Juice: What's in YOUR Sippy??

Many moms and dads frown upon the use of juice as a beverage of choice for their late infant/toddlers. Hail to all the supermoms who get their kids to EBF for 18 months and then get them to drink water straight out of a regular cup; I envy you (no, seriously- I do)...

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My kids, drink juice. And frankly, probably too much of it.

My toddler is a juice-a-holic. Yes, I water it down- but I've heard mixed reviews on that as well. Are you taking away the little nutritional value there IS in juice by watering it down? But if he drinks straight juice all the time, clearly his teeth will rot out of his head, right?!

Thankfully, he has successfully visited the dentist with all his little teeth in good shape :)  and we have come to alter what he thinks of as  "juice", to make it more age appropriate- and healthy.

My little Spiderman enjoys "Shrek" juice, our infamous ingredient-hiding-name for the Odwalla Superfoods Drink :)

...and he loves Odwalla protein shakes, and V8 Fusions, carrot juice, organic yogurt smoothies, etc.  So for that, we are thankful. And of course, thanks to WIC we are constantly supplied with a never ending source of 100% juices in a variety of flavors to fill in the gaps.

So what's my latest healthier-juice-alternative creation??

Iced tea.

I know, common sense, right? I have let my toddler drink tea since he was about 18 months when he was sick, and now he asks for it by name (and usually specifies that it contain honey) :)  and baby A has had warm (but not HOT) chamomile tea in her bottle on many occasions when she has had an upset belly (it really works mamas!), and a favorite at our local Panera bread has always been the Icey Green Tea! YUM!

But today, I created a delicious, inexpensive, and mouth watering juice alternative.... iced berry tea. (I'm sure many of you are like, "duhhhhh Theresa.... who HASN'T thought of that?!" ... but I'm sharing in hopes that some of you mamas are like me, and hadn't... and will be just as excited as I was to try it) :)

Making Iced Berry Tea: 

Pour 2 cups boiling water over 4 tea bags....

Today I used the Black Cherry Berry flavor :) 

 Let steep for 4- 6 minutes... 

 

Pour into a container already filled with 2 cups ice water.... 

the one in her sippy/bottle is the Country Peach Passion flavor from the other day :)

 

And ENJOY!! 

(* additional money-saving tip: BornFree and Avent both have "sippy" toppers that can be used with their training cups, OR directly placed on top of your existing bottles- HUGE money saver over buying a bunch of new sippy cups, and you are repurposing your now outdated bottles!) 


What is your child(ren)s favorite juice? Or what do your kids enjoy instead of juice?