not enough liquids?

W

wandasmart

New member
i'm worried my baby is not drinking enough liquids, i'm still breastfeeding so not a good measure of how much she is drinking, not eating as well as she used to be getting fussy after a few spoonfuls and then her night feed from the bottle used to be 180ml expressed b/milk but now since a month ago i find that she sometimes only takes 50-70ml worth of milk and shakes her head not wanting anymore. it's a struggle to get her to finish. she barely drinks water

should i be worried? these days i find she only has maybe 4-5 medium diapers not heavy and soaked like before. poos only once or twice a day, sometimes missing a day of poos totally.

any advice?
 
how old is your baby?

your bm is getting mroe concnetrated with nutrition as your baby grows older so maybe she doesn't need as much milk? my ped tells me that a baby should be drinking water, 1 mth for 1 oz. so if your baby is 4 mths old, drink 4 oz of water everyday (i know, breastfed ababies don't need to drink water... but i did so as to get her the habit of drinking sth tasteless).

well, most importantly, how old is your baby? maybe she's teething?
 
my baby is 10months old. i can't imagine giving her 10oz of water per day, as i don't want her to stop drinking her milk as i read that is the most important in the first year. problem is, she normally has 180ml of milk at night expressed b/milk in bottle, but now ie tonight she only took 2 oz. my friend's feed their babies around 210ml at this age. she's not really drinking much and certainly not really eating. stopping and getting really distracted after 4-5 spoonfuls. i had read somewhere that we shouldn't feed more then 4 oz of water so that baby will eat and drink milk properly.

she cut 2 teeth a week ago, her first set.. so she was "later" then some babies and not sure if she cutting more at this age?? she doesn't seem to have problem with snacks though which i now am loathe to give which is a bad habit of "if you don't eat your proper food i'll still give snacks" so i try not to do so. how long can this strike last???:tantrum:
 
Dear Mammalicious,

It is never a good idea to compare what your baby is doing to your friends' babies. The best thing is to look at your own child and see if she is healthy. Don’t worry so much about how many wet diapers as her bladder is bigger now.

Does she show signs of dehydration? If so then she needs more liquids. So try to give her more and if she won’t take it from a bottle try other things like cups and straws. All my babies were drinking with straws by 10 months.

Or does she look happy and healthy? If so stop worrying as she is fine. Each child is different and maybe she just doesn’t want to go to sleep with a full tummy of milk anymore.

The minimum a baby should eat at a meal is one tablespoon for every year of age. As your baby isn’t even one year yet. Four to five teaspoon is fine to keep her going. I’m sure others will agree with me that babies around one year old suddenly seem to eat much less than before. All of mine did.

Best wishes,
Barb
 
thanks Barb.. what are the signs of dehydration? sorry it probably sounds daft but i want to be sure that she's okay. phobic mum.

she's got cough and cold so i know when i'm sick my appetite goes out the window. but everyone always says make sure you drink lots of liquid,

she's been drinking from straw and cup since about 7 months (for water and juice, sometimes milk) but at night it has remained a bottle. perhaps i will try the cup at night too but seems these days neither of the two are working, or like you said maybe she's just not thirsty. takes after me as i hardly drink anything but i know i should..that's the thing.
 
If your baby is dehydrated you may not know what is wrong but I think you would realize that there was a problem. The symptoms include: thirst, restless or irritable behaviour, decreased skin turgor, dry mucous membranes, sunken eyes, sunken fontanelle, and absence of tears when crying vigorously.
Barb
 
yeah, we had trouble with dehydration as well when we first introduce solids and her milk intake decreases. we could tell that it was slight dehydration by the darker (yellow) colour of her urine, and less frequent and VERY hard stools (poor girl). we just made it a point to feed more water, so water with every solid meal (water fed by spoon), and then just whenever we remember throughout the day.

thing is, dd won't drink water via bottle, has to be via spoon now, so there's no way we'll get near 10oz a day. anyhow, with that, i didn't think the water affected her milk intake that much, it's more of the solids doing that. so i wouldn't be too worried, for me, i think it's more important that she stays well hydrated (either by water or milk). she seems ok now, though i'd still like her to drink more liquids than she is doing now.
 
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