How The ‘Teeth Stain Experiment’ Helped Our Son Stay Away From Sugary Drinks

One of the biggest parenting mistakes I think my partner and I ever made was to start giving Jacob juice. When he was coming off bottles and going on to sippy cups (around age one), the literature we were given by the public health nurse, as well as the information we read in our parenting books stated; 'when switching to sippy cups, try giving the child formula milk, regular cow's milk, water or watered down juice' ..so we thought, as most first-time parents do in reading official parenting 'material', that this information was gospel. Off I popped for the weekly shop and bought the small bottles of baby juice designed (or 'directed') at kids, and offered Jacob a watered down sippy cup of the hard stuff that afternoon. The kid was HOOKED. Cue the next two years where our son wouldn't drink any milk with his meals, spat water out onto the table or floor and demanded his 'juice' or nothing at all. We eventually migrated from the baby juices to a tiny bit of blackcurrant in his water, or 'purple juice' as he called it, and sure that was that. The sugar, and the taste of the sugar, was obviously so addictive, that I don't think we got him to actually drink any milk from ages two to three. Every night, he woke during the night for a drink, then a wee, then a drink, then a wee, over and over. We tried substituting for water but he wasn't having it and would scream at the top of his lungs until the 'purple juice' was delivered. We parents were up and down the stairs non-stop and everyone was wrecked. While we were worried about his aversion to drinking milk, we never really came to the conclusion that he might have a sugar addiction of any kind, because we were just working on the basis that we were doing what we were supposed to do. When Jacob started pre-school, the rules were that the kids were not allowed to bring sweets or bars of any kind to school, and sugary drinks were a no-no. I was relieved to hear it but also a bit apprehensive as to how our little juice junkie would react. The teachers spent a lot of time educating the kids on dental care and hygiene and it really had a great impact on them. They performed the 'Teeth Stain Experiment' using boiled eggs, popping them into glasses of milk, water, orange juice and cola so that the kids could see the effect that these substances have on a similar surface to their teeth. Water and milk are obviously kind to teeth, whereas orange juice, blackcurrant juice and cola stain the surface of the egg as they would a tooth. It was a great visual tool that helped the kids to understand the lesson. (Image via Pinterest) Toddlers are also great in packs, and Jacob was happy to only drink milk or water in school from then on because all his new friends were doing the same. AND he delighted in lecturing me that 'purple juice' was actually bad for his teeth and bones, and so I shouldn't give it to him any more. Great, that's just great, Jacob. Thanks for the info. Do you let your kids drink a lot of juices or sugary drinks? Let us know in the comments!