amitymamaThe Attachment Parenting Community

Toaster · 09-03-2008, 11:51 AM

Help!! MY house has been a zoo lately because My 5 year old has recently decided not to drink water anymore.. She is being very stubborn and just wont give in.. All she wants is juice but i cant let her go on just drinking all that sugary stuff.. What can I do?? I just want her to be healthy and drink her water willingly but im all out of ideas.. And suggestions would be very appreciated..

irinam · 09-03-2008, 12:51 PM

You might consider:

Not keeping any juice in the house. No juice - no temptation.

Offer her a fruit and have a pitcher of water on the table in case she wants more liquids. She will not get horribly dehydrated in a few days it will take her to break a habit.

Experiment with other drinks - iced tea? With mint and lemon and NO sugar?

If all else fails - diluting the juice the minute you bring it in the house - get an empty jar and half the juice with water, this may help "wean" her gradually

Use juice ONLY as a sweetener for the iced tea?

Making your own juice?

And of course if you still decide to buy juice - keep an eagle eye on ingredients. *Especially* HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup), that's the stuff that makes us even more addicted to sweets than regular sugar, and is sadly added to most commercial juices.

Good luck!

Bonzai · 09-17-2008, 02:08 PM

try putting fruit in her water.. It adds flavor but is definately not as sugary.. Also we recently discovered this new brand of water that the kids just seem to love.. Its called wat-aah and they never complain about it..

Toaster · 09-24-2008, 06:25 PM

cool name...if you asked me which one I would prefer, water or wat-aah...definitely WAT-AAAAH! LOL I searched it and theres' a cute site too.. www .drinkwataah. com I might have to try giving her that..

sylvi76 · 10-13-2008, 11:59 AM

My dd doesn't ever want to drink water either. And I keep no juice or anything else around here. So what I do is several times a day, I tell her ok, time for your 5 sips. Sometimes in the middle of reading a book and I won't read the next page till she takes 5 sips. Or in the middle of her dvd program, or whatever. It has helped alot and she helps me count aloud and she now drinks about 2 cups of water a day where before it was so little I am embarrassed to remember!