Sippy Cup Help

[Raidra]

I don't know what I was expecting, but I thought the transition from bottle to cup would be easy. Boy, was I wrong!

Colwyn will drink from a sippy while sitting in his booster seat eating a meal, but he rarely drinks more than 2 oz (regardless of what's in the sippy) at a time. He shows almost no interest in drinking from his sippy while playing around the house. He does NOT like to drink from a sippy during the reading portion of our bedtime routine.

So, when is he supposed to get his milk? I always give him a sippy of milk or YoBaby smoothie at a meal. I end up giving him bottles before nap and bed because I want to make sure he gets enough. How can I make him want to drink from his sippy? I was so excited to get rid of the bottles.. :(

[mudder17]

Hmm...I'm not sure if I'll be much help, but I'll give it a try. What kind of sippy cup do you use? Have you tried others? What about using a sippy cup that comes with a valve, but with the valve removed?

Will he drink more if you hold the sippy for him?

I tried the Aventi Sippy and she didn't like it much until we removed the valve. It was also kind of heavy for her, so she didn't really take a sippy well until I started using the Take 'N Toss, 4 oz sippy cups. I usually give her water via the sippy cup and she does pretty well. However, I'm not sure if she's ever taken all 4 oz. She has taken 2-3 oz though. The other thing she does like doing is drinking water out of my normal water bottle. I've been practicing it with water, because if it spills, the mess is very easy to clean up. :)

She can get a fair bit out of the water bottle (I use the pint size ones), and she's even decent at drinking water with a straw (again, Take 'n Toss), but I still nurse, so I don't really have the incentive to try milk through either of those venues. Milk with the T'nT sippy seems to work pretty well. I would suggest maybe trying a different sippy, or even trying a cup (it was a little messy, but DD successfully drank water out of a paper cup). I've even tried using a medicine dropper (which works very well, btw) or a medicine cup to give her milk/water. The water bottle was the least messy of the non-sippy alternatives.

The reason I ended up experimenting with all these things is that DD quit taking a bottle around 8-10 weeks.

Hope this gives you some suggestions! Good luck!

Eileen

Mother of Beautiful Kaya, www.chemicalgraphics.com/kaya
http://www.babysfirstsite.org/newtickers/ticker/16994.birthday.png

http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_garnet_6m.gif Breastfed 8 months and counting

[Raidra]

We have a bunch of different sippies.. I like the Take and Toss best, and we also have the other kind they make.. the one that has a lid to go over the spout. We also have a Gerber and Evenflo with valves. He can drink from the Gerber and Evenflo with and without the valve.. without is much messier. :) We haven't tried the Avent because of the price.. I'm lazy with dishes and need a bunch of sippies.

He does like drinking from the cup regularly, but most of it dribbles down his face. He loves straws, too.. but again, most of it comes back out.

As for holding the sippy, he doesn't usually go for that.. he'll take a sip or two and then move on. :)

[mudder17]

Hmm...sounds like you've tried it all...you're quite right, without the valve is much messier. But it sounds like it's not so much that he has to work to get the milk out that way, he just prefers the bottle? As I said, we have the opposite problem--she likes the sippy, hates the bottle.

So he will drink from the cup and straw, but the difficult part is that he loses half of it, so he doesn't really get enough that way, right? What about adding milk to his food so that he gets the nutrients that way? He's 1 yrs old, so you're talking about cow's milk? I know that's not a permanent solution, especially because you can't add milk to EVERYTHING, but maybe that would help a little. For example, using milk instead of water for egg casseroles, or something like that. Umm...milk in soup? I really don't know what a 1-yr old eats, so I'm not sure if this could even work.

Sorry I'm not much help. :( I just remember (not fondly) my struggles with trying to get DD to take a bottle and it seemed like we tried every one out there! We finally gave up and gave her milk via a medicine dropper until she learned to use the sippy cup.



Eileen

Mother of Beautiful Kaya, www.chemicalgraphics.com/kaya
http://www.babysfirstsite.org/newtickers/ticker/16994.birthday.png

http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_garnet_6m.gif Breastfed 8 months and counting