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 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

- 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

Sausages, chips and beans
I loved my schools rice pudding
Fish and chips
I think this is a great article and a challenge to me to drink more water
fish an chip
Cheese flan
Apple pie & custard
i never had school dinners, but my friends that did used to give me their sticks . not sure what they’re called but the chunky crispy sticks you get in bombay mix. I’d do quite well out of it haha.
Gravy and chips naughty but yummy!
All I can remember is liking the mash and gravy, I would always choose that along with something else
steak pie, mashed pots and veg
Pizza and chips
my kids need to rehydrate themselfs
I never once had a school dinner. My mum always made me a packed lunch. It used to have a sandwich, some dairylea, chocolate and other stuff in it.
fishfingers and chips
Great post to remind us to drink more water, adults and kids alike!
my kids love flavoured water and would rather have that than juice
Waffles, beans and chicken nuggets
What a really fantastic idea. I have recently managed to switch my children to drinking water and do need them to just drink more of it.
Chips, gravy and sausage roll 🙂
jam roly poly and custard
We at our house have a similar one to this and have to say are very good.
The only time we ever had a school dinner was at Christmas
Thank you so much for the chance. My favourite was fish and chip Friday 🙂 and my absolute favourite pudding was cornflake tart.. so delicious!
Fish and chips
i used to love it when we had soup and egg and cress sandwiches
I often find it a struggle to get the kids to drink more water :/ Thanks for sharing 🙂 H x
Macaroni cheese!
FISH AND CHIPS
I loved the rice pudding and biscuits we used to get
We drink a lot of water here – I’ve always loved water more than any other drink x
pie and chips
Pizza and chips
excellent for cutting down on single use plastic bottles!
and me favourite school dinner was cheese whirls!
sponge and custard
I am lucky that my boys love water but I need to remember to drink more myself!
I loved turkey twizzlers when I was at school
I know what you mean, Bex – my children drink water almost exclusively but most days I only drink water that’s been boiled and had a tea bag in it!
What a great sounding bottle – I have to admit I’m not a fan of water myself unless it is with squash. x
I loved it when we had a scoop of mash potato & gravy with our meal, then the sponge and custard for afters was delicious x
I really like these, great idea. Myself I like fizzy water and sometimes add fruit into it. At school my favourite meal were their home made pizzas.
Cheese wheel, chips and peas
I completely agree with the tip about keeping water in the fridge, particularly in the summertime. Water tastes much better when it has been cooled. In warmer parts of France it’s not unusual for families to keep a carafe of tap water in the fridge. It looks very elegant when it’s brought to the table and of course that makes children feel more grown up, so they’re more likely to help themselves. My own fridge isn’t really big enough for a carafe but I recently discovered the Voss mineral water brand (I don’t work for them – promise) which comes in really sleek tubular glass bottles with a sturdy cap. They’re tastefully branded (no label) and they’re excellent for a small fridge because you can keep them topped up with tap water and lie them down on the fridge shelf without them leaking.
minced beef and onion flan followed by iced buns made in the kitchen
Such great advise Jen, it is so important that we all drink plenty of water. Mich x
I have to admit mine are good at drinking water, but love the look of these bottles
Chicken nuggets, chips and gravy 🙂
This is something that I struggle with for my son. He doesn’t like the taste of plain water and always wants squash or juice instead, which I’m constantly trying to ration. I like your tip about freezing fruit in ice cubes, I think I’ll try that.
I love the sound of this bottle, great idea! Fantastic ideas for encouraging more intake too
My three are great with drinking water – I love sparkling water but find it hard to drink still water for some reason!
Cheese and Potato pie 🙂
Sausage roll, mashed potato and sweetcorn, I used to have it every day!
turkey dinosaurs and peas mixed with ketchup!
i used to like tomato soup with chips.
I was a packed lunch kid but there was the odd week that I had school dinners and my school did a particularly good sponge and custard!
Cheesey nachos!
Sausage and mash
roast beed, cabbage and roast potatoes
Really great tips Jen, I need to adopt these for myself as I certainly don’t drink enough water! POD is normally pretty good as she believes she’ll get sick if she doesn’t drink enough (!), I’m sure she could drink more though!
Salad (we didnt get it often so it was a treat!)
Fish and chips
rhubarb crumble and custard
Cottage Pie and peas
roast dinner
Macaroni cheese
Ravioli
Toad in the hole
Fish and chips
Bacon nuggets – a primary school favourite but I have never come across them again since!
I loved the sponge puddings and custard
Barbeque sausages and mash potato
my school dinners were pretty horrible – probably lasagne was the best of a worst bunch!
Chips and beans!
For me, it was all about the desserts. – I loved them all except the rice pudding. But even then, the homemade shortcake biscuit was delicious!
Hot Dogs with chocolate cake and chocolate custard for dessert
jacket potato and tuna
Cornish pasty chips and beans followed by chocolate concrete
PIZZA AND CHIPS
My faviourite school meal was pizza and chips and then my faviourite pudding is chocolate cake with green mint sauce 😀 xx
It was a weird one for me, pizza, chips and gravy :-/
Chips and gravy