Ok blog friends and blogstalkers, I am calling on you all for help! (at least those of you who have kiddos, or anyone else with experience in this area!)
I have been trying and trying & I just can't get Noah to take a sippy cup! I know he doesn't "have" to take one yet since he will be on the bottle til he's 1 and starts getting real milk in a cup, BUT I would really like him to learn how to use one before then so it isn't a huge ordeal. I have been giving him a sippy since he was 6 months old, so I sorta thought that after 3 1/2 months he'd have the hang of it!! The thing is, I can tell that he knows HOW to drink out of it, he just won't. He seems to have absolutely no interest at all. I try to be very consistent and give it to him every day to try.
I have tried 6 different kinds of cups! I started out giving him just water in there, then I gave in and added some juice (I wasn't sure where I stood on the whole juice debate, but at this point I'll give him whatever he'll take in there!) I've also tried putting his formula in there to see if that works. No luck.
So my question is, does anyone have any tips??? I feel like everyone I talk to says their kids were taking them at like 6 or 7 months. I know people often have trouble getting their babies completely off the bottle and taking milk in a cup, but I never knew it was this hard to get them to take a cup at all! I would appreciate any and all advice :)
7 comments:
The little girl I nanny for did not get a sippy cup until she was one. At that point, bottles were gone and the cup was her only option. We just went cold turkey and it worked well for her. Other than that I don't know of anything else to try. Good luck - I am sure I will need your help when I am really a mom!
Have you tried the NUK Learner Cup? That was the first one Tilly did well with. It's really little and has handles...just google it.
By the way...love your musical addition. At first, I thought my computer had a virus!! Ha!
We also went through the "Sippy Cup" trials. Here's what I learned:
Hayden was offended at the thought of using a sippy cup for his formula, so instead of using it as a "replacement" for the bottle, I introduced it again as a supplement to between his meals with only water or juice (watered down) in it. I NEVER put in formula/milk.
This seemed to work very well, since a large problem for him was the idea of NOT getting the bottle.
Also, we went through almost every sippy they make and he FINALLY took First Years Take & Toss disposable sippy cups (although we just reused them).
A big issue we had was that he wouldn't suck hard enough to get any liquid out, so that left us taking out the regulator (which made the other cups leak thus defeating the purpose of the sippy). These cups don't like, but still don't require a strong suck.
Also, be a little careful with the lids. After a few months he'll figure out how to pop them off. Once this happens you can move him from the 5 oz size to the 10 oz (the lids are tighter). Or by that time he should have sippies down.
By one year he was off the bottles. We started introducing sippies at around 8 months and it took about that long for us to finally find the right combination of cup/method to get him to do it. Just keep offering it. He'll get it!
Now we've moved on to a Playtex sippy (he's 2 now) and we just use that one over and over since he recognizes it and loves the pictures on it.
Ok that was long, but I feel your pain and had to share!
I feel you girl! I have been giving one to AG (all be it inconsistently) and she figured out how to pick it up but not so much actually drinking from it. So we are definitely still in process.
I don't really remember Whitlee's transition to the cup. I know it was rather gradual. I would say she wasn't off the bottle totally until 15 months or so. She was down to like one bottle a day but she hung onto it for a while.
Now with Ben I went cold turkey. He turned one, I took the bottle away and he was THIRSTY for a couple of weeks. Then I guess he got thirsty enough to really figure it out!
What about a straw cup? I assume your array of cups includes a straw cup but I do think that helped both of my kids. Hmmm...maybe I should try that with Annie G!
Good luck and it will happen. Some kids definitely get it quicker than others (none of mine do, mind you but some do) but it will happen!
Love you, JB
Have you tried a cup and straw yet? I breastfed my Joshua for twelve months and he never would take a bottle. He wasn't big on the sippy cup either because he couldn't quite figure out that he needed to turn the cup up to get the milk to come out. So I started with a cup and straw - they sell some kiddy cup and straw deals with lids at wal-mart. He caught on to that really quickly then one day he started turning the cup over trying to drink through the straw like he would a sippy cup so I quickly substituted the sippy cup for the cup and straw and he has been using a sippy cup ever since. I tried giving him a sippy cup starting at 6 months and he really wasn't interested in anything other than me until I quit breastfeeding and he started drinking milk - around 12 months or so. He will get it eventually, he probably is just content with his bottle and doesn't see the need for the strange cup that mommy keeps trying to give him :) At least, that is how Joshua would look at me when I tried to give him his first sippy. Hang in there!
Try the Gerber Graduates cup. I think it's called the Fun soft sips cup. It has colored handles and the cup is clear. This is the first one I used with both the girls. I may even have a blue one somewhere. They are $3.74 at Target.
The other cup you may want to try is the Avent cup. I have some of these you can try. The nipple/spout is soft and sort of similar to the bottle but it's definitely a cup. Ellie used these quite a bit at first.
My other thought is that we need to give him one of Mollie's cups. Maybe he'll think it's hers and try to drink it. Ha! He did try to use her small playtex cup one night. He had it before we could get it away from him one night. It was so funny!
The other thing is don't stress! It took Ellie until after she was one to get the hang of it. I don't remember when Mollie started taking one.
My child is 16 months and STILL won't take a sippy cup (the worst part is I don't really care) I have every brand of sippy cup and we try them every day, but he just throws them. I think we're going to have to go cold turkey with Andrew...just not today!!
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