the doc might think is silly. This sounds pretty serious to me.

Good luck! I hope she is ok and everything turns out all right.


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## kerc (May 9, 2002)

i second the idea of different cups/bottles/etc. My dd LOVES to drink from water bottles. We'd be out someplace and she'd always want to drink from the giant nalgene bottle I had in the car. So yesterday I got her a little one with a narrow mouth. She wanted to sleep with it.

ITA about being concerned with strange urine...sticky, stinky, whatever. That's the way you're supposed to check in on your own hydration. (ie. check the urine).


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## kamilla626 (Mar 18, 2004)

ITA about the stinky pee. Urine does have a little bit of a smell sometimes but it shouldn't be that noticable.

Another thing - I think like with everything else, there is a huge spectrum of "normal". My dd likes to have cups of water or diluted juice to sip on, but I don't think she really drinks more than 12 oz. a day, but she's been healthy.

My friend's ds is constantly guzzling water and milk and will drink close to 1/2 gallon a day, and he's healthy too.

My dd loves frozen juice pops. She thinks she's getting a treat, but to me it's "phew, another 4 oz. of liquid in her belly!"


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## eles (Nov 5, 2003)

Thanks for the responses, ladies!
I did go ahead & take her to the ped. They put a bag on her to check her urine. The initial 'dip' test was negative for everything & they are doing a culture. Dr. said it's unlikely the culture will come up with anything.
She also said not to worry too much about the liquid intake since she's not dehydrated.
I did take my daughter to get some new cups. Hers were all old & boring by now anyway. We found some really cute individual juice bottles at Wal-Mart. They have Sesame Street character heads & your just suck the juice out of Elmo's (& others) head. She loved it! She drank one & one half of them that day! They're 8 oz. each. I'm not too keen on her drinking that much juice but, what they heck, I wanted liquids in her.
Unfortunatly the novelty has worn off but her pees have improved in odor.
Dr. has no suggestion as to what it is/could have been.
Maybe she just had something in her system from the cold..?? I don't know but she seems good now.
I also changed brands of diapers (I use disposable) and I'm starting to wonder if I got a bad batch of her usual diapers or something. I put one on her little brother (6 mo. old) who nurses & pees like crazy & his was even a little smelly! (He normally wears a different brand of disposables than her.) His pee never smells, he takes in a lot of breastmilk! Anyway, I'm starting to wonder about these disposables. If they can give off scary odors - UGH! - what kind of chemicals are in them?! Anyway, I'm rambling here...
Thanks again!


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## Geofizz (Sep 25, 2003)

Have you tried warm drinks? Everything on your list of things you've offered is cold.

The way we get DD to tank up on fluid when she needs more is with warm peppermint tea. I brew it hot and dilute it by half with cold water. It's warm but not hot.


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## Rainbowbird (Jul 26, 2004)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Geofizz*
Have you tried warm drinks? Everything on your list of things you've offered is cold.

The way we get DD to tank up on fluid when she needs more is with warm peppermint tea. I brew it hot and dilute it by half with cold water. It's warm but not hot.

2nd the warm drink ideas. My son LOVES warm milk with cinnamon in it. I give it to him on really cold days or after we play in the snow.

Generally he guzzles liquids like crazy and it's all I can do to keep up with the diapers! But he's a big boy.

The cup ideas are good, too. I know my friend's daughter LOVED drinking out of one of those sport sippy cups with the straw. (that's the only way I can get DS to drink plain water, btw.)

Good luck and glad she's okay.


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## kerc (May 9, 2002)

i wanted to comment on the too-much juice issue. We dilute juice to ~1/4 with water. Dh and I like ours dilute (as a result of over concentrated juice int eh dorms in college we got into the habit of diluting it).

Erin sometimes likes hers diluted with milk. eeew. But she'll drink 50/50 milk/OJ.


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