Drink,

Like with hunger, Ram has difficulty with knowing when he is thirsty. Unless I am there to put water in front of him he won't drink. And I have to be crafty sometimes. For instance, as I am typing this I have realised that he hasn't had anything to drink all day, but if I ask him if he is thirsty he will say no. So I will now go and open a bottle of fizzy water in front of him, and I bet he will reach out for it!

..........

Yep! It worked! He just had half a glass of water, without batting an eyelid!

So I know how to get water into him, but it still takes a lot of effort on my part to remember to offer him water in the right way. I also have those 'bad mum' times when I realise that I have forgotten to water him!

He does get water in other ways, mainly through frozen apple juice lollies. We freeze pressed apple juice (the cloudy type) in dripcatchers and he have free access to them – when I remember to make them!

Luckily at Ursula's place they have ice lollies too. They have a different kind, but Ram manages to cope and we had a constant routine of making and serving up the lollies. It is a very good way of making sure they drink something and fruit juice is much better than what they put into commercial ice lollies. There were some red Tom and Jerry ones we once tried, and Ram ended up on the ceiling!

I have also bought some lovely new water bottles for when we are out and about. I bought them just before we left for York to visit our friends. Ram likes to have fizzy water and it isn't always available on the train, and the old plastic fizzy drink bottle was looking very tattered, and I understand that it isn't safe to keep reusing them. Luckily the new bottles came just before we left.

We were very pleased with them. And very grateful that we had them on the train. And while visiting York! They are very light, yet strong, and they keep the water fizzy too.

When Ram was little I was always taking a bag of food and drink along with the nappies but I had sort of got out of the habit of it. I think I need to get back into the habit of always taking water with us. We recently went shopping for Lego and I was very glad we took a bottle of water with us as the bakery where we were going to buy a treat and a drink had a long queue.

I also took some to the first home ed meeting after the summer break and Ram drank the whole 600ml! I realised that he hadn't been drinking the squash that they make up for the children, and only occasionally asking me for a glass of tap water. He was much more thirsty than I had thought!

The next meeting I took the bottle again, and again he drank the whole thing. Next time I will take both bottles and see if he drinks even more.

Still, I should be grateful. Hopefully his lack of interest in drink will keep him from becoming an alcoholic!