Water for baby

WWC1

Morning,

Hope everyone is well...

Just wondering how much water can be given to a 14 week old and how often?

Any info greatly appreciated..

x

LashingLady

If a baby is breastfed then apparently they don't need any extra water as the breastmilk has enough water in it. Not sure about this very hot weather though....

If bottlefed then during the day in this weather I would be offering 1-3 ounces of cooled boiled water to baby between normal bottlefeeds. My little fella would never drink water for me though, think he thought he was being cheated out of bottles!

WWC1

Hi Lashing Lady,

Thank you v much for your reply.

Baby is bottle fed (expressed for first 2 months). She was good to take water in that she suffered from reflux and we gave her baby gavison and she'd happily drink it. Reflux thank fully cleared up.

Trying to give her water lately but she dpoesnt seem to keen. Having said she has just woken from a nap and taken 2 oz so maybe she's getting used to it or thats the best time to give it to her, thirsty when she wakes.

LashingLady

If it's really hot and humid out and she's not taking any water for you on a particular day and you were out and about and thought she needed a bit of extra water then I would pop an extra ounce of water into her bottle. I know you're "not supposed" to do this but I don't think it would do any harm in the odd feed, particularly in this hot weather.

caprilicious

LashingLady wrote: »

If it's really hot and humid out and she's not taking any water for you on a particular day and you were out and about and thought she needed a bit of extra water then I would pop an extra ounce of water into her bottle. I know you're "not supposed" to do this but I don't think it would do any harm in the odd feed, particularly in this hot weather.

Please correct me if I'm wrong & I don't mean to contradict you LL, but as far as I know diluting the formula more than is recommended on the instructions will cause diorrhea (sp) for baby.
I know in a thread I read on a similar website, it was given as advice where a baby was constipated to give them a weaker mix of their bottle ie, instead of 6 scoops of formula for 6 oz's of water, use 5 scoops instead.

I've only had to do this once or twice when dd was bunged up with constipation but found it very effective .
Would be a bit worried about doing so dehydrating your little person.

LashingLady

Yes Caprilious this is definitely something that isn't advised on the side of the formula. However, extra water isn't going to dehydrate baby.

However it was advice that was given to me by my MIL and all her sisters as a cure for colic (not something I agreed with!) and also to get more water into baby during the summer. They were actually a bit peeved that I wouldn't put the extra water into all his bottles! As an "older" phn also gave this advice to a friend of mine I'm thinking it's something that was generally done a lot in the past......

I however, would not recommend that you put extra water in every bottle but if baby won't take water for you in this hot weather then I'd put it in the odd bottle. Whether it's an ounce or two of water on it's own or an extra ounce in the formula bottlefed babies do need some water in this weather.

And in this weather I don't think the extra water would cause diahrrea or dehydration it would help to replace fluid lost by the hot weather.

caprilicious

Sorry LL I phrased it wrong, I meant to say the diarrhoea may dehydrate baby, just realise the way I worded it didn't make sense, giving water would dehydrate baby, my bad

I think my little lady just had very loose bowels, anytime I give her the extra water in her formula I'm guaranteed a (very) dirty nappy within about 20 minutes :rolleyes: