Encouraging your child to drink more water 81

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Do your kids drink enough water?  It is something that you can control a little when they are younger, but once they reach school age it is hard to have any impact on the amount they drink during school hours.  So how do you encourage your children to drink more water?

Brita have challenged the MiniMads to take the Fill&Go challenge and to increase their water intake at school to 1.2 litres a day. Almost three quarters of parents (73%) do not know how much their children drink whilst at school Two thirds (66%) do not know the recommended daily intake of fluid for children 10 ways to get your kids to drink more water Children under 13 should drink 6-8 glasses of fluid per day (on top of the water provided by food in their diet). Younger children need relatively smaller drinks (e.g. 120–150 ml serving) and older children need larger drinks (e.g. 250–300 ml serving).

They gave the boys a limited edition Fill&Go bottle, which comes with stickers indicating that they should drink 300ml by morning break and another 300ml by lunch before refilling their bottle and drinking another 600ml before the end of school.

The Fill&Go bottle is a 600ml BPA free bottle that filters your water as your drink using a special changeable filter.   Both of the boys stated that they thought the water tasted nicer out of their Fill&Go bottles.  

The filters are to be changed weekly, which works well for us as the boys bring their water bottles home at the end of each week to be washed and the bottles can go in the dishwasher too.

Still, it’s more often than you would replace other types of water filters which last much longer.

So has it increased the boys water intake?  Yes.  The stickers are a great reminder for them to ensure that they drink their water each day.  Both of them have at least two bottles, plus water with their lunch each day.

10 Ways to encourage your kids to drink more water

Getting your child to drink more water
  • Fruit ice cubes.  My boys love fruit infused water and an easy way of doing this is to chop up fruit and freeze them with water in ice cube trays and add them to your water.
  • izzy Water.  I am a sucker for sparking ice cold water.  It really does quench my thirst and encourages me to drink more water when it is carbonated.  For this I LOVE our sodastream.  It gives both me and the boys the ability to fizz our water.
  • Keep it cold.  I prefer my water cold and it seems that so do my boys.  We keep tap water in bottles in our fridge to keep it cold.
  • Make it easy for them to access.  We have a drinks dispenser and since we started using it the boys have increased their water intake.  It empowers them to get their own water.  I love encouraging independence in kids.
  • Make it fun.  Give them a special cup or bottle or even a funny straw.  Who wouldn’t want to drink from an princess iced star wand (UK Link/US Link) or from a cup with shark fin ice in (UK Link/US Link). When the boys were younger I even froze jelly snakes in ice cubes to encourage the boys to drink more water!
  • Freeze it.  Why not make some fresh fruit ice pops.  Water is water, even with fruit or flavour in and frozen water counts too.
  • Flavour it.  Fresh lemon, mint or cucumber goes down well with my boys.
  • Heat it,  Both my boys love mint tea, which really is just boiled water with mint leaves in.
  • Set a good example.  I have learned over the years that I need to lead by example.  I demonstrate good behaviour in the hope that behaviour breeds behaviour.
  • Pack a water bottle for whenever you or your child go out.  Get into the habit of taking a waterbottle and being prepared, that way your child will be less likely to buy another drink when thirsty.

Me and my best friend had a conversation about drinks the other day.  When did it become common practice for juice or pop to be every drink?   When I was growing up we got 5 bottles of pop (soda) delivered at the beginning of the week in one litre glass bottles and one was for my Mum, one for my Dad and three were fair game, but once they were gone, there was no more until the next delivery.  Once the squash was gone, then it was council pop (water) until the next shopping trip.  We drank tea and water and even now I always get a jug of tap water with ice whenever we eat out and encourage the boys away from bottomless soda.

We want to encourage your children to drink more too and have one Brita Fill&Go Bottle, plus stickers to give away to one lucky reader.

Win a Brita Fill&Go Bottle and stickers getting your child to drink more water

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