Juices, teas and water for babies: is that possible?
It doesn’t matter whether you breastfeed your baby or give it a bottle: you’ve probably wondered at some point whether your baby should drink something else besides milk to quench its thirst. And if so, what is most appropriate? Find out here when children need additional liquid and what your baby should not drink.
When babies are fed milk every day, many parents wonder if they should be given something to drink to quench their thirst. This thought makes sense when you consider that even with cow’s milk you can only fight real thirst very badly.
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However, breast milk, and also industrially produced infant milk, has a completely different composition than cow’s milk and reliably satisfies the baby’s fluid requirements in the first four to six months. During this time, it is therefore usually not necessary to give your baby water to drink.
Additional fluids, such as water or unsweetened tea, may only be necessary on particularly hot days when your baby sweats a lot, or if you have a fever or diarrhea.
Introduce water for babies with complementary food
It is not advisable to start offering your baby a drink with every meal until you start complementary feeding. However, when complementary food is introduced, this does not primarily serve to balance the fluid balance. Because as long as only one or two milk meals are replaced by supplementary food, your child will still get enough liquid from the remaining daily meals. However, by giving your child something other than milk to drink at this point, you can get your child used to accepting this alternative early on. After all, drinking also needs to be learned. 200 milliliters a day are usually sufficient at this point.
Don’t worry if your baby drinks little or no water at first. It will first have to get used to it. This will change with increasing age and the new composition of the porridge meals.
How much should your baby drink?
200 milliliters of liquid a day is usually sufficient for your baby at the beginning. The more milk meals are omitted and the more complementary food is fed, the more your baby should drink. At the latest when the third baby meal is introduced, an additional drink will really become necessary, as your baby’s thirst can no longer be adequately quenched with formula. The daily drinking amount should therefore have increased to at least 400 milliliters per day by this time .
It is important that you offer your baby something to drink regularly, and also with every solid meal. Make sure, however, that your baby is not constantly sucking on the bottle. Drinks in the mouth impede the production of saliva, which protects the teeth from acid and other influences. The risk of tooth decay increases significantly with continuous sucking.
What should your baby drink?
When choosing drinks for your baby, make sure that they are as thirst-quenching and sugar-free as possible. Water is therefore the best thing your baby can drink. If you get used to this drink from the start, your baby will most likely readily accept it as a thirst quencher.
- Tap water: As still water, tap water is ideal for your baby. It is subject to strict guidelines and is one of the most controlled foods. Here you can have the quality of your tap water checked . Nevertheless, you should boil tap water until the sixth month of life before you let your baby drink it. This kills bacteria and germs that may have been in the pipe or on the tap and that could attack your baby’s immune system. If you no longer boil the water, it is particularly important to ensure that the water that is standing in the pipe runs off first and only give your child cold water.
- Mineral water: When it comes to mineral water from the bottle, prefer the still version, as carbonic acid can lead to flatulence and attack your baby’s tooth enamel if it already has its first teeth. Also pay attention to the note “suitable for the preparation of baby food” on the label, otherwise the mineral water could contain too many salts.
Unsweetened tea as an alternative
If your baby doesn’t want to drink water or you want to offer him some variety, he can also quench his thirst with unsweetened fruit teas. Special baby teas are particularly suitable for this, such as “Hipp First Feel-good Tea” consisting of organic anise, organic fennel and organic caraway,advertisementsince these are subject to special legal requirements and are largely free of harmful substances. In addition, they are unsweetened.
You should exercise caution with herbal teas, for example made from aniseed or fennel. Due to their soothing effect on various health problems, such as flatulence, they can be viewed as medicines in the broadest sense. Therefore, only use herbal tea when it is really necessary. The consumer magazine Öko-Test took a closer look at 18 baby teas. In this article you will find out how which baby tee performed.
Make sure that ready-made teas do not contain any sugar. However, since this is unfortunately often the case, you should better avoid instant teas made from granules and the like.
Be careful with juices
Pure juices are not suitable as a daily drink for your baby. They have a high content of fructose and are therefore not only very high in calories, but also promote the development of caries due to the carbohydrates they contain – even if the first teeth have not yet broken through. This also applies to juices made from vegetables, such as carrot juice. Due to the acid they contain, pure fruit juices often cause a sore buttocks in babies. Therefore, always dilute juices in a ratio of 1:3 with water to make a fruit juice spritzer. Occasional exceptions are of course allowed, but should be seen as a special treat.
You certainly want to do something good for your baby when you give him juice, as it contains many valuable vitamins. However, the need for vitamins in the first year of life is usually sufficiently covered by milk and balanced complementary foods, which is why your baby will not lack for anything even without the additional vitamins from the juice.
In summary, it can be said that water and unsweetened teas are drinks that you can always offer your baby without hesitation. You should avoid sugary drinks. Carbon dioxide is also not suitable for babies and small children. Drinks containing caffeine such as black tea, cola or coffee are absolutely taboo.
When can your baby drink from the cup?
Your baby knows when it’s ready to drink from a cup. Usually it is between the 10th and 12th month. You can tell whether your baby is already prepared for this development step by the fact that your child can hold different objects in their hands without any problems or wants to reach for your cup. The best way to learn to drink is to use a special drinking cup, such as the Magic Cup model from NUK, which we found on Amazon.advertisementYou can find out how you can also help your baby learn to drink in our article “Learning to drink”.