Juice......(squash)

I have a boy who is 21  months old.   He has always been really indepedant and from around 8 months old would not let me feed him. I have never fed him bottles as he was BF and then went onto a tommee tippee cup.  He didnt get his frist tooth til 9 months so chewing up finger foods at that age not easy.... anyway I digress.

 He has never been a water drinker and the only way he will drink water now is if I give it to him in a mineral water bottle, either messy or dangerous if it has a sports cap.   He always has High Juice - quite week however he can "down" a very large cup (probably twice size of the small tommee tippe cups) very quickly and wants one cup soon after his brekkie, then some more before lunch, more after lunch and more after his nap and after tea.  All in all he probably has around 3/4 of these large cups.  His appetite can vary enormously and it doesnt seem to affect him how much he drinks (although I try and avoid him having any juice within hour / 45 mins of his meal time).  My sister thinks he drinks too much - and he does have some very heavy wet nappies. She thinks this affects the amount he eats. I think he just cant be bothered to eat a lot of the time, far more interesting things to be doing, some days he does very well and another day he has about two mouthfuls and thats it.

 How much do you think is normal for a toddler to drink - I know on a hot day he will need more but just on average as I am thinking about just offering him water after a certain amount of juice -wondering if he will drink it if he is thirsty enough - I am not sure he will.

Any ideas?

Any advice greatly received

Many thanks.

hiya hun,

my son drinks alot and come to think about it lola does too, jack has a tall flip spout beaker allways emptied by end of brekkie, then i leave a cup out all day, drinks one at lunch and tea and he has two 7oz beakers of milk in the day and one at bed.

Lola has the tommee tippee explora small dumpy cup and emptys 3 a day, and has bits between meals, she also has 2 7oz bottles a day (she quit bf herself last month ) they both eat fine, if they need to drink they drink if they dont they wont, if jack has something like a friut shoot when out he downs it in one though so i avoid them but fill the empty bottle with water as he loves them bottles!

Mine have milk at breakfast,squash (6-8 oz in a sippy cup for Arwen and Matilda,beakers for the others) at 10:30.Squash again at lunchtime the same.Fresh orange juice mid afternoon.Milk dinner time.They sit down and drink it in one go,if they don't drink it then it's gone.They usually drink it.The squash is high juice,usually.Tesco's own but seems to be better than some on the market.

I know there's sugar in the squash and fruit acid in the juice so I keep drinking times limited.If they're thirsty in between they can have water.If they don't want water I don't really think they can be that thirsty.I try not to give too much too soon before a meal,cos they can fill up on that and not eat properly.

Hello

Just realised I put week instead of weak....   doh!

 I do give him milk he has about 8oz in the morning from his cow cup!  and  a very large cup (anyway up cup) before bed.

It looks as though your little ones also drink a reasonable amount too so maybe harry isnt just super thirsty, I suppose he is always on the go and probably quite thirsty.

Harry has his milk when he wakes, then his breakfast an hour later. The other day I gave him water after breakfast and he only had a couple of mouthfulls upto before lunch and he didnt seem to eat any more then he downed a very large cup of squash after lunch.

How old are your children?

I tried one of his cups out of interest to see how hard they were to drink (boots own non spill) and it was so hard to suck it i couldnt believe it!   I am going to change his cups I think I much prefer the free flow ones but they dont seem to have many of them around.

 Perhaps i will start re using those fruit shoot type bottles with water in may be a way to get him to drink more water

 Thank you very much.

I started mine with the tiny boots non spill cup as soon as they could sit in a high chairbut had to take the valve out.It was too difficult to drink with the valve.Of couse the juice came out really quick without it,but they learnt to use it.Till they were old enough to see what fun it was to tip and splash,then we changed to anyway up cups.

I had anywayup cups for my oldest two as they were the best at the time(they're 10 and 8 now).I have a cupboard full of different cups I've tried but I've always gone back to the same cups,the actual cups,just new lids.The anywayup cups are hard to use at first but once they get the hang of them they're all we use now.

We do reuse fruit shoot bottles for when we're out

jack has a cow cup for milk! my two are 2 and 9mnths.

the tommee tippee exploras are really good cups, they are non spill but as soon as you put lips to cup it flows freely like my adult sports bottle iyswim. lola has the pink 6mnth one and jack an insulated 24mnths+ one and theyre ace!

Great ages....... bet they are lots of fun.   (and a little bit michievious!) 

I like the cow cup as you can remove the valve to make it free flowing.   I will give the explora cups a go.

Many thanks x

e calls them his moos! lol, i love them theyre so funky and like you said removable valve is great!

Theyre fun, they argue already, but also sit and hold hands in the buggy, cute!

I got harry two of those cups, they were on offer 2 for £5..... and he likes them and they are much easier to drink out of than the boots own ones.....   He likes them too, always loves a new cup. It will also get him used to drinking out of a more normal cup.

Many thanks.x