Can I Give My 5 Month Old Water? I Think He over Eats.

babies don't overeat. They know when they are full. I wish I did!
Also, 4 mos is too young for cereal, no matter his weight or achievements! his little belly cannot digest solids yet.

FYI: I just saw a public service announcement that warned parents against giving children under the age of six months water. It can cause serious issues, according to the PSA, with their body fluid balances and sodium ratios, etc.

Is there a reason you started cereal so early? Maybe his belly/digestive system isn't ready for it? What does the Dr say? I would suggest supplementing w/ formula vs. cereal at this stage... each one is different, but it seems like lots of spitting up and if it's associated w/ cereal then I wonder if formula would work better? Good luck!

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Is there a reason you started cereal so early? Maybe his belly/digestive system isn't ready for it? What does the Dr say? I would suggest supplementing w/ formula vs. cereal at this stage... each one is different, but it seems like lots of spitting up and if it's associated w/ cereal then I wonder if formula would work better? Good luck!

Breastfed babies CAN'T overeat. But I second wondering why you started cereal so young? (GERD, etc.?) There's almost no nutrition in it (it's just straight sugar/ aka simple carbohydrate), as opposed to milk which is proteins, and fats, sugars, vitamins, and minerals + h20. (milk is a complete food)

Is he thirstier because of the cereal? Maybe. More likely he's HUNGRIER. Try just eating bread (or celery would actually be more similar to how well you can digest it compared to how babies digest) for two meals. You'll be WAY hungrier for the 3rd meal, because you got no nutrition from the first 2. Then try and keep that up for several days. By 3rd mealtime you're going to be massively stuffing yourself. (part of why so many diets fail is that they do something similar). And you're not growing. For a better comparison, imagine back when you were preggers and starving. If you were only allowed to eat celery for 1/2 the day ... would you have SNARFED as soon as you got the opportunity for real food?

Some babies can digest solids as early as a few months old, but it's as rare as babies who can't until they're 18 mo old. Most can between 9 & 12 months. We start EARLY with solids in this country (at 6mo) because of WWII (women had to be on the production line and couldn't take their children with them, and solids were better than the cobbled together formulas made at home). Unless there's a medical reason to be doing solids... I would back off on them for a few weeks and see if his digestive problems vanish. If they DO vanish, to then hold off until he's 9mo to 1year old. Also see if he starts growing faster, when the cereal is removed. (One reason people like to start solids young is that they don't nurse as frequently. Later on, things we can't digest run through us like a freight train, but as babies they just sit in our digestive systems, and sit, and sit as our bodies TRY to digest them. Cereal digests easier than anything else -because it's straight sugar- but it still takes AGES. It's rather similar to eating cardboard. We can do it, but we don't get a lot out of it except for feeling bloated.) Since the cereal doesn't have the building blocks for bones and muscles, babies who are on diets with a lot of cereal tend to grow slower than those on formula or milk. Cereal babies get CHUBBY (which is good), but they don't tend to get the muscle and bone and brain develoment as their peers who are strictly on breastmilk or formula.

BTW... Not trying to bash. I have NO idea how much cereal he's eating, nor if there's a medical reason for it (many babies have acid reflux so badly that without the cereal they can't keep the healthy food -aka milk or formula- down).

Please DO NOT take our advice over your pediatrician's.

There is no need for a baby that age to get water. I do believe it's fine for them to be on cereal as our pediatrician had us start solids with both kids at 4 months as well.

However, none of us are medically trained in the nutritional needs of an infant, so please council your pediatrician. Both of my kids were chunks. Our daughter just made it back on the growth chart. She was enormous, and I was SO embarrassed. I'd ask the pediatrician at each visit, and his response was always the same, "Babies do not know how to overeat, they learn it from us. Your baby is fine. When she's 2 and she's in the same percentile, we'll talk. Until then, keep working on a healthy baby"

Good luck. Please continue to take your pediatrician's advice. We all mean well, but we're simply not experts.

FIrst, little babies can die if you give them water because it causes their electrolytes to be out of balence. I don't think it is the water per se but the imbalence of water with other nutrients.

Socond, water will fill him up so he won't eat and he won't get the nutrients he needs. An infant CAN"t and WON't overeat. He can regulate himself. If he throws up, it could be normal spitting up or it could be something else. It is NOT overeating. Call your pediatrician and ask about it.

