Children's drinks.....

As I type here, my tot is happily standing in front of me rejoicing in his new skill of drinking from an open cup.  I can tell from the look on his face between sips, and the giggles, that he knows exactly how clever he is!

For some time now, he had ditched the soft topped sippy cups, preferring to drink from the same type of drink bottle as Muma does....even the exact same one most of the time!

We haven't really offered him the open cups on a regular basis, coz he sticks with his bottle, but if he asks to have some drink out of one we happily oblige.  Every week at playgroup he gets an open cup at morning tea, and if we're at a friends house and the other kids are drinking out of a cup, he likes to have one too.

My point of this blog post though, is what children are drinking.

Do you know what is being poured into my son's cup?  What he is watching flow into his drinking vessel, with a huge smile and squealing "nummy nummy"?

It's WATER!!!!!!

My son loves his water, just as much as he loves his booby juice(which is to the point of obsession!).

I think it's great, he has two drink choices (breast milk and water) and he loves both of them.

Soooo, the question is, why is everyone else...including his Daddy....got an obsession with getting him onto juice, flavoured cow's milk, or the big one....soft drink????

Too many kids these days are thoughtlessly given sugary and acid drinks as a part of their staple diet, and I'm baffled as to why? 

I feel I'm failing my son in the food department....crappy reasons like being time poor or tired led me down the path of doom to processed, ready made and even take-away foods.  But when it comes to his liquids, at least I'm getting that right!!

So why is everyone so keen to treat it like it's wrong?  Trying to sneak him a different drink here and there, joking that he'll get to have a soft drink for his birthday.

I am proud he doesn't drink soft drink and juices!!  Not only are they extra sugars and acids that our children don't need in their diets, but they are incredibly bad for their little teeth....and as a dental nurse, I have seen many a child come in to see a dentist, mouth full of rotten teeth, from poor habits.  While I can't say for sure the children's teeth are for the fact of what they drink, I can tell you that I have had plenty of patients...many tradies....who admit to drink gallons of coke or similar, and almost every tooth in their mouth had acid wear around the gums of the lower teeth......solely due to the acidic drinks sitting there around the teeth after gulping it down.

It probably is these visions of past patients that make me wary of introducing these drinks to my son(even though, hypercritically, yes I do drink them myself), but it is mostly coz I don't see that he needs them when he is perfectly happy with his water. :)

Oh and....by the time I've finished typing this, he was a bit over the cup and started playing with the water and sticking his hand in it, Muma ended up with it spilt all over my knee......so lucky for me that it is water and not soft drink!! No sticky spills ;)