Sippy Cup Training

[yhtking]

DS is almost 9 1/2 mos. I'm starting to train him on the sippy cup. I have the playtex with handles ones, the take and toss 10 oz kind, and the take and toss little learner ones. I've been giving him the littler learner ones at dinner with a little formula in it to let him get used to it. But, he always end up chewing on the plastic. I tried to show him that there is actually milk coming out of the cup. Then I put it in his mouth and he just ended up chewing on it. Anyway, I was just wonder if there is any "right" way of introducing sippy cups to babies. Is it too early? Or, did I start too late? I would love to get some advice from some of you out there.

Thanks.

[Momof3Labs]

It just takes time! Colin played with sippies for a few months before he took to them. Keep on offering, occasionally show him by sipping from one yourself, and he will get the hang of it!

[momma_boo]

I agree w/ Lori - keep offering it to him. When I initially offered a sippy to DD, she would just sit there and be perfectly happy chewing on the spout. I'd say start with the take and toss little learner ones. the playtex ones have the valve which do make it a little harder for them to drink since they have to suck harder. DD has gotten much better at drinking with the take and toss ones, so we recently started using the playtex ones.

[jubilee]

I started Logan on sippys at about 9-10 months,and we had success with the take and toss ones. This was the age he became real interested in what I was drinking, so I started using a sippy. I would really ham it up, drink and smile and act all excited. Of course Logan wanted to try, and he did bite it, play with it etc. But after a few tries, he sipped from it and now love it. (and I weaned myself from the sippys, LOL...)

[kfcboston]

Geez - I was going to post on this topic, but this thread makes me a little more nervous than I already was! My DS is a little older than yours, and he's not confused but is flat out rejecting it! He gets frustrated and angry about 90% of the time if it's milk, and never if it's juice. In the beginning I did use some juice in the cup, now I never do. But it might be too late! I'm really in the dark on how to approach this. He clearly just refuses the cup and chugs from the bottle. Sigh.

I think you still have plenty of time with your DS. I guess my one warning would be - be sparing with juice!! At least, it seems that's what causing us trouble now. :(

[lrg]

I have plenty of sippy cup issues of my own, but here's a suggestion for you with the juice/milk issue...

Try adding some juice TO the milk. (just a little) and then once you can hopefully get him drinking the milk that way, use less and less juice. When DS weened himself of both breast and bottle 2 months ago at 10 mos old (within a few days out of nowhere), I was at wit's end trying to figure out how to get breastmilk in him.

Previously, he wanted nothing to do with sippy cups - just turned them upside down and chewed on the bottom. But, when he started screaming at both nursing and at the sight of his bottle, I realized it was hurting him due to teeth coming in to suck and therefore, the take n toss sippy's would be much easier to suck on. However, he was rejecting breastmilk in every form. (I think he was associating the pain with the milk instead of with the sucking) So, I added juice to the breastmilk to make it taste differently. And it worked! I gradually started adding formula to the milk b/c I started producing less from only pumping. And then started to get rid of the juice. Now,he's on just formula until we visit the Dr. for his one year in a week. Hopefully, he'll like the whole milk b/c he's suddenly not a big fan of the formula after 3 - 4 oz of it per feeding.

[lrg]

I think the answer is that every baby is different. I started to introduce the sippy cup around 6 or 7 months and I STILL have issues. He'll take his formula from only the take n toss ones or the rubber topped kind with the slits that are like an easy bottle. But if there is a valve involved making it more difficult, he won't. But, he's gone back and forth on taking juice/water from them.

There was a short time he would drink juice from the Avent soft spouts and the kind with the rubber slit attached valve (no removable valve), but now he just won't drink juice or water at all unless it's through a straw or sometimes the take n toss. The problem I have with the take n toss is that we're still trying to get DS to feed himself food and to pick up cups and take liquid. He mostly plays with the sippy cups and likes to turn them upside down and chew on the bottom. Well, with the take n toss, they drip all over the place when he does that.

He'll only hold the sippy cup with formula by himself if we're holding him on our lap and only for the first few ounces. Then he drops it and we have to hold it the rest of the time. If no formula, then he only plays with it.

So, go figure what all of this is about! If anyone has advice, please come forward!

[akc]

Hi there -

Don't feel bad. My DD didn't really figure out sippy cups until about 13-14 months. She wouldn't chew on them, she just couldn't figure out the "tip" part of the exercise. She'd just have no use for them because it is hard enough to get the liquid out (have you tried? they are difficult!) but then she'd suck up without tipping it up and nothing came out. We did get some that had the handle through the middle - Ansa and another brand - and those have harder plastic mouth pieces, less inviting to chew on than the soft plastic ones on Gerber and Playtex starter sippy cups.

Our method of success was to go to straw cups - ours were Playtex (http://www.playtexbaby.com/cupsandmealtime/products/stage4.asp#quickstrawbottle)
but Gerber has some too) when I noticed that she could drink a juice box, but not use a sippy cup. This bugged me b/c I would never want her to drink "pure" juice, I wanted to water it down 2/3.

So, we got some of the straw cups and she was off and running! They are bigger (down the road, this will be an asset!) and you have to watch because when they are "open" (straw is up), the beverage can pour out if he holds it upside down. That being said, she LOVED to use them and we kind of backtracked into regular sippy cups. Once she figured out that liquids came out of all new cups (as opposed to bottles), she was good to go on all of them.

We did watered down juice (I mean 1/5 juice to 4/5 water) in the cups at first and milk still in bottles. Then, we got her using the cups and moved milk to the cups as well. By 15 months, she was off bottles completely (which was good b/c dd#2 came when she was 19 mos and we didn't want her to go back to the bottles!)

Bottom line...there is no timetable for sippy cups. A lot of the kids I saw with them who were my daughter's age were younger siblings, so they'd seen the drill. My suggestion would be to always try the cup to see how hard it is to get the liquid out, try a bunch of kinds and designs, and then wait and see!

HTH -
Alexa

p.s. Got the sippy cup that BB recommended - can't remember the brand, but they have no separate pieces in the top - kind of a valve that she supposed to suck on. They are virtually impossible to drink from - both myself and DH tried and found it hard for us. I give them a thumbs down (now if I could only remember the brand - have to look it up!)