Drinking water

[baileybubs]

Hi everyone

I started weaning my LG a few weeks ago with mainly finger foods, she is doing well, mostly mushing the food up and playing with it but she is eating some. My question is how much water did/does your LO get during these earlier stages of weaning? My LG is still having the same amount of milk as before we started weaning, and I have tried her with water in her sippy cup but she won't drink from it at all.
Should I be putting some water in a bottle for her during mealtimes? She's had (sorry tmi) much denser poops at the mo and I think she's struggling more to go and thinking maybe it's because she's not getting enough fluids now?

Anyone thoughts? Should I keep just giving her the sippy cup in hope she will start drinking from it or should I give her water in her bottle so she isn't getting constipated?
I find it strange that she's getting denser poops as all she seems to like munching on is fruit lol!

 

[Rachel_C]

Is your LO formula fed? If so, I would encourage her to drink some water but I wouldn't give it in a bottle unless there's a real issue. Maybe try a few different cups or even a straw. Some kids just won't drink from certain ones. My youngest liked the absolute cheapest beaker from the supermarket but her sister was really fussy. If she's breastfed, I would still make water available but don't worry about encouraging it at this stage. If you let LO feed on demand, she can have snacky little feeds to quench her thirst (doesn't work the same with formula as that's all the same, unlike breastmilk which changes during a feed).

You should expect her poo to change though. As long as it's not actually hard or pellet-like, it's probably okay and just LO getting used to the new 'sensation'!

 

[baileybubs]

Thanks Rachel that's really helpful, she's FF so I think I'll try some other cups and see if that helps, cheers

 

[Lou1234]

My LO refused to use either of the beaker type cups we had so I continued to give her water in a bottle. Once a week we would try the beakers again and when she was 7 months she suddenly started taking it from a beaker.

We got one with a similar top/teat thing like a bottle (in terms of texture) so it wasn't too much of a leap and now she uses it with no problems.

 

[MindUtopia]

I would give it in a sippy cup but also try not to worry too much whether she drinks it. Constipation is fairly normal with weaning and in most cases will sort itself out in time. My daughter only really started to accept any water from a sippy cup this week (at 8.5 months). She would just flat out refuse it before. I found the free flow cups worked better as did giving her water that was slightly warm. I'd also give it to her to play with as she sat in her car seat after we came home from being out (often while I fixed her bottle). It kept her occupied and she eventually worked out what to do. Btw it hasn't made any difference in her poos though!

 

[baileybubs]

Thanks ladies, I actually tried a cup with no spout today (with me tentatively holding the bottom lol!) because the cup I tried before has a spout that you need to suck on to get anything out and she was just chewing on it rather than sucking. When she had the cup with no spout today she took bits of water and swallowed it so I'm going to look for one with a free flow spout now as I think the problem was needing to suck! It's all well and good that they can't spill from them but my girl won't drink from them lol!

 

[LDC]

I put water in a sippy cup when lo was weaning and it took her a long time to actively drink it. I just always had it available during the day and she eventually just started drinking it out of choice; I'd always offer it when she had finished a meal at the beginning though.

Lo will now drink around one sippy cup of water a day (I don't offer juice or anything, only water and milk)

Don't worry too much, water is a bit of a random one and it has no taste so that's why they're not massively keen to start with, but they'll get there x

 

[baileybubs]

Thanks ladies. I think it was the "stickiness" of her poop (sorry tmi!!) that just made me think maybe I should be making sure she's getting some but I guess it's just her digestive system getting used to the solid foods now! She's still having 25-28 oz milk everyday so I'm sure it will figure itself out and in the meantime I will just keep trying with sippy cups.

Thanks