offering water to infant and how i trained cc to drink from the

offering water to infant and how i trained cc to drink from the cup.

when i was still carrying cc, my mother kept on reminding me the importance of water. she strongly believes the first thing should be fed to newborns should be plain water and not milk. she wants cc's taste buds to get used to plain water and reduce the resistance of water in the future. that sounds logic to me but the books and PD disagree and say newborns need not water because baby could get enough water from breastmilk and formula.

 

when i was still in the hospital after delivery, i asked the nurse in the newborn care class about this issue. she reassured me baby will have enough water from my milk. she also stressed the importance for baby to drink only milk so that she could get enough nutritions to grow her tinny body. infant only need water when they are taking solid food.

 

when i brought cc to her very first well baby check up, the PD, a nice chinese lady, she also agreed baby shouldn't fill her tinny stomach with water but milk. however, PD asked me to offer spoonful of water after each nursing. i was puzzled to this request, but PD explained baby would not drink the water with a full stomach. those spoonful of water was to wash away milk in her mouth. it's always best to start good habit when baby is still young.

 

i followed PD's instruction and tried my best to offer plain water to cc after each nursing, even in the middle of the night. it was so difficult to get her mouth open when she was sleeping with her full stomach. but after few days, she knew the spoon was waiting for her after nursing. the PD was right, cc never wanted to drink the water after nursing.

 

(PD also asked me to offer infant supplement to cc since she was breastfed exclusively. in order to avoid teeth staining by the supplement, offering water after the supplement is even more important)

 

then i started to worry cc would not accept water when she started to take solid food. but, i was lucky, she took water (from spoon) nicely when she was on solid food.

 

my next mission was to train her to drink from the cup. i bought the cheapest sippy cup (without valve) from Target. she was totally clueless to it since she never need to suck from any container for liquid (all the while, she was breastfed directly from my breast). i then used a normal cup and filled it with water and place it near her mouth to teach her there were water and she was supposed to drink them that way. it took us a while to work on it. she was choked few times.

 

after she accepted the idea of water flowing from the cup, i placed the cup on her tray and let her pick it up and drink. this was even harder and she picked the cup too fast and wet herself all the time. in order to help her, i filled the cup full with water, placed it on the tray and held it tight with my hand. i let cc sip the water but not picking up the cup. after a while, i reduced the amount of water, and let her picked the cup (with my hand still holding tightly to the cup). gradually i reduced the amount of water and gradually i let her did the cup holding. the weight from the cup and my hand forced her to be slow in picking up the cup. with constant practice, she finally could drink from normal cup by herself without wetting herself (this took her months to excel).

 

then only i re-introduced the sippy cup to her (sippy cup is so much easier for outdoor) and this time she understood what to do to get the water from the sippy cup.

 

now she could drink very well from sippy cup and normal cup. i have the sippy cup near by all the time. she would help herself when she feels thirsty. i let her drink from the normal cup during meal time (just to satisfy her desire of drinking like an adult).

 

my only tips for cup training: do it after meal time. baby will feel thirsty after meal.

 

and the latest mission is to train her to drink milk from the cup.