Tea for 5 month old LO???

I give water in plastic cup, and also believe rooibos should be given much later, but I do give chammomile tea at the moment. Very occasionally though, after his supper.

Hi Mandz, at 8 months I've replaced the 10:00 morning milk feed with Rooibos. I'm following the plan in the new Feeding Sense (by BabySense) book. It took Emma a while to take to the tea, but now at 10 months she finishes the bottle - I give in a Nuk sippy cup. She also finishes a sippy cup of water during the day by taking sips throughout the day.

To the other moms - will Rooibos stain our LO's teeth??

Thanks everyone

KerryA, you just confirmed what my Pead said I guess. They really dont need anything but water. She said no juice or anything is necessary. I was just interested if thats what everyone else thought. Do you think I should introduce a sippy cup, I see Tommee Tippee have one you can use from 4 months-though I am using Avent.

But they need to know the difference because sometimes they just dont want milk yet they fight the bottle of water until they taste it, so maybe a sippy cup will be a good idea

I am definitely not going to take a chance with the tea thats for sure

oh sorry to spam here

what i did, at six months i introduced a pink sippy cup with water, every time she has solids she gets offered the sippy cup after. This way too she can make a distinction between water and milk...

and now at 7 months she definately seems to know that pink sip cup = water, clear bottle = milk.

if she's crying and you offer her both shell aim for the one she wants

I actually had a conversation about this with my gynea as my MIL saw fit to somehow get my little one to drink a full feed's woth of rooibos at 6 months... so i had to ask my gynea if that much was actually bad

The answer was a resounding YES, not to give it till at least 9 months, she explained that rooibos binds with the iron in your babys tummy making it extremely difficult for her to the digest it and thus they become slighly anaemic and heres the kicker because of this they become lethargic

This is apparenlty why everyone thinks it is so good for them as it seems to settle them into a good sleep

but then again moms have been goving it to their baba's for years in fact most of us were brought up on it so it cant really do all that much harm?

my choice was not to give it and to stop my MIL giving it too. but it is your choice completely

Mandz, its probably a personal choice, But I chose not to introduce any drink other than milk and water yet. My Little girl is almost 8 mnths. I think if you give them water only to quench their thirst, they will be more likely to choose water as they get older. At least, that's what I am hoping

I'm still breastfeeding Skye (5.5months now) and whilst she's had a few sips of water from my glass and I put water in her sippy cup (that she just plays with lol!) I'm not giving her a non-milk drink just yet. When she's a bit older I will probably give her rooibos.