Bottled water for baby?

[Jogsandwalks]

Ok so I live in a hard water area and the limescale is so strong, it's horrible. I put water into my baby's bottle and it has a white dust settling in the bottom. It's so cloudy when I shake it. It makes me feel like I'm giving him dirty water.

I want to know if any mums out there give their baby bottled spring water? The NHS website said to check the sodium content in the bottled water and make sure it is below a certain level. My basic Aldi spring water is below the stated level so surely it must be fine right?

He's 5 and a half months old but he's got diarrhoea atm so is getting dehydrated very easily that's why I'm giving him water between feeds.

Has anyone else given their little one bottled water be that in their formula or just to drink after boiling?

[Seb9]

We used to have a Brita water filter when we lived in a hard water area. Could you filter the water for baby before giving it to them? I grew up in a hard water area and I loved the water growing up, I remember going somewhere that didn't have cloudy water and being disappointed that it didn't do the magic going clear trick 😁

[Jogsandwalks in reply to Seb9]

Ooh I'm the opposite. I really dislike cloudy water 😊. But yes, of I do just need to change my jug filter. I'm just being lazy

[Seb9 in reply to Jogsandwalks]

Now when I go up there I can't believe it is normal, we didn't have a water filter growing up so every glass was cloudy, when I first moved though I hated the taste of the water. I missed the cloudy stuff. 😂

[Purpledoggy]

The bottled waters we buy from Tesco and Ocado are much lower in solutes than our tapwater (v high limescale but also relatively higher in sodium and all the others where data available). I do use bottled when boiling as we don’t put tapwater in the kettle due to the limescale, but also just use tapwater for drinking as-is, as generally all tapwater here should be safe for everyone. Xx

[Jogsandwalks in reply to Purpledoggy]

So you've used bottled water to feed your baby? How old was your baby when you first gave them water?

[Purpledoggy in reply to Jogsandwalks]

I have given him formula made with boiled bottled water a few times-first time he was about 2w, then a few times a couple of weeks ago at 6m old (he’s been EBF otherwise). We buy Ashbeck from Tesco or M&S still water from Ocado, both low in solutes. I give him tap water in his sippy when we give him solids. Xx

[Twiglet2]

Hi my health visitor gave me a list of bottled waters that were safe for baby (we were going to Portugal when he was 5.5 months and wanted to make sure I could give him some water in a sippy cup to stay hydrated whilst over there, we gave him the premade formula so didn’t have to think of the milk though) Evian and Volvic were on the list. I also boiled the tap water then let it cool if I was giving him water in the UK until about 7 months (but we are in Scotland and our tap water is lovely).

I wonder if just giving premade formula is just as cheap as making up powder formula with bottled water think (and potentially quite a bit less sodium and a LOT less hassle )? All we ever gave was premade until cows milk at 12 months xx

[Jogsandwalks in reply to Twiglet2]

Up north water tastes so good! You're so lucky to have clear nice Scottish water. Down south here we have to chew on a chlorine soup it's so thick! The premade formula is quite expensive compared to powdered so I can't afford that but it is good to know that Volvic and Evian are on the safe list. Thank you

[Bigblueskies]

Hi I had a similar issue recently where we are staying on holiday. I started filtering baby’s water through cone coffee filters and that worked really well. I put the coffee filter in a large tea strainer over the baby bottles to pour the water through, for formula and also for his drinking bottle.

I also discovered that some bottled water is labelled as low sodium. I now use that instead of tap water. When I checked the sodium contents to compare the low sodium water to standards brands, it was 1/5th of the amount so if you read the labels you should see a huge difference of the Na amounts in the water.

[Jogsandwalks in reply to Bigblueskies]

Genius idea about the coffee filters. I am going to get me some of those. What is the brand of bottled water you use now?

[Bigblueskies in reply to Jogsandwalks]

We are in Greece on holiday so I had to find local brands but I was told Evian is ok and it seems to be international enough. The coffee filters worked really well though, I’m only reverting to bottled water because it’s a bit complicated when we’re away from home.

[Ell493]

Do you have a baby drink with electrolytes there? In the US we have Pedialyte. It's better than water for hydration at his age.

[Jogsandwalks in reply to Ell493]

I remember there was Smart Water which used to make that claim that they had electrolytes but I never really understood it tbh. Is Pedialyte aimed at babies specifically? We don't have that in the UK

[Ell493 in reply to Jogsandwalks]

Yes, it's specifically for babies who are dehydrated. The adult version is Gatorade or Powerade, they have added sugar, the baby version doesn't. If you can't find anything like that I would ask your doctor. Water in babies can cause even more electrolyte imbalance which can affect their kidneys.

[Cheekymonkey85 in reply to Jogsandwalks]

We have dioralyte in the uk, I assume it’s the same thing. Might be worth a trip to a pharmacy to see what they recommend if your little one is still struggling x