I suspect that, if anything, you may have rushed the cereal. I know the rules keep changing, but I do believe 4 months is still on the very early end and most people wait until closer to 6. He may not be handling it well. Most babies can get all they need from breatmilk until 6 months. And then, they only take small amounts of food for several months and rely on breastmilk. Breastmilk is usily easily digested. Did this all start with cereal?

Water is not suppose to be given to infants under the age of 1 year. Their kidneys are too immature to handle the water. It can cause 'water intoxication' which is the primary reason for seizures in healthy babies.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/931669/infant_wa...

"Babies get enough water from breast milk or formula, giving an infant additional water to drink causes infant water intoxication by diluting the sodium in babies blood and flushing it out of babies body. That reduces the electrolytes in the babies body, altering brain activity, causing seizures to occur in the otherwise healthy infant."

Nutritionally he only "needs" breast milk at this time. He won't over eat nursing. DO NOT GIVE HIM WATER! It is dangerous to give babies water. I would just nurse him on demand.

I didn't even give my daughter cereal until she was 6 months. She was breastfed only and did great.

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Babies do not need water. In fact, a breastfed baby gets everything he needs from your breast milk. There is no need for formula, cereal, or water. You should not start cereal until at least six months, and if you are exclusively nursing, they need nothing else for the entire first year!

Be sure you are completely emptying the first breast before moving on to the other one. The hindmilk is fattier and more filling, so he will feel fuller and stop eating. If he is switched to the other breast too soon, he will be getting more of the waterier foremilk and not feeling the 'fullness' of the hindmilk.

A little sip to wash his mouth is fine, but he should be drinking mostly breast milk or formula at this stage. In fact, a little formula in a cup or bottle would be better than water, or a quick drink from the breast. Rice cereal has no nutritional value, and is merely for training to eat, so do not count on it as an actual meal. Once he starts on more complex grains like oat, and on vegis and fruits, than you can do the feedings without milk as a big part of the meal still. Most of his nutrition should come from milk or formula until age one.

My oldest also threw up regularly, after every meal it seemed. We tried feeding less, feeding slower, you name it we tried, and nothing worked but time. At around 8 1/2 months he out grew it and has been fine ever since.

Something you may not know about breastfed babies is that they are able to regulate the amount of milk they get out of your breast while they are suckling. Just because they are latched on doesn't mean they are getting milk out (though obviously they do when they are feeding). What this means, is that if a baby is taking in milk while they are nursing then they NEED that milk. Otherwise, they would simply be suckling without stimulating the milk (which is what they do when the comfort nurse).

Nursing after the food is his way of washing everything down. Just like when adults eat and have a glass of water to wash their food down. It's perfectly normal and natural. It's one of the reasons that breast milk is broken down into foremilk (the watery milk that comes out at the beginning of nursing that helps hydrate the baby but doesn't contain a lot of calories or fat) and hindmilk (the fatty milk that comes at the end of the nursing session that is calorie and fat rich).

Having said all that, I started letting my breastfed baby have a sippy with water in it when he turned 6 months old. I DO NOT want to give him juice at this age so the only alternative it pumped breastmilk or water. He LOVES the water. He never drinks much at a sitting (probably less than an ounce) but just enough to wash down his food or give him a quick drink while he is playing. It NEVER replaces a breastfeeding session though. If he wants to nurse he still gets to nurse, even after the water. At this age, baby knows best when it comes to what they need food wise so I just follow his lead. If you are interested, you could start looking into baby sign language. Babies as early as 5 months old already be correctly using simple signs, the sign for milk for example. It is a very useful tool to help you get through the time before they become verbal. I have already tough my baby the sign for milk (he is 9 months and have been using it for months already, not consistently for every feed but I think that's because I'm not consistent in using it myself) and am now working on the sign for water, more, all done and food.

Wow, this has become long winded. I'm sorry. I would like to address the spitting up before I'm done though. This could be from a number of things. If it is something that just started when you introduced the cereal then it could be a sensitivity to the cereal its self. If you stop the cereal and the spitting up stops then you know to avoid it for a little while and either switch to another cereal (or another low allergen food like squash, avocado, banana or apple sauce which are all perfectly acceptable first baby foods) or wait until the now recommended 6 months to try again.

