Jayden

My pediatrician has been animate on telling us not to give our baby anything except breastmilk or formula for the first six months. Not even water or juice or medicine. Anyone else have this with their babies? When should I start giving juice then?

Carmencita

My pediatrician pretty much said the same thing to me. I did give my daughter medicine for gas and for fever. My mom gave the baby tea a few times also. Nothing bad happened. I did wait to give her cereal and other solids after the 6 months.

mommyof3

Honestly, my mom was feeding all of us cereal around 4 months. We all turned out fine. We also got water and sometimes if we were gassy it had a peppermint lozenge in it. It didn't adversely affect us in any way.

Casey

Although my doctor didn't specifically warn me about not giving anything to the baby, somehow I had in my mind (must have been something that I read) that the baby - it was my first - should NOT have water; just breast milk.

Well one day I had to leave my baby with my mother-in-law. Upon coming back, I was horrified to find my baby lying in my MIL's arm with a bottle of water placed at his mouth!

I didn't say anything to my MIL but I sure let my husband know I didn't like her giving my child water, lol. Looking back, it was no big deal but as a first time mom, I wanted to do everything 'by the book'.

LoveMaGirl

Water can kill tiny babies. You should all look up a condition called water intoxication. Basically the baby is so small that it doesn't take a lot of water to dilute their electrolytes too much, and disrupt brain function. This is the reason I was told that in the height of summer she could have no more than 2oz of cooled boiled water per day.

Babies just don't need it.

isadora

Wow lovemagirl I have never heard that before, but surely be looking it up! I was also told that you have to follow formula by the directions and I knew diluting it could harm the baby but not giving just a little water if breastfeeding.

Leighanne

My ped had told us we could give small amounts of water in the summer but by then my little one was 6 months anyway. She didn't get anything other than formula or breastmilk for the first 6 months though.

Jayden

I had no idea that it was so little an amount to harm a baby with water intoxication. I had heard about it for adults but, never occurred to me for a baby. Thank you lovemagirl!

alexis

You can not just throw a new mix of new things into a brand new stomach of a brand new baby. That is like taking the idea that you can test drive a new car and expect it to preform like a world known racer. Its just not the smart thing to assume.

Momof9

I've heard of doctors being adamant about not giving baby juice until it's old enough to process the acids; but I never heard of one telling parents not to give water. That's the best way to cleanse the tongue and prevent yeast infections.