LO not drinking Fluids

gwynew915 · August 2016

I am getting so frustrated and worried! My 11 month old daughter is refusing to drink water, watered down juice, regular juice, anything besides her formula. The problem now is she is getting constipated and screams in pain every time she poops.. I feel so bad for her and I can't help her.. I've tried giving it to her in different types of sippy cups, hoping she likes one but nope she pushes it away refusing to drink. I've also tried a straw and her sipping out of my cup. She takes like 2 sips and no more. I don't know what else to do, she needs fluids and I feel helpless not knowing what else to do!

Does anyone have any advice or tips on how I can get her to drink more? I give her fruit like watermelon, blueberries strawberries and even prunes but that isn't enough to soften her bowels.

yellow1daisy · August 2016

Maybe your daughter would enjoy sipping a broth? I make bone broth regularly and my daughter loves it. I used to give her too much of it and it actually made her poop a little too runny (only 6ish oz of it a day) so I cut back a bit.

I make it with beef bones but chicken bones do nicely as well.

I can't say this will work for sure but it's worth a try. I don't do the traditional 8-10 hour plus cook. I just cook my bones and veggies in the pressure cooker on max for 2-3 hours and it comes out perfect every time.

gwynew915 · August 2016

I will try anything at this point and I will give that a try! Do you put it in a sippy cup?

ElleMF728 · August 2016

Can you water down her formula a bit? Once DS got old enough to drink water I would add an extra 1/2 ounce or so to each bottle if his poops got a little too hard.

ETA: Here is my other suggestion. I know the rule is sippy cups for water and bottles for milk but when it comes to getting fluids in and dealing with constipation personally I would ignore it. Give some water in a bottle, if it makes you more comfortable you can use a slower nipple and give small amounts at a time. You may get her to drink some more that way.

Prunes, peaches, peas, pears are all good foods to loosen things up. Stay away from apples, bananas and cereal.

gwynew915 · August 2016

Thank you! I will try that as well! I honestly can't believe that never went through my head to add more water to her formula..

yellow1daisy · August 2016

I've given it in a sippy and in a bottle. Lately more in a sippy since I'm trying to get her off the bottle but I'm not too strict about it.

tviste · August 2016

My daughter went through a phase where she refused to drink water. I finally had to put water in a bottle and give it to her. After a few days, she was back to drinking out of a sippy cup.

Plumeria1214 · August 2016

This may sound strange but.. My LO drinks little water in her sippy cup. I found that when we're out at restaurants and I put a little water in a straw and put it in her mouth, she'll drink a lot more.

missliz53 · August 2016

Will she take pureed fruit? That would be a way to get extra water into her plus fruit to help loosen things up (think p-fruits and you may have to try a couple different ones since it seems like some work better than others for different babies. I give lo a 4 oz jar of pears most days of the week for breakfast and I've never had a problem with constipation. My cousin gives her twins a fruit pouch every day because they were getting constipated with just finger foods and milk.

amp61470 · August 2016

This is going to sound crazy but until last week I couldn't get my little man to drink anything but formula either. I gave him a taste of my water which I usually throw a little simply lemonade in and he drank the whole thing! I also put an ice cube in some water yesterday at the beach and he drank some of that too. He's done it with both sippy cups and bottles. The kid is weird when it comes to taste!

amp61470 · August 2016

You can also substitute 2-3 ounces of prune juice in her formula instead of water and mix it and that helps. It work for little man when he younger and we had the problem. He wasn't straining but would go 2-3 days without a poop and when he did they were nuggets!

stacies831 · August 2016

Docs told us when our little girl was ill and couldn't keep any water down to crush ice cube made from diluted juice maybe give that a try

gwynew915 · August 2016

Thanks everyone! I will give all these ideas a try! I did put about 2-3 oz of water in her bottle with 5 oz of formula so she will get more water and she drank that so I did it for bottles at daycare today. I know she isn't drinking anything but her bottles at daycare because when I pick her up the sippy cup is still full all the way and her daily report doesn't list anything besides her bottle she drank.. I have given her fruit pouches but maybe I should more of them and do it everyday.

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