GD soon to be weaned - Water issues

That newspaper article! How does anyone seemingly educated not understand about the basic essentials of a balanced diet like high quality protein and proper vital vitamin intake. Calcium and vitamin D are hard to get from vegetable sources.

I would be prepared to bring up a baby as a vegetarian but not as a vegan. The basic recommedations for small babies once "allowed" cows milk is I think, full fat milk until 2yrs. The brain needs these fats.

A vegan diet is not suitable for a small child.
I know that some people will argue that it is, but there have been cases reported about children with malnutrition because their parents thought they were giving them a 'healthy vegan diet'.
www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/healthy-living/how-our-vegan-diet-made-us-ill-848322.html

Hippy Dippy Totnes
No offence, I do like Totnes but it is a centre for vegan, yurt dwelling alternative thinkers.

This baby is 18months! I assume you mean mum is weaning her off breast milk and that she is eating a normal toddler diet.
I would worry about the "healing water" and what is in that.
A lot of "natural spring waters" can have a mineral balance that is not suitable for a small child.
If your tap water is potable just boil and cool it.

Vincentka® contains the biogenic elements (see analysis elevator sources) such as lithium, rubidium, cesium, copper, zinc, vanadium, chromium, cobalt in physiological proportional representation and is suitable as a natural nutritional supplement for athletes, children, pregnant women and convalescents.

I worry about what other fads that child will be subjected to.

I googled "healing water" and found this article, skeptoid.com/episodes/4139 which makes it clear to me that "healing water" is just another trap for people anxious about their health to fall into.

Where does this baby's mother get the stuff from? Does she buy it in crates from the health-food shop, or has she invested in a machine to produce it (at $2,000 to $6,0000) ? Either way, she will be paying through the nose to have her natural concerns for her child soothed.

What ? I think this water has too much in the way of salt and minerals for a young child, probably better for clearing the nose when one has a cold.

I too would ask for everything to be brought with the baby. When we lived in France and ran luxury holiday homes we were often asked to get mineral water in for babies so they didn't have to drink the tap water. We looked through the shelves at the supermarket and found several makes with a little picture of a baby sucking a bottle on the label - meaning the water was suitable.

Surely being back at work doesn't stop her providing milk? DD always had some in the fridge and freezer and she was able to use an office at work to express milk during the day. She went back to work when GS2 was 6 months old and at 3 he's atill not completely weaned.

Bottled water should not be given to children under 5. It has quantities of minerals that could be dangerous to small children. They should only drink fresh tap water.

Good point Lucky. Surely the little one is on a mixed solid diet by now. Does she need breast milk? I would agree that cooled boiled water is probably enough for her to drink.

I googled the name and there is nothing special about this water. It is just a mineral water from a spa in the Czech Republic that claims it comes from a 'healing' spring.

I would be most concerned to find out what minerals are dissolved in the water. Many mineral waters are high in sodium, salt to you and me, and drinking a water with a high concentration of salt could be harmful to an 18 month old child.

It would be interesting to have an analysis of this so-called 'healing water'. Is there any information available?

Does the 'healing water' come in a plastic bottle?
Not very ecologically friendly.

Not mineral water, there are too many salts in it. And healing water would contain even more - very dangerous for a baby I would have thought.
I haven't come across a reverse osmosis unit.
Does it have the same result as a cheap and cheerful filter jug?
Our water does smell and taste very chlorinated and DD always uses the filter jug when she comes as they are used to drinking filtered rain water (no mains where they live). Perhaps theirs is a reverse osmosis unit. She thinks our tap water tastes disgusting.

Some alternative 'milks' don't contain enough calcium for a growing baby or toddler.

I presume this child at 18 months actually consumes something other than breast milk.

Mineral water is specifically contraindicated for babies. Tell her to provide you with everything you need - or she thinks the child needs. You are doing her a favour by looking after the babe while she returns to work. I look after two of my youngest DDs children and she recognises that "Grandma's house, Grandma's rules" - that is not to say that I do not try and follow what I know she does, but she also knows that there are a few Grandma rituals etc. that do not happen at her place.

I once tasted the supposedly healing water at Cheltenham spa (or was it Bath?). Well, anyway, it was disgusting. I wouldn't give it to a child.

I'm always intrigued by toddlers not wanting to be weaned because my three all weaned themselves before I expected it!

What do natives in Tenerife give their kids to drink, I wonder?

It doesn't sound at all suitable for weaning an 18 month old, which isn't mentioned in the blurb either.

What does an 18 month baby need healed from?

Is mineral water not full of salts? I thought New Age people were all about going back to a more 'natural' way of life. Buying bottled water for a baby strikes me rather as the solution to a first world problem ?

Good one. If I'm going to drink it to "regulate the metabolism of alcoholic excess", I think I'll buy one bottle of healing water to every 10 bottles of
. (That would count as excess, right?)

Now you've got me wondering why DIL's mother is so adament about it! (Too bad there's no devil-smiley here)

shall we try some?

You first.

I would really like to know where you read that. This 'healing water' stuff seems to me like turbo-mineral water! It smells (and tastes) horrible. It's hardly a wonder that GD doesn't want to stop being nursed.

I used to rear dairy calves and our house backed on to the yard.

Many a night I laid awake listening to the mournful 'moos' from across the yard, the only consolation being that the cows soon seemed to forget their heartache when their udders filled and they need milking.

They don't moo in pain from over-filled udders. It's just a form of communication.

I feel so much better to know that I'm not the only one out there! And thank you all, the Christening was lovely. Even more lovely to see that the spouses, ex spouses and new spouses were all capable of being good examples to the children. In regard to social behaviour at least.

The 'different strokes' is just something I'll leave up to the DIL and her New Age family. But I think you are right. We do make an effort, so they should at least cart the stuff up here. I don't mind paying for it. A friend of mine regularly treats her grandson to a hot dog (he does love them), which his mother has forbidden. And I'll admit I would like to do the same, really. I think I will draw the line at 'healing water'. It seems it's £ 5 a bottle. And it tastes perfectly awful!

It might have been worth mentioning that we live on Teneriffe half of the year. Back now (obviously), but the visits we get there tend to be rather extended. We were told that drinking even the boiled water wasn't OK, which is why we got the system to begin with. And yes, that's what we drink, cook with, etc.

Do you think this might help the argument? (It's at about the middle of the page. I don't know how to get a link to go where I want it yet). There must have been something about bacteria and parasites, but I can't seem to find it either.

Not disagreeing with you Jings just stating what friends in the farming community have said when I complained it was cruel. Cattle bred for beef do not have huge udders and are allowed to feed their calves naturally. They may have a better quality of life than dairy cows but it will be a short one.

I reckon that the worst aspect of life as a dairy cow would be the boredom. Two visits daily to the same milking parlour, back to the same field with nothing to do except graze and nowadays an annual visit from the vet to start a pregnancy - a bit of fun with the bull is too random apparently.

What do you use to make tea and coffee, Nanaholly? If you boil your tap water and let it cool, won't it be fine for the wee one?

If my daughter-in-law wanted a particular kind of water for my grandchild when I was looking after it, I'd expect daughter-in-law to provide the particular water. If she didn't I'd use my own nous and probably boil my tap water, or whatever water I used for making my own drinks.

No Granny23. The bellowing I refer to is definitely when a calf has been taken away.