If the spitting up has been going on all along then your child is either one of those children who just spits up a lot due to having an underdeveloped esophagus, has silent reflux and/or he is sensitive to something in your breast milk (like dairy, soy or caffeine which can cause the reflux to begin with and will need to be removed completely from your and his diet to fix the problem). It is possible that if you son has silent reflux that the cereal may actually be aggravating this and thus your son's insistence on nursing like crazy after eating because it is soothing the pain of the reflux. The spitting up then occurs because of the reflux, not the milk he just drank.

Did the doctor talk about the possibility of him having GERD. My grandson was diagnosed with GERD as a baby because he spit up more than typical.

I also suggest that it may be too early for cereal. I've read the suggestion on this site to have baby breast feed first and then give him the cereal of you thinks he needs the cereal. That way he'll get the most nutrition first.

Cereal may not have many nutrients but it does have calories in the form of carbohydrates. This is one reason you want him to get the main source of his nutrition first.

And I'd check with the pediatrician before giving him water. I remember my mother giving her babies boiled water and then when I was older learning not to give water. The recommendation goes back and forth.

I would be more concerned with the vomiting than anything else and I wouldn't stop until I had some answers. Talk to your ped about the water.

Our son was also a "big" boy. He was strictly breastfed till 9 months old and then we started him on baby food, table food, and a sippy cup of water.

I'd hold off on giving him the water for now and take a break from cereal...... Just nurse him when he's hungry for a few days and see how he does.

Our kids were also BIG SPITTERS! The doc wasn't worried as they gained weight just fine.

Did you peditrician consider he has reflux? If it's throwing up and not spitting up, that could be the problem. It may soothe his throat to eat/drink, which is why he always seems dissatisfied. It's not good to give a 4 month old water, they should get all of their hydration from breastmilk, and at 20lbs and 4 months, that seems really big...probably not out of the normal, but big. Most kids don't hit 20 lbs u ntil they aer clsoe to 1 year old. I'd talk to the pedi and/or get a 2nd opinion from another pedi.

What Rachael D said. Introducing cereal too early can cause allergies.

I was told that it is not okay to give them water till they are 12 mo old. I mean you can use it to mix the rice ect if you dont mix w/ breast milk but not okay to just drink it. I really would ask your dr. of course.
also pumping is not a good sign of how much milk you have as you will not get the same amount out w/ a pump as you will w/ your baby. I could not get anything out w/ pumping but was able to nurse my DD fine and am still doing so as requested at 20 mo.
I was also told you dont need nursery water that poland springs is a good choice for your LO. make sure you check the water out bc some bottled water is actually just tap water! I did not know that.
I dont know about the throw up, is it just baby spit up or actual throw up? my DD had reflex and spit up many many times a day, it was so awful.
also waking up every two hours to nurse sadly is not abnormal at his age. nursing babies wake more than formula ones. I would contact a LAC or a LLL . message me if you need help finding one. xo

We started giving our son water when he was 4 months old - he is 5 now he is one of a few of our friends who children drink water - Almost all of his freinds only want juice or flavored water - too much sugar is not good for them for their teeth. Nothing worse then a toddler filled with sugar.

I was told there was plenty of water in the breast milk. I just thought the doc wanted her getting the full nutritional value from the milk.

My mother gave all of us water and I gave my older daughter water with no problems. But the rules have changed since then.

The throwing up may be due to an overactive letdown when nursing. That is a classic symptom. I would consult your local LLL leader.

spitting up is common and normal and he probably just has a little gas but i doubt he is overeating. If he is actually throwing up that is much more of a concern! I would take to your dr.

I have given my baby water, especially, during this hot summer. If we get thirsty, then why would a baby not get thirsty too? They probably don't need much, just an ounce or two, to quench their thirst. I don't see a problem with it.

Have you thought about another growth spurt? My daughter did this at 6 weeks old just nursed and nursed and threw up and then when she and everything was cleaned up nursed again and went to sleep. He could be doing so so that you make more milk. The cereal thing should stop. The water thing should stop. In the "days of old" boiled water was given to children but then they did not know what they know now about water and babies. So drink more water momma and nurse your baby. By now he sould be nursing about every four hours for about 10-20 minutes a side. Do check with your doctor. The other S.