Reducing Milk for a 2 Year Old

My pediatrician said that my daughter only needed about 16 oz milk a day. As for fluids, I do let mine have about 4-5 oz of orange juice, and another thing you might try is diluted ice tea. There are a lot of herbal decaffeinated teas that are sweeter without any sugar. Try the berry ones. Just brew the tea and dilute with water and ice to taste if you don't have an ice tea maker.

As for carbs, my daughter loves pasta so that is her primary carb source. You could also try oatmeal or even cereal. Joe's O's are pretty low in suger.

My almost 2 year old loves cups with straws. The built-in ones are best because then they can't pull them out to play with. You could try getting a new, special cup just for water. Also, ice is fun to shake around. I give my son water throughout the day. He usually doesn't drink a whole cupful at once, so I offer it multiple times, especially after we've been outside.

That said, be sure if you are replacing some milk with water that she is still getting 3 servings of dairy each day, maybe from cheese or yogurt, etc. Good luck!

My daughter likes to drink water with ice in it...you can buy the molds and make different shapes, try giving her water with apple juice flavered ice in a fun shape!! Or my daughter likes water with a slice of lemon, she picks lemons off Grandma's tree and then she likes to watch me cut them and put a slice in her water!

My kids drink a lot of water all day long and we add ice, sometimes cubed sometimes crushed. If you are outside and they need more water and they don't know it I bring out a big kid cup of crushed ice and they cool down and get the water they need. My almost 2 yr old loves sport bottles, because that is what big sisters have and mommy. Yesterday at walmart I just bought 4 more bottles in there little seasonal section (the colored plastic plates and picnic type things) and they were on sale for 2/1.00 instead of 1.24 a peice. They have no thing that you need to pull up to open on the spout, you just suck a drink out and so far didn't leak. I rarely ever give my kids juice, we don't have it in the house and they really don't care, train them young and they really won't know the difference.
I hope this helps a bit, the price of milk hurts, bad! I have also cut back on serving milk.
E.

On the rare occasions that my daughter (2 1/2 years old) gets juice, it is at least 50% water. She loves tomato juice and V8 Splash. The V8 is pretty expensive, but watered down lasts a long time.

To make water more exciting---try a new bottle (let her choose), add a citrus wedge, very weak herbal tea, add a tablespoon of frozen juice concentrate. My DD is also allowed to fill her own cup from the water dispenser--this makes water so exciting.

I know that you didn't ask but I have to be very careful about the amount of salt my daughter gets. When she eats commercially made crackers (or anything really salty), she wants ALOT of milk. I think it quenches her thirst more than water. If I cut back on salt, she is happy with water.

HTH

Have you tried just adding enough juice just to flavor the water. My daughter is a fish and at almost three this satisfies her and then she doesn't get a lot of juice.

I'd water down the milk a little bit. 3 glasses is plenty, so I wouldn't worry about her not getting enough. I hate limiting the kids milk too, but sometimes you have to! None of my kids would drink water either, but when I got a reusable water bottle for myself, they couldn't keep their hands off of it! That was last summer, and just this morning, when their choices were fruit juice or tea for breakfast, they actually asked for water! They like it now. We tried getting them their own water bottles, but they weren't ever as popular as 'mine'.