Water

Ah the nectar of life!  We usually start introducing plain ol’ water to kids diets at around 6 months of age to coincide with increases of solid food and with the development of the kiddo’s kidneys, which are now smart enough to process liquids without electrolytes equal to the amount of salt and sugar in their blood.  Now, how much water to give a kiddo per day varies greatly.  To get a good sense of hydration in your kiddo, they should be peeing every 4-6 hours if not more.  And, when they pee, the pee should be light yellow to almost clear by noon.  If that is happening, your kiddo is super well hydrated.  If the pee is darker yellow or smells strongly, you should add a couple more ounces of water per day to the diet.

Then, throughout the day, keeping track of poop consistency also lets us know how much extra water may be needed.  If your kiddo loves starchy foods that soak up and hold onto water, then their poops will start to get harder and harder throughout the day. We ideally want to ensure that is remains a soft apple sauce to guacamole consistency to make sure a kiddo does not have poop starting to back up or worsening constipation.  So, if the poop is harder than guacamole that is your signal to decrease starches for the rest of the day and increase some good ol’ water. 

Other things, like outside temperature, can also cause a kiddo to need more water.  Drying conditions like very cold or hot weather will mean kiddos need to replenish with more water.  Look towards the pees and poops again to see how much water increase they may need.  Or, if in big changes of weather your kiddos lips or skin feels overly dry, let’s increase that water intake to replenish the body. 

Also, us pediatricians love water as a hydration source because the more often water is offered, the less juice and soda is offered, which wreck kiddos teeth and provide lots of excess unhealthy calories.