Children and Healthy Water Intake | Tennessee Valley Urology Center
As a parent, you want to do everything you can to not only help your child stay healthy but to build a foundation for good health over her or his lifetime. Among the most important parts of that is ensuring your child stays properly hydrated, which helps with whole-body health.
How Much Water Should Children Drink?
It’s important to note experts do not recommend giving small babies any water in most cases, since they get all the hydration they need from milk or formula. However, once they start eating solid foods, which most experts and doctors recommend start when the child is at least 6 months old, it’s a good idea to begin with sips of water that can help with digestion.
Again, a doctor should give a specific recommendation, but to help keep the digestive and urinary systems healthy, among others, about a half cup of water is a good daily mark.
As with adults, there are certain periods and circumstances in children’s lives when getting enough water is particularly important and it may be necessary to go beyond normal recommendations. For instance, when children are active outside in summer or any time they may lose more water in sweat. Additionally, certain conditions, such as fevers and diarrhea, can put a child at risk for dehydration, so it’s important to keep them well hydrated during those times.
Research backed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine offers these recommendations for water intake by children:
- 1–3 years of age: 1.3 L of total water per day, including approximately 0.9 L from beverages
- 4–8 years: 1.7 L per day, 1.2 L from beverages
At age 9, the recommendations split for boys and girls.
For boys:
- 9–13 years: 2.4 L per day, 1.8 L from beverages
- 14–18 years: 3.3 L per day, 2.6 L from beverages
For girls:
- 9–13 years: 2.1 L per day, 1.6 L from beverages
- 14–18 years: 2.3 L per day, 1.8 L from beverages
Ways to Get Water Into the Routine
When you’re dealing with toddlers, getting them started drinking water is easy with some and a regular struggle with others. The best way for many is to offer it as the only alternative to milk when the child reaches the age of 12 months and/or a doctor advises the parents to add a second beverage to the menu.
Keeping this limited helps prevent children from becoming accustomed to other drinks, such as often sugar-loaded juices, that they may want to drink more often than healthier alternatives. Once those are introduced, it’s a good idea to limit their consumption to no more than one glass per day.
Tennessee Valley Urology Center provides care to help children to adults keep their urinary tracts healthy and treat ailments. We’re here to provide compassionate, expert care when you need us.