Juice?

At what age did you introduce juice? How much do I dilute it?

TIA

 

At what age did you introduce juice? How much do I dilute it?

TIA

 

I think the girls had it 1st at around 10 months. They only have it once or twice a week. I dilute it half and half.

 

I've never given mine juice except a bday parties and things where juice boxes are the beverage offered or when they're sick and I mix a little bit with pedialyte to flavor it. There isn't any reason to give them juice since it has no nutritional value really. If you do give it to them, I would give them no more than 4oz. of 100% juice per day. You can water it down to make it 8oz. or whatever size your cups are. I've heard that white grape is better than apple. HTH

 

quote:
Originally posted by melissao:
I've never given mine juice except a bday parties and things where juice boxes are the beverage offered or when they're sick and I mix a little bit with pedialyte to flavor it. There isn't any reason to give them juice since it has no nutritional value really. If you do give it to them, I would give them no more than 4oz. of 100% juice per day. You can water it down to make it 8oz. or whatever size your cups are. I've heard that white grape is better than apple. HTH


That is what I thought as well, but we just went to our 18-month check up and saw a different ped who said to start giving them juice. The weird thing is that I told her both kids love fruit, but she said they need "variety" -- guess water and milk no longer cuts it?

 

That is strange! Personally, I would stick with the milk and water. If they're drinking water & milk and getting plenty of fluid I think you're fine. There's no need to introduce the extra sugar into their diet. Whole fruit is much better b/c they get the fiber as well.

 

I think ours get juice at school because it's served for snack and I don't bother to object, but I never give them juice. So far they seem happy to drink water. If they started refusing water, I might give them diluted juice just to get some fluid into them.

 

quote:
There isn't any reason to give them juice since it has no nutritional value really.



I disagree. If you give 100% juice it is no different than eating an apple,grapes, or an orange and it does have nutritional value. My pedi has had me give 6-12oz of 100% juice a day since 12 months. It is better to water it down though, because they need the water too. In addition to that, we never suffer from constipation.

Angela

 

Mine have gotten it since they were about 9 months old. Our ped told me the same thing, that if it's 100% juice, that it's just the same as a fruit on the nutrion diet scale. My girls love it. I agree that they need to have quite a bit of milk and water. However, I believe that they can have juice as a reward or even with a snack.

 

We didn't start until after a year. They get 1/2 juice and 1/2 water maybe 2-3 times a month, if that. They actually haven't had any juice since Thanksgiving.

 

At that age we diluted it about 10%. Now we go closer to 50-50. I don't mind that they drink juice, they don't drink too much. But I agree that it's not the best way to get fruit into them. The real thing is better. Nonetheless they like it, and I like to get the fluids into them too. They drink a lot of straight water as well.

I do hope that when we go to the dentist in a few months he's not like, uh, so you've been giving them juice? (There's a lot of sugar in juice, 100% or not).

 

I introduced it at 13 months in an attempt to get them to drink something other than milk because they were drinking too much milk and it was constipating them. I started out with 1/2 juice to 1/2 water and then diluted it more as they started drinking it. Eventually, I had them all the way down to water so they didn't need juice anymore.

 

quote:
I do hope that when we go to the dentist in a few months he's not like, uh, so you've been giving them juice? (There's a lot of sugar in juice, 100% or not).


You got that right! Milk will do it too if they go to bed drinking it. We've been brushing since the arrival of our first tooth. They both even brush their own teeth now with supervision and a little help. That is the key, IMHO.

Angela

 

I gave juice when they were about six months and I was trying to entice them to use the sippies. This was only for about a month and I diluted it 50/50. I no longer give them any juice. It's either water or milk.