Water for Babies and How Advice Changes Over Time

The American Academy of Pediatrics states that "until your baby starts eating solid foods, he'll get all the water he needs from breastmilk or formula."​

After they are six months old, infants do begin to need some fluoride, and so that is a good time to introduce some extra water into their diet, especially if they are breastfeeding, or simply prepare their iron-fortified infant formula with fluoridated tap water.

But before six months, the average healthy baby doesn't need any extra water or fluoride. So if not breastfeeding, use water that has been purified, deionized, demineralized, distilled, or filtered by reverse osmosis to get rid of fluoride to prepare formula.

While a younger infant wouldn't usually need extra water, a few ounces is sometimes recommended if an infant is constipated. For a younger infant, though, you should usually talk to your pediatrician before giving your baby extra plain water.

Another situation where you would give an older child extra water would be when they were getting overheated, but that shouldn't be happening to a newborn or infant.

If your baby is sick, she might also need extra fluids, but water wouldn't usually be the best choice in that situation. An oral rehydration solution, like Pedialyte, would be better, and again, under the supervision of a pediatrician.

Ideas and opinions over things like this change over the years. There are probably things you do for your baby, who likely turned out just fine, as many grandparents like to remind us, that we don't recommend now. Some of these things are extremely important, like the new recommendations to keep newborns and infants sleeping on their backs to reduce the risk of SIDS, and others are less important, like this one about water or some of the guidelines about the order of introducing solid baby foods.

But also consider how you would feel when you were a new mom raising your daughter for the first time and someone was there telling you what to do or telling you that your pediatrician was wrong. It is great that you are available to offer your help and expertise, but sometimes it is best to just offer your advice and opinions and why you did it the way you did and let a new mom decide what is best for her baby. She needs to have confidence in her pediatrician too and the 'advice of the day' is that you not give water to younger infants unless there is a specific reason to do so.