Hi ladies

I'm a first time mum, so totally new to this. After exclusively breast feeding my lo for 9 weeks, today I have moved him onto bottles and formula. (I'm expressing a little when I need to so my boobs don't burst - but I'm not giving Ethan what I've expressed).

QUESTION: do I need to give Ethan cooled boiled water to drink between feeds or not? None of my books seem to give me a definitive answer. The nearest I've come to an answer is that you do this if your lo is dehydrated. What do you all do?

Floopy & Ethan

I never gave my lo water until I was weaning him and he was satisfied with that. He was born in the winter so it wasnt as warm. If Ethan is settled and giving plenty wet and dirty nappies then dont be too worried about giving him extra water.

Hope this helps.

cam is bottle fed, i only give him water if its very hot or if he seems hungry a long time before his feed is due. i only give him a 2oz bottle and he only takes 1ozish.

they dont need water or so say the experts but i feel that in this weather it wont do any harm to give him a little to cool him down. also my neice never had water and now she's weaned at 10 months, she wont touch the stuff, she wont even take juice cos she isnt used to it.

water intoxication is dangerous though. so dont over do it if your going to give your lo water. only give them a small amount to stop them from taking too much.
xx

Agree with the above, before weaning i only offered cooled boiled water if he got hot, once weaning started offered a sip after (or during if he cried) a meal, now have 4 cups so he has 1 for each meal and 1 for sipping during the day as and when, this is purely as he has the free flow and quite often spits water back into the cup with bits of food floating in it, nice!

One sign of dehydration is that the soft spot at the front of their head will be recessed if they are thirsty.

A bit of water may also help if lo gets constipated, when i switched from breast to bottle he did get a bit constipated so gave water to try and free him up a bit.

Thanks for your replies ladies... you're always so helpful.

Floopy & Ethan
x

Cole was a winter baby so i never bothered offering him boiled water until i started weaning - and only then because it was hot! he's 7 1/2 months now and only just starting to drink water occasionally from the sippy cup despite it being so hot at times. I mostly persevere with teh water to get him used to the idea of drinking with a meal - so long as he's producing wet nappies he's fine