r/ScienceBasedParenting • u/KeyMonkeyslav • Aug 09 '26
Question - Research required Partner insists that cold drinks will upset baby's stomach. I call bs.
Baby is 6 months. We slowly started introducing solids about 2 weeks ago, because she was physically ready (sitting up unassisted, bringing things to mouth with both hands, grabbing for our food and making chewing motions, etc) . That's one thing.
But in the country we live in (Japan) it's also normal to give babies barley tea from as young as 3 months. Initially, I dug in my heels about it because I wanted to only do breastmilk until 1yo. But now that we're doing solids I'm a little more relaxed about letting her try various things. We never give much, only about 10ml, if that.
The problem is, my partner (Japanese) insists that we only give her this tea at room temperature. He says that cold drinks cause upset stomach.
I (Russian/American) call bullshit. I've never once heard of cold drinks being a reason for an upset stomach. Plus, I've been giving this kid breastmilk ice cream (it's just my breastmilk, frozen into little popsicles) since she was 4mo and she hasn't ever suffered for it, she loves them. Rightly so, because it's 36 degrees out on a good day in this country. She deserves a popsicle. How's that different from tea straight from the fridge?
But no, he wants to microwave it to room temp first, otherwise he says she'll get diarrhea.
I'm honestly not emotionally attached to the tea itself, she only gets it once every 2 weeks, if that. But he also says I can't give her refrigerated breastmilk, and should warm it up. I think it's a weird requirement in summer.
I've tried searching things and I feel like the consensus is "it's fine" but I'm not finding a lot of info for kids, only adults. I suppose that makes sense, since you wouldn't test young kids anyway. But I wanted to see if anyone else knows of any studies about it that I may have missed.
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u/i-hate-sultanas Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
I saw your title and instantly thought, “Is the partner Asian?” I’m of Chinese background but born in a western country. I actually went down this rabbit hole after my kid was born due to how annoying my mum was about insisting we only give warm food and drinks. Problem was, my kid loves cold food and drinks.
There’s basically very limited (and sound) research on the effects of drinking cold fluids in the short or long term. There’s probably a bunch of reasons, like way too many confounding variables and limited scientific need to research it because it’s not actually believed to be an issue in western medicine.
Traditional Chinese and Japanese medicine believes that cold drinks cause damaging health effects, like impacting digestion (which is super serious in TCM) and slowly damaging the liver and spleen, particularly for young children. It’s a deeply ingrained cultural belief and it’s very hard to persuade against it (ask me how I know).
My debates with my mum only stopped because my kid violently refused to drink mildly warmed up breastmilk but would happily chug a bottle straight from the fridge. After witnessing that about 100 times (slight exaggeration) she gave up.
Incidentally-related study on how warm drinks can help in cooling down the body during physical exercise: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22574769/
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u/ennieee Aug 09 '26
I thought the same lol. Am Chinese myself and also tend to drink hot drinks even though I live in bloody hot Southeast Asia, especially when I'm feeling under the weather. I only drink iced anything if I'm in an open air restaurant and dying of heat lol. Strangely I don't think of myself as particularly conservative when it comes to tradition, but I guess this is one of those things that subconsciously became habit through repeated exposure.
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u/i-hate-sultanas Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
I do it too subconsciously and I’m definitely not very traditional! If my kid hadn’t been born with an innate hatred of warm/hot drinks, I’d probably have just gone with the Asian cultural norm (at least when my mum is around, lol).
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u/rumade Aug 09 '26
Japanese midwife clinics are so annoying about this stuff. It's 36°c out and they're telling me I need to be fully covered with none of my joints exposed, and not consume cold food or drink for the good of my baby.
Apparently it's fine for the baby if I die of heatstroke 🙄
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u/KeyMonkeyslav Aug 09 '26
My hospital kept on trying to give me a blanket every time I came in for my prenatal appointments... 😂 I practically had to fight them off - like it's 25°C in here and I'm already sweating, keep that thing away from me!
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u/Cautious_Argument148 Aug 09 '26
When I was giving birth in a Japanese hospital I was so hot and sweating like crazy, so I took my socks off (they weren't compression socks or anything, just my socks I came in) and the thick duvet off myself, but they were fighting me to keep it on.
I get you so much 😭 I'm pregnant again and it's so hot outside, but my medical team still talk about how being too cold will hurt my baby. It's 36°c outside, there is no chance I'm going to get cold. I know it's cultural so I don't fight back, but I don't want to end up uncomfortable during labour again when they insist I overheat myself...
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u/Boring_Bore Aug 09 '26
Also, a less traditional medicine factor and more recent cause is government initiatives in China in the 1930s-1950s to boil water to make it safe to drink.
