Sippy Cups

Hi J., You may want to try the Nuby sippy cups. there is a three pack you can buy that has 3 different lids: a nipple, straw and regular sip spout. It worked wonders for my son. easy to clean, and even though my son drinks out of a reg. cup just fine, there are times when you need one that doesn't spill!

Hay J.... Have you tried putting the "good" stuff in the sippy cup and only giving him water in the bottel? It worked for me :) didn't take too long before the kids realise that the good stuff is in the cup ;) also mabye one of the spill proof cups with the straw tops? Have you tried that? Good luck!! Tiff

Hi J.,
Have you ever tried the cups with straws, like the Gerber one with the straw that can be covered so it doesn't get dirty. The reason I ask is because my son hated sippy cups and refused to use them and so I tried the straw ones and he took to them like nothing he was about 6 months old and grabbed the concept of drinking from a straw very quickly and never used a sippy cup. Give it a try.
V. N

If he loves to drink out of a cup then why don't you skip the sippy cup and go for those. They sell the disposable cups w/ straws for a couple of dollars. There's no law that says he needs a sippy cup. It is getting hotter now so I understand wanting to keep him hydrated so try a sports bottle of water to carry around and use the cups with straws at meals. He should be getting most of his nutrition from regular food by now and so he doesn't need bottles anymore. Just think if it worked you are on-up on most mom's who have to break the kids of the sippy.

I know that other mothers may make you feel bad that your son is on a bottle, but don't let them. If your son really isn't ready for a sippy cup then wait. It is not going to hurt him in any way if he spends a little more time on the bottle. a Sippy cup is nothing more than a bottle with a different lid anyway. It has nothing to do with intelligence so I wouldn't stress it. As long as he's off by grade school you're ok.

hi J., my girls didn't like it at first either. have you tried plain water? my girls didn't like milk or juice in their cups at first. they would only drink milk from a bottle. now they drink milk and water from sippy cups (they don't like juice), but it took a few months for us. good luck. R.

What kind of bottle are you using? I only ever used the Playtex Nursers, so my son took FOR EVER!!!!!! to figure out a sippy cup. I first introduced one to him at 7 months; he was about 13 (14?) months when it FINALLY clicked. Like your son, he LOVED using the sippy, AS LONG AS MOM WAS HOLDING IT FOR HIM! He just didn't understand that he had to tip his head to get the milk out. To help him get the idea I used a hard bottle first (Playtex Airvent with the Nurser style nipple) and then switched to the nubby soft tip and gerber soft tip cups. I also found that even before he figured out the hard bottle, he could use a straw cup sipper. I just didn't feel I was getting the straws clean enough, so I threw them away. (We didn't have a dish washer at the time. FINALLY :O) bought one about a month ago. YEAH!)

If you only use nursing style bottles, try a hard bottle and see if that helps him figure it out. I also recommend, as some other moms have, put the stuff he likes to drink in the sippy/ hard bottle, and just water in the bottles you have been using. If he's like my son was, he will not learn unless how he wants it isn't an option.

BTW, I nursed my son to 17 months. I know for sure by 14 months I had stopped using the bottle, but brought it back to wean him off of me. it took about 2 weeks, but then he never wanted me or the bottle again. (At least not until I started babysiting an infant a few months ago. But he knows that their only for the baby, so he doesn't get one.) He's also just given up his sippy cups for anything except water in the last month. (He's now almost 29 months.)

Hope it helped, ~J

agree with others, go straight to regular cups and skip the sippy. :-)

Well, I know there is a lot of dispute on how long to breast feed a child. I stopped when it was time to switch to bottles but pumped the milk instead. Rather then throwing out the bottles I would pump milk into them and wean off the brest first. THEN...introduce the breast milk in sippy cups. When a child become dependant on a breast, a bottle is the closest thing they relate to. If all they have is a bottle, I found it easier to introduce the soft tipped sippy cups. It's a comfort/dependant thing with breast feeding. Infants who are breast fed for a certain amount of time generally do have a harder time with the switch. Not to worry...it's normal. GOOD LUCK!

There is also this cup on the market that looks kinda like a to go coffee cup in that the lid (which is spill proof) has a little slit to drink out of. I can't remember who makes them...it's either Gerber or Playtex. I had one for my older son who really liked it. I think I found it at Babie's R Us but a store that has a big baby department, like Target or Wal-Mart might also have it.

if he drinks from a regular cup, then stick with that! my 5 year old never did the sippy cup thing and now my 7 month old refuses to drink from the sippy, he will only drink from the regular cups. i think that it is just one less thing to teach him. if he wants to skip straight to the "big boy cups" then that is just better for me. he may get a little wet sometimes, but i only give him water, that way, no sticky, no stains!

i totally agree with kristin hon!!

In our circle of friends, all the kids kept using bottles well into their third year. We had already watched conventional wisdom change from no kids sleeping in the bed, let em cry it out approach to co sleeping and people breastfeeding in bathroom like criminals to open breasts everywhere and so we followed our kids cues instead of some arbitrary timeline.
What exactly is the point of wasting your time fighting over sippy cups when your child is so young and you could be spending your time enjoying this amazing time in his life?

Sippy cups are over-rated!!!! There are really for the ease of the parents - not the kids...

My son got the roto-virus twice from sippy cups - they are hard to clean too many cracks and crevices. Feeding juice out of a bottle pools the juice around the teeth and causes cavities - ask any dentist...

