From Barbara Whiting,
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Question
My son usually prefers to drink rather than eat. I have the hardest time getting him to eat food, unless it's peanut butter and jelly, fruit (must be mushy, not crunchy), green beans or corn. He used to like cheese and eggs but lately he's developed an aversion to that as well.
Today I realized that my son drinks about 64-72 ounces a day. Is that too much? I dilute his juice with water because I haven't been able to get him to drink water straight. I usually do 1 oz juice with 7 ounces of water. He also gets about 2 cups of milk a day. - Kathy

Answer
That is too much liquid I think. My daughter is 2 and she gets the equivalent of 32-40 ounces of fluid a day depending on what we are doing. She gets 24 ounces of milk. The rest comes in ICE water. The ice makes noise and they can drink that all day. I don't give them anything to drink a half hour before dinner and then they get 1 cup with dinner. - Steely

My son used to drink a ton also. He did eat fairly decent at mealtime but not a lot. I always watered his juice down. He would not drink straight water. I felt like at the time that we needed a cow in the backyard. Our doctor, also, did not seem too concerned as long as he ate some veggies everyday. He did not push vitamins either. Now that he is a tad older I can get a glass or two of water in him daily, but he still drinks a lot of milk! - Karen

Not to add to your worries but has he been checked for diabetes? Excess thirst is a symptom for adults; not sure about children.
That's the amount of fluid that is recommended by most "experts" for adults to drink so it is definitely way too much for a toddler.
All I can find is that toddlers don't "need" more than 24 ounces of milk and 6oz of juice a day (personally I think that is too much). You are doing a good thing by diluting the juice to the extent you are but in a day he is still getting a lot of juice. - Lynn

I just wanted to say that I have a similar situation with my kids. In general, I think many little ones go through stages where they will like a food for what seems like a week, and then reject it, and then eat it when you offer it in a couple of weeks. - Amy

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