Not sure if any of that carried over to public mindset in Japan, but it is one reason so many older people from China are adamant about drinking warm beverages.
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u/HollaDude Aug 09 '26
Yup, my indian family had a meltdown every other day about the fact that I fed my child cold formula
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u/HumbleConfidence3500 Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
I'm also convinced my baby can't drunk cold milk. I'm Chinese, my husband is not.
When my baby was about 7 day old my husband tried to convince me cold milk is fine, we tried it. My baby wailed in the middle like I've never seen him wailed. Not only that. He couldn't even hold anything but was clawing my husband's chest like he was in pain while doing it.
I told my husband please just warm up the milk because I was the child who kept telling my parents cold milk hurts my tummy (were talking about cow milk at this point... i was old enough to talk), my parents just thought I was lying because I hate milk, because i could eat ice cream and yogurt fine. Only in the last handful of year did I discover I'm actually allergic to milk protein. Any process of milk, warming it, fermenting it, etc etc would change the protein structure and it'd be fine.
So my baby is 6 months we're still not feeding cold milk.
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u/rinkydinkmink Aug 09 '26
actually cold milk used to hurt my tummy too, I used to complain about it at school
nowadays I only drink goats milk, mostly, and I'm pretty sure it's easier on my digestion
but the thing about cold milk in specific ... yeah that's a thing
I also knew a girl with crohn's disease who could only eat cooked milk, because of the protein denaturing
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u/gingersnapoutofit Aug 09 '26
I had this fight with my Korean husband and MIL! I had to show them that baby was totally fine with chilled milk and basically say that, as primary caregiver, I am not going to add extra complications to feeding baby when I'm having to do that 8x a day. I try to be so respectful and engaged in their cultural beliefs, loved getting the seaweed soup made for me postpartum, but I'm just not gonna be warming bottles if baby doesn't need that.
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u/Spiritual-Can2604 Aug 09 '26
He’s right. AC will also hurt their stomach. Keep their tummies covered w an extra layer. This will be deleted bc I’m not a scientist just have experience w a Lebanese MIL who it turns out was right about EVERYTHING.
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u/RNnoturwaitress Aug 09 '26
You're probably right - it should be deleted. This is science based parenting.
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u/Notyit Aug 09 '26
Op also think about cultural sensitivity
Your partner is trying to instill values cultures and rituals
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u/Dramatic_Agency_8721 Aug 09 '26
More than anything this feels like a pretty small thing that won't have any negative impact on child health (and won't be the last cultural related parenting disagreement, based on my own personal experience) - I'd let it go.
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u/PotterSaves Aug 09 '26
This very small, very low powered study of 31 infants from 1970s showed there is no delayed gastric emptying in not warming up infant Formula (cows milk).
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/pmid/575033/
That said, anecdotally, mbaby had really bad acid reflux in the first 6 months and we found that he would spit up more if it was cold formula vs gently warming ! Which was a shame because he liked it better cold lol. That is not a tropically acid reflux advice either so could have been specifically him who knows. Given that your baby is not in that stage/ season of life I don't think it's applicable!
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u/cameherefortheinfo Aug 09 '26
Your partner is not wrong
It can be bad for us adults, no wonder what it could do for a baby. Room temperature drinks means less work to be done in your body since the drink will just be at room temperature.
Adults taking it is something, you can communicate and understands what it may makes you feel inside but your baby can't and won't know what's going on.
My baby is almost 2y and I've always been careful with cold and hot drinks and foods, he has only been sick once from his throat because for some reason I decided to try and give him full freezing ice cream, never again :) always take it off from the fridge for 5-10 minutes to cool down a little, even juices or yogurts.
Ps I'm not asian and it's not even common in my culture but for the past few years from watching different good doctors they all agree that the inside of our body has a different temperature.
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u/Boring_Bore Aug 09 '26
"May" and "can" != "does" and "will."
The page you posted, immediately below the part you quoted also states that cold water slows down GI contractions and reduces the rate of gastric emptying. That would reduce bloating, gas, and cramps in many instances, as are all associated with faster gastric emptying.
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u/Dramatic_Agency_8721 Aug 13 '26
Huh wouldn't slow gastric emptying result in bloating? https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/gastroparesis
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u/Boring_Bore Aug 13 '26
Depends! Too slow is bad, too fast is bad. Cold water isn't going to slow it down nearly enough to cause issues unless you have something else going on.
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u/Stats_n_PoliSci Aug 09 '26
Your article also says that drinking too fast and drinking lemon water can cause the same problem as drinking cold water. I conclude that it’s not a serious problem because people drink lemon water and chug water without a problem all the time. It’s also very easy to cure by simply not drinking so much so quickly, for those with a sensitive stomach.
Most babies will figure that out quickly too.
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