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Water advice? (drinking)

ToastieSimonsToastieSimons member
in Special Needs
Neither of boys will drink ANYTHING other than milk.  They will take 1 sip of whatever it is and make an awful face and refuse to drink anything out of that cup until I switch it with a new cup.

I've managed to get them to drink a mix of about 60%milk and 40% water.  I still would like them to drink water because 1) it doesn't need refrigeration 2) it's available everywhere 3) it would probably help DS2's constipation a lot.

Any advice?  DS1 drink about 20-30oz/day.  So about 12-18oz milk and 8-12oz water.
DS2 drinks about 10oz/day and gets about 6oz milk and 4oz water.  He is so hard to get fluids in.
To my boys:  I will love you for you Not for what you have done or what you will become I will love you for you I will give you the love The love that you never knew
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Re: Water advice? (drinking)

  • greyt00greyt00 member
    I wish I had an answer.  DS1 will not drink water.  He has major feeding issues and we are very dependent on milk.  He drinks about 5 cups of (whole) milk per day!  Recently he has requested and drank a few sips of water on a few occasions.  If your DS2 won't drink much of anything, withholding milk (to get him thirsty) won't work.  I can't do that with my DS1 either because eats so little that he's not even growing at the expected rate.  We have to give him lots of milk while we work on expanding his foods.  

    How about a token system?  For every X amount they drink, they get a token, and after X tokens, a reward.  If it works, you can fade out the tokens.  

     
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  • thefuturemrskudlathefuturemrskudla member
    What if you just take the milk away, or do you want to keep giving him milk?
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  • Hiccup15Hiccup15 member
    Could you try serving milk only at meals and take water when out and about? If they got thirsty enough while playing outside when it is hot out would they drink? DS2 has feeding aversion due to reflux. He refused anything in his mouth and never took a pacifier, bottle, sippie ect.. However, in June he has began to drink 1-2 oz a day of water when we are at the park. He won't drink it if we stay inside even if he is playing and running around. 

    If that doesn't work I would probably try the token idea greyt00 had. Or if they are too young to understand X amount of tokens get a reward (I know DS2 wouldn't get that) I would maybe get some small things they are interested in, either food or small inexpensive trinkets and give them 1 for every so many oz of water they drink. Similar to the potty training method of giving them a M&M when they go on the potty.
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  • funchickenfunchicken member
    Do they enjoy water-play? My girls love to play with ice water. I usually fill up a couple of big plastic containers with ice and water and give them a bunch of cups to play "lemonade stand." They play with it, drink it, eat the ice cubes, serve cups to me and the baby. It's DD2's favorite thing to play right now.
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  • greyt00greyt00 member
    edited July 2014
    McRib -- If this is addressed to me (5 cups of milk), don't worry about it.  He is starting to eat more because of the feeding program at ABA and we are scaling the milk back slowly.  DS1 has a history of eating and drinking NOTHING.  It is scary.  We gave him so much milk because he wasn't eating.  It could be true now that he's less interested in eating because he drinks a lot of milk, but we can't just suddenly "ditch it."  It will be a slow process.  You don't know all the details of everything we have been through.  It's been hell.

    The suggestion about a special cup is good, too.  I wish I could do that.  DS1 will only drink out of the Take N Toss straw cups.  Again, because of our dependence on milk (which I don't need any more advice about), we haven't messed with the cup situation.  When his eating gets better, we will work on the cup, too.  If I've learned anything from kids and especially one with special needs, it's to take things slow and not try too many things at one time.

    I'm into the token thing right now... I used them to get DS1's number of bedtime books down as well.  We were at 5 and it was too much.  Now we're down to 3.

     
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  • Micelle78Micelle78 member
    Sorry no advice but we have the opposite problem.  One day when DS was about 18 months old he quit drinking milk all of a sudden without warning.  I even tried to trick him one day and put it into a sippy which resulted in a 24 hour period where he refused all liquids.  So I totally get where you are coming from!

    We just do water in this house and I count how many milk products I offer him: cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese.  That way I can still monitor the amount of calcium in his diet.  He has been in feeding therapy to expand his diet since last summer (right when he turned 3).  He actually drank juice for the first time right before he turned 4 last month.  HUGE deal for him to drink it.  He did not have the coordination with his mouth to drink out of a straw until recently and this was from a juice box no less :) 

     
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