How to Get Your Kids to Drink More Water…without Taking Away Their Favorite Beverages

Juice is kiddy crack.

There, I said it.

We made the fatal mistake of introducing juice to the twins when they were very young – probably under age 2. We diluted it, sure, but they got the taste.

And that was enough.

My husband and I made ourselves feel better about it by being sure to only purchase all natural, 100% sugar juice.

This way we justified it as a healthy choice.  We even served the fruit and vegetable mix.

Ya know, the one with 22g of sugar per serving?

When they started drinking it regularly, it was really hard to get them to drink anything else…especially water.

They were averaging about 16oz a day or more, which was nearly 3x the recommended amount.

Needless to say, we spent a lot of time in more recent years (especially after turning our kitchen upside down) regretting our decision and trying desperately to get our kids to drink more water.

By the grace of God, I can now say my kids request water, never complain when it’s given to them, and drink anything else sparingly.

I did not even have to take away their beloved juice or cause complete meltdowns with this process (ok, I’m sure there were couple of small meltdowns somewhere in the beginning).

So how’d I do it?

Here’s the steps you can take…

1. Figure out how much water your child needs by cutting their weight in half and converting it to ounces. So, if your son weighs 42lbs, he needs at least 21oz. of water a day. More is always better, but this gives us somewhere to start.
2. Buy a water bottle that holds that much or more.
3. First thing in the morning, fill the bottle to the “need” mark. He has to turn in an empty water bottle to get a cup of anything else. And a “cup” in our house is about 4 oz.****A little side note…I wash the water bottle as soon as it’s turned in so I don’t have to worry about hunting it down at the end of the night. As for filling it in the morning, it is now part of their morning routine to turn it in to me.

A child can only drink so much in a day and this way, you’re making sure he’s filling that thirst with what he needs. In the end, there’s not much room left for what he might want but if he earns it, good for him!  Let him enjoy his treat, wash and start over.

How do you get your kids to drink more water?