You are better off to teach him to suck through a straw and give him cups with straw lids - then the straw goes in the garbage...

All of my kids were BF and all learned to drink out of cups while there were still BF... the sooner you teach them to hold the cup - the sooner they learn.. They only have to spill cold water in their laps once or twice and they learn to be careful.. (Be patient when it goes in your lap - they don't learn much from your facial expressions...LOL)

J., I BF both of my boys and for some reason they would never take a bottle (the nurses at the hospital were very concerned .. .). Anyway, once they started on liquids I found that they didn't like sippy cups either, but they would use a straw .. . So I found these cups made by Playtex called "insulator sport" and they have a straw. Both of my boys use them with no problem. I still have them around the house now (they are 2 and 3) because they don't leak very easily (if they are laid on the side for a long time they will leak a litte, but not too bad). I think you can get the cups at the grocery store or Target/Walmart etc ... Hope this helps.

It sounds to me like you may be able to get him to drink from a big boy cup once you wean him from bottle and breast, and skip the sippy cups all together. My 16 month old son never really took a sippy cup with a spout, he preferred to use a sippy cup with a straw (the straw is soft like the one with the spout.) You might try that instead if you really want him to use some sort of sippy cup. The ones with the straw don't leak and are good becaise they help develop the muscles in the face for speech (or so I've heard). I hope this helps.

It might be a good idea to try, as other people said, a straw cup. That is how I got my son away from the bottle. Try bringing the liquid from the straw up to the top so the minute it hits his mouth he tastes it. After a few days of offering ONLY that during the day (bottle in morning and night) my son realized it had juice in it. If that doesn't work, I would give it up and concentrate on teaching him how to safely drink from a regular cup or a bottle of water. My son does well with a bottle of water cause it has a smaller opening and makes less spill. Good luck.

Hi J.,

It's not cruel! So please don't feel bad about it. Because as they get older they are not gonna want to do alot of things we need them to do and learn. So you have to remember that you are the parent and you are doing what is best for him. My son is 18months and he did the same thing. He didn't want to have anything to do with the sippy cup. He would look at it and just try to pour it out. So I would cave and give him a bottle because I would get frustrated. But you have to remember that your child does what you let them do. So I realized that I couldn't give in. I would not give him anything to drink unless it was in the sippy cup. Yes, it sounds cruel but believe me, when your child gets thirsty he will realize that is what he has to do to quench his thirst. And you don't have to throw the bottles away because I didn't you just don't give in. It's just like the pacifier you just have to take it away from them one day and just deal with the crying as it comes. Just please don't give in. YOU CAN DO IT!!! Good Luck!!

With my oldest I tried for months to get her off the bottle my middle one day and my youngest not quite old enough! That whole let her cry it out thing doesn't work for me! So my mother told me to try a little ritual that worked for her with me and my brother and sister. We got a trash bag and had my daughter put all of her bottles in the trash bag (all along the way praising her for what a big girl she was and how excited mommy was that she was a big kid now)then we went out to the trash and she put the bag in trash and then we went on our special trip to the store to buy new big kid cups! It was a slame dunk for both my girls! Good luck to you!

Hi J.,
Have you tried just giving him a small amount in a cup? When my first baby was that age, there were no sippy's and I just gave her a plastic cup and held it for her until she learned. Maybe he just doesn't like sippy's. Now I feel old =(

Hi J.,

I work with children ages 2-3 and you really should look at this as a kind of blessing. You are only a very, very short time away from an age where your child should be drinking liquids from a regualar cup and the fact that he likes to is really, really good. I have many 2 year olds that start in my class who have NEVER been taught the skills to drink out of a regualar cup, which is a skill they need to learn quick in my class because there are no sippy cups allowed. I would just pack up some disposable dixie cups and work towards teaching your child how to drink out of a regular cup like he is going to have to eventually know how to do, right?! Trust me, you don't want your toddler attached to sippy cups. Do you really want to be washing those things for the next 3 years?! Good luck!!!

R.

get him a cup with a straw. We got some for our daughter that have a flip top that is spill proof. She loved using those after my husband taughter her how to drink out of a straw @10 months old by giving her a slurpee.

My daughter liked to use the same cups as her friends. ( It is amazing how early peer preasure works) I would sugest finding kids a little older than your little one and get them togeather. When he sees them using sippy cups you can say " Wow do you see so and so uses a cup" My daughter was using a sippy cup by 6 months and my son by 8 months. Kids want to fit in and when they are learning positive behaviors it is ok to encurage it.

Hi, I saw your follow-up about the cups with the straws. My son was the same way at the same age with the sippy cups and I did the same thing with the straw cups. It worked great, however that is all we ever gave him and he is now almost 3 and cannot drink out of a normal cup. He uses the sippy cups somewhat now but it took awhile. It was confusing to him going between a straw, where it needs to stay level and a sippy cup that you need to tip. I don't have much experience trying to enforce the regular cups, but I would suggest at least still trying them every now and then so he doesn't get used to the one cup and not learn to use the other.

when i threw out her bottles she didn't miss them at all....

what we did is we started diluting the bottle so it became just water, then only milk and diluted juice in the sippy cup. If your child still wants to drink the water out of the bottle, it really can't hurt much - he'll drop it when he's ready. But the issue is more his teeth and having all that sugar as he slowly "nurses" a bottle.