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So my daughter sometimes refuses milk, but she also refuses water.

I usually replace milk with yogurt or some cheese, but how do I make sure she gets enough water ?

Last time she refused milk, she got constipated, and it was quite painful.

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    We had this problem with our infant son (refused feeding). It turned out he had thrush (Oral candidiasis). It can be quite painful. You might want to check your daughter for that.
    – Frecklefoot
    Dec 9, 2014 at 16:01

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Does she drink juice? When I drink juice, I often dilute it by adding an equal amount of water or more (I don't want the calories of all that juice, but I don't like the taste of our water). If she isn't used to sweet juices, she'll never miss it, and you will be adding fluids to her diet. Also, some people just don't like water.

Some juices actually help constipation by adding non-absorbable sugars to her diet: pear and prune juice are especially helpful. Pureed peas and prunes also help constipation.

There are fruits that are tasty but have a high fluid content like oranges and watermelon, which is easy to get here most of the year.

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    Juice was a big help to us. There's enough variety of flavors that our son seemed to enjoy, and it helped us to transition into more and more solid foods anyway. However, we always mixed it half-and-half with filtered tap water to control the calorie/nutritional intake. I would add that pear juice was one of our favorites, but it's usually found only in the baby food aisles (we only found Gerber Pear Juice). It's so good, sometimes we had to buy some for me.
    – user11394
    Dec 7, 2014 at 20:20
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This tactic sort of backfired on us, but it worked. My youngest son, when he was a baby, was initially breast-fed, but then we had to stop. He hated formula. Refused to drink it. Finally, we added a little strawberry flavor to the formula.

Mind you, this was our third time around. (His sisters are in college) So, we were a little more open to "unconventional". Like microwaving ( read that question, decided not to even touch it :P).

Anyway, short story: He loved it! so much so that after that, he refused anything that wasn't strawberry-flavored. oops. But, he was still taking in fluids, and stayed a healthy weight. Now that he is 8 years old, the only interesting thing about him and strawberry flavor is that he doesn't care for it much anymore.

So, my advice: do what it takes. Check for thrush (or other factors) first, but if that's negative, then give your baby a flavor they like. This should pass within a month or two. If not, then there is something else wrong, and a doctor should be consulted again, along with everything you tried.

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