My toddler will not drink anything but koolaid and chocolate milk?

Question

How do I get my 2 year old to drink orange juice, apple juice, water and other healthy drinks...? Is it bad that he wont drink anything else? I water down his koolaid so it doesnt taste good but he drinks it anyway..please help.. I want my son to get all his vitamins and nutrients out of healthy fluids but I cant force him..ne advice?

Answer 1

It must be a stage. My 2 year old son is the same way. This works, though. I buy him a Bug Juice drink in the store. It's like Kool -Aid. Then after he drinks it, I fill it up with my
own recipe juice drink.
I mix 1 quart apple juice, 1 quart orange juice and 1 package of
Blue colored Kool Aid....then I pour some of it into his Bug Juice Bottle. It's the same color as the green Bug Juice and He drinks it without a problem.
For the milk, I go to Sonic or McDonald's get him a kids meal with white milk and tell him he can't play with the toy until the milk is gone. (Then when we get home, I wash and refill the Sonic plastic milk bottle.)
I've also put red, green , or blue food coloring in white milk and
poured it ito a Bug Juce bottle and my son drinks it.

Answer 2

Most toddler cups are colored so they can't see whats in it, so just give him 100% juice. Chances are, he'll like the taste just as much as koolaid. And be sure that it is 100% juice, NOT hawaiian punch or sunny delight, because those have way too much sugar and articifial dyes. Many people don't know that artificial dyes that are in many kids drinks and snacks are not good for children! 2 years old is hardly the time to worry about ADHD, but dyes such as red #40 actually worsen ADHD symptoms. And there really is no reason for these dyes anyway, so get natural snacks and 100% juices that contain no dyes.

For the chocolate milk, just reduce the amount of chocolate added each time till he is eventually drinking white milk.

Also, someone mentioned vitamins. Any vitamin is better than non, but also check the ingredients, as flinstones and many other popular vitamins also contain artificial dyes. A great vitamin that my 2 year old son uses is the Complete Essentials from Arbonne. This vitamin even has broccoli in it! Feel free to email me at [e-mail] for more information about Arbonne's vitamins and nutrition products.

And the trick to vitamins, at least this is what worked with my son, is giving it to him at story time. He sits in my lap and eats his vitamin while I read him his bedtime story.

Good luck!!

Answer 3

the boy wont suffer from malnutrition as a result of his drinking only chocolate milk and kool aid.
the chocolate milk is fine for him . the kool aid if you keep on watering it down it should be fine also.
if for some other reason he had to just drink fluids and not eat then carnation instant breakfast is very good for getting the minerals and vitamins he would need into him .
i don't suggest you switch to that but remember it if he has to not eat solids for a time
as for the milk although fine you may also do as you have with the kool aid use less chocolate .
i am thinking that you might be able to add to the kool aid some of the fruit juices that are the same flavor as whatever the kool aid one is that day , i would not let him see you do this but just start with a tiny bit and build up with it.
one more thing is that a child will refuse a food or drink if they are allergic to it not always but often the body just seems to know this and studies have confirmed this as fact .
if you have increased trouble with him and food and drink ask for some allergy tests to be done
over all i think you don't have to worry not now and just try what i wrote and do what you think is good
your his mom and if you don't get freaked out by this little stuff then your going to do a fantastic job raising a healthy child.

Answer 4

Don't get him sugar free drinks as someone else suggested, artifcial sweetners are not good for children. Try mixing some juice in with his kool-aid, but DON"T let him see! Put it in the container it's usually in and just tell him here's your kool-aid sweetie. Make the mix 1 part juice to 4 parts kool-aid to start out with, and gradually increase the amount of juice until that's all he's drinking. Chocolate milk is okay, don't worry about that, it's still got all the calcium and vitamins of regular milk. If you want him to drink more water do what you have been and water down all of his drinks, It'll equal out to a few glasses of water a day. Good luck with your son, I hope this helps.

Answer 5

I would stop buying those things. If they aren't around, he won't drink them. When he asks for something to drink tell him he will get water. My son would throw a fit if I didn't give him milk, so I just started telling him he was having water and I would put the cup on the table where he could reach it and walk away. After a few minutes, he picks the cup up and drinks it. This has gone on for a few months and I think he is finally understanding. He only screams once, then walks over to the table and gets his cup. I stopped giving him juice all together because that's all he wanted. I just stopped buying it, that even meant my 4 yr old not getting it. Its all sugar anyways. Water is much healthier.
Right now, I'm working on issues of my toddler not eating! We got through the juice stage, now we're workin on food. Ugghh!

Answer 6

Kids usually get "stuck" in a food phase generally because that particular food contains whatever vitamins or nutrients their bodies need at the time. Ask your parents to find out what yours was. Mine was ketchup - Ketchup on bread, ketchup on white rice, and ketchup straight from the packets. Now that I'm all grown up, I can't stand ketchup.

He's getting calcium and vitamin D from the chocolate milk, so its not entirely bad, but limit his intake. Kool-aid isn't bad as long as its sugar free. At least he's being hydrated. (I know of adults who don't drink plain water because it makes them gag.) Consider that he just doesn't like other juices right now and let him eat pieces of fruit instead. The only other thing I would do is to give him half of a Flintstone vitamin every day just to make sure he's getting all of his nutrients in.

Talk to your pediatrician to be on the safe side, but I'm sure he'll be off choco milk and kool-aid pretty soon and onto something else.

Answer 7

Cut out the Kool-aid. Seriously, completely eliminate it. Chocolate milk is better than nothing, but try using less chocolate syrup with each serving. Apple juice and orange juice are not healthy per se, but if you get the fortified ones they are fine options. I use the calcium-fortified apple juice from Target. I would rank your options as such:
1) Milk
2) Chocolate milk- yes, it's sweeter, but it still has tons of nutrients
3) Fortified Juice
4) Water
5) Anything else

You could also give him a "big boy" cup and let him use it only to drink milk (or water, or whatever he's not wanting). This worked with both my girls.

Answer 8

Just don't buy the unhealthy stuff. He'll get thirsty. I wouldn't get too anxious to start him on juice, either. It's better just to drink water and milk and eat the whole fruit. Apple juice is just as full of sugar as the watered-down koolaid you are giving him. It's hard to break the habit but better now than later.

Answer 9

I am raising a 2 year old granddaughter and a 3 year old grandson. I also keep another granddaughter that is also 2. I had the same problem with them this past summer except they wouldn't drink milk either. The girls only wanted apple juice, which more than 4 ounces a day is bad for them and the grandson would only drink chocolate milk. So I took them all three off of everything but water. They got mad at me and screamed and cried and yelled "not this" but I stuck to my guns.
I did that all day on day one, then on day two I gave them plain milk with their breakfast and they all drank it. After breakfast I filled their cups with water again. They cried again but not as bad.and at lunch I gave them gator aide and they drank it. But again after lunch I filled their cups with water. I did this for quit a while and now they will even ask me for water. They will drink anything I put in front of them and I don't have a problem anymore. If it worked on 3 toddlers in my house it will work on the one in your.

Good luck.

Answer 10

You are loading up your child with sugar, sugar, sugar. Water down some apple juice and tell him it is the new Koolaid. If he doesn't want it, don't give him anything to drink, but be sure to have water and milk available to him at all times. Hold out long enough and he will drink something because he will be very thirsty. Good luck.