How Much Water Should Kids Drink? Explained
Whether it’s summertime fun, or a busy day of sledding during winter, hydration is crucial for kids, especially when they are exercising and being active. It can be easier to remember to chug that ice-water during the hot months, but it’s necessary all the time, and oftentimes kids simply don’t get enough water. Much of the obligation to ensure that they do comes down to the parents or guardians, who should make their child’s hydration a priority year-round. In this piece, we’ll go through some basic hydration facts, and consider how much water kids should be aiming to drink on a daily basis.
The Importance of Hydration for Kids
For a small child, who is undergoing daily development and constant growth, having regular access to clean, safe, potable water is simply one of the most important factors in determining how the child will develop and grow. We are, essentially, water-based creatures, with 60% of our living tissue made up of water. Our bodies are not static things, either, but are dynamic systems that are constantly engaged in a huge variety of processes–especially in the case of developing children.
Water facilitates and plays a central role in nearly every aspect of biological growth and development, from healthy cell growth, division, and proliferation, to cell specialization and organ formation, to natural and healthy cell death (apoptosis). Without water to carry nutrients throughout our bodies, to re-energize and rehydrate tired cells, we cannot survive for long on this planet. And, without good, high quality water for our kids, we cannot hope for them to grow into strong, healthy adults. Alongside the food they eat, the air they breathe, and the exercise they get, water is one of the most important baselines for any child, as indeed, it is for every plant and animal in the world.
Recommended Daily Water Intake for Kids
According to Dr. Patrick Mularoni, “The current recommendations are for children to drink their age in 8-ounce glasses until the reach the age of 8. Children 8 and older should drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water per day. If you have a 6-year old, he or she should be getting six 8-ounce glasses per day.” The specifics of this advice will, of course, need to be somewhat tailored to individual body size, heat and weather conditions, levels of physical activity, and other factors, but this is the current general medical consensus. One of the best ways to help your kids accomplish this goal is to have them drink water with their meals, and ensure that they are drinking throughout the day. Other drinks, such as milk and fruit juice can help kids to keep hydrated as well, but oftentimes alternatives to water bring a lot of sugar into the mix, especially if we’re talking about sodas, sports drinks, or energy drinks.
None of the above three options are good choices for kids–sports drinks are loaded with sugar and electrolytes, and is generally intended for athletes pushing themselves, energy drinks contain high levels of both sugar and caffeine, which is not good for children at all. Highly caffeinated drinks can cause over-excitedness, increased heart rate, and other medical problems in young children, and can be dangerous for anyone with a pre-existing heart condition. When it comes to maintaining healthy hydration, you can’t beat clear, filtered water. It is what our body wants and needs.
Signs of Dehydration in Kids
Kids often don’t want to stop playing for any reason, even for necessities like drinking water or going to the bathroom. If you start to notice your child’s lips or skin looking dry, signs of fatigue or physical exhaustion, sunken eyes, a lack of tears when crying, dark urine or a sudden lessening of bathroom trips or diaper changes, then these could all point to your child not getting enough water. Keep an eye on them, and see that they are actually drinking water, rather than just taking a few sips and running back to play. They will have much more fun when their bodies are functioning properly, even if they have to interrupt their play for a minute every now and then to refuel.
Physical Symptoms
The symptoms of subtle dehydration can be, well, subtle and hard to spot. As noted above, there can be some fairly evident physical symptoms of severe dehydration, but many of us (kids and adults) go through the days with just slight dehydration, drinking a decent amount of water, but not as much as we really need. Look for subtle changes to skin tone or hair quality–dry skin and hair can be some of the clearest indications. In general, any time your child complains of not feeling well, one good basic place to start is to inquire about how much water they’ve been drinking.
Behavioral Changes
When people go too long without water, it isn’t just their body that suffers. Dehydration can lead to confusion, irritability, fatigue, mood changes, and general haziness and mental fogginess. Our brains require adequate water to function, just as our bodies do, and if we ignore proper hydration, we are setting ourselves up for a bad day. In the case of kids, a lack of sufficient water may manifest in acting out, or in the child becoming very tired and withdrawn.
Water Safety Tips for Kids
It isn’t just any water you want to be drinking and giving to your children–obviously you only want to be surrounding yourself with clean, potable, and safe water. If you are on tap water in the United States, chances are that you are pretty safe drinking water from home, but that isn’t always the case. Even when tap water is of generally good quality, there can still be contaminants in the water, as no municipality aims at complete sterilization or perfection in drinking water, as it is simply an unachievable and unrealistic goal. For additional peace of mind for you and your kids, water filters deliver great-tasting drinking water, and can be had at a variety of price points; in fact, there are a lot of very affordable home filtration options available today.
How to Encourage Kids to Drink More Water
Kids love games and challenges, so finding a way to turn getting enough water each day into something fun is a good way to go. Help your kids to create or design stickers or covers for their own personalized water bottles. Having something they have been able to help create, and that they can personalize and lay claim to, might make them more interested in picking up the water bottle regularly for a drink.
Myths and Misconceptions
There are too many myths surrounding drinking water to dispel them all easily, so rather than attempt that, here is some advice for how to navigate disputation claims about water quality and hydration. First, check sources, and look to validate what people say. There is a lot of noise online surrounding any and every topic, so take the time to read several sources, compare, and avoid spurious claims or uncited assertions. Second, use your common sense, and gather a variety of resources. You can learn more about your local water quality by checking out the most recent federally mandated water quality report on your area–use this as a baseline when trying to figure out any local threats or contaminants in your area.
The Bottom Line
Water is hugely important for all of us, but for little growing bodies, it is absolutely imperative that clean, safe, and properly treated water be consistently imbibed. Without proper hydration, your children cannot grow into the strong and healthy adults they need to be, so make sure that they are keeping the water coming, especially when they are playing hard, and their bodies need it most.
