Give the Baby Water, It Is Hot: How to Answer the Advice Every Nigerian Mum Gets

My mother-in-law arrived on a Thursday with a small Ghana-must-go bag and a large opinion about everything.

She had raised four children and buried none of them, and she reminded me of this fact within her first hour in my house, standing in my kitchen doorway watching me measure out my own dinner like I was preparing for a science exam.

"In my time," she said, "nobody was weighing rice like this. We just cooked. And see, all of us grew big and strong."

I laughed, because what else do you do. I had heard versions of this sentence my whole pregnancy. From my own mother. From the woman who sells pepper at the junction and somehow knew I was due before I told her. From a voice note my aunty sent that was eleven minutes long and covered everything from teething to marriage.

But nothing prepared me for the Saturday afternoon, three weeks after my son was born, when my mother-in-law walked into the sitting room holding a small cup of water, walked straight past me, and tried to give it to my baby.

I did not even shout. I just said, "Mummy, please, no o," and reached for the cup like I was catching something falling off a table.

She looked at me the way you look at someone speaking a language you almost understand. "It is hot outside. The child needs water. You people and your grammar, breast milk, formula, this and that. We drank garri water as babies and we are here, aren't we?"

That afternoon set the tone for the next four months.

The heat, the water, and the argument I did not know I was going to have

Here is what I eventually learned to say back to her, gently, more than once, because some lessons need repeating before they land: a baby under six months does not need water, no matter how hot the day is.

Breast milk is already mostly water, close to 88% of it. The milk at the start of a feed is thinner and more watery, and it gets richer and fattier as the feed goes on. Your body is already doing the exact calculation grandmothers worry about. It is not guessing. It has been doing this since long before anyone had a fridge or a fan.

What extra water actually does to a small stomach:

Takes up space that should hold milk, so baby feeds less and your supply can start dropping in response

Comes with a real risk of germs, since even clean-looking water and cups are not sterile the way a newborn's system needs

Throws off the balance your baby's body is used to

I told my mother-in-law this in pieces, over weeks, mostly while she was holding my son and I was too tired to argue properly. She did not fully believe me the first time. Grandmothers rarely do, not because they don't love the baby, but because they trust what worked with their own hands, in their own time, when the advice was different and everybody still turned out fine.

"By three months you will start pap, ehn?"

This one came from my own mother, not my mother-in-law, which surprised me. She had raised me on pap from three months and reminded me, more than once, that I had never once been a sickly child.

Here is what changed, and what I told her: a baby's stomach and gut are not fully ready for anything beyond breast milk or formula before six months. Early pap can fill a baby up in a way that quietly reduces how much breast milk they take, right when breast milk is doing the heaviest lifting nutritionally. It is not that pap is wrong. It is that the timing shifted as we learned more.

"So what happened to us then?" my mother asked, half amused, half genuinely wanting to know.

"You survived it," I told her. "That does not mean it was the best way. It means bodies are strong."

She actually laughed at that one. It became something of a joke between us. "You survived it" became our shorthand whenever old advice came up against new information.

"The baby is crying, are you sure your milk is enough?"

This is the one that actually got to me, more than the water, more than the pap. Because it did not just question a method. It questioned whether I, specifically, was doing right by my son.

My son cried. A lot. Especially in the evenings, when he seemed to want to feed every single hour, back to back, like he was never satisfied. My mother-in-law would watch this and shake her head slowly, the way people do when they are trying to be kind about delivering bad news.

"Maybe your body is not producing well," she said one evening. "Some women just don't have enough."

I cried about that comment later that night, standing at the kitchen sink washing plates that were already clean, with the tap running so nobody would hear me. Then I called my clinic the next morning, mostly out of fear, and a nurse there told me something I wish I had known before that whole evening happened: newborns cluster feed, especially in the evenings, and it has nothing to do with milk being insufficient. It is normal, even expected.

What actually tells you whether a baby is feeding enough is simpler than any of us think. Wet nappies, roughly six or more a day once your milk comes in properly, and steady weight gain checked at clinic visits.

I went home with that information folded into my bag like a small weapon, ready for the next time someone doubted me out loud.

What I actually started saying

I learned, slowly and with some bruised feelings along the way, that you do not win these conversations by explaining biology to a room full of relatives who have already raised children and buried none of them, as my mother-in-law liked to remind me. You win them by being short, warm, and firm enough that the conversation has somewhere to land.

When someone brings water for the baby: "Ah, thank you ma, I appreciate you. The clinic said no water till six months, his stomach still too small for it. Let me hold this small water for myself instead."

When someone pushes early pap: "We are starting pap and everything else once he clocks six months, ma. For now the clinic wants just breast milk. I promise I have not forgotten how to cook for him."

When someone questions whether your milk is enough: "He's actually doing well o, the clinic checked his weight last week and he's growing fine. He just likes to feed a lot in the evenings, that's normal for this age."

When you simply need the conversation to end, no biology lesson required: "I hear you ma, and I know you mean well. I'm just following what the clinic told me for now."

Notice that none of these sentences argue. They thank. They borrow the clinic's authority, which somehow lands softer than your own. And they are short enough to say while a baby is fussing on your shoulder and somebody's stew is getting cold on the table.

What changed with my mother-in-law, eventually

She never fully stopped offering opinions. I don't think grandmothers are built that way, and honestly I have started to suspect I will be exactly the same one day. But somewhere around month four, she stopped bringing the cup of water. She started asking instead. "Is it time yet for the pap?" became her way of checking rather than deciding.

I think what she wanted, underneath all of it, was simply to matter in the raising of her grandson the way she had mattered in raising her own children. The advice was never really about water or pap. It was about a woman who loved this baby fiercely and wanted a part to play.

So now, when I say my short sentences, I try to say them the way you'd speak to someone you respect, not someone you're managing. Because she raised four children in a different time, with different information, and all four of them turned out fine. That is not nothing. It just is not the whole answer for my son, in this time, with what we know now.

You do not owe anyone a full debate at a family gathering. You owe your baby the six months if you are able to give it, and you owe the grandmothers in your life a little patience, because most of what sounds like doubt is really just love that has not caught up with new information yet.

A note from iMumZone

If you are worried about your baby's feeding or weight, you do not have to work it out alone or wait until your next appointment. Go back to the hospital or clinic where you delivered, visit your nearest primary health centre, or ask to be referred to a certified lactation consultant. They can weigh your baby and check the latch, and that usually settles the question quickly. If the pressure around you is leaving you low, anxious or crying more than you expected, that matters too and it is worth telling a doctor about.

What is the one piece of advice you keep getting that you wish would stop?

We would love to hear your story too. Somebody is reading this with a cup of water in her hand right now, trying to find the words. Yours might be the ones she needs.

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