Xander Week 46 - Sippy Cup Training
July 31, 2007
Around 6 months I bought Xander some sippy cups in the hopes to start transitioning him. Xander thought they were great fun to chew on, but didn’t really understand their purpose. I continued to give him the sippy cups every few weeks, but continued to get the same results. Now that Xander is getting closer to a year old, I thought that maybe we should increase our efforts. I did a little research on Baby Center, but found that sippy cup training isn’t as easy as it looks. One of the mothers who commented said that her child did the same thing with traditional sippy cups, but understood how to use the kind with straws right away. Inspired, I purchased a sippy cup that had a straw, with the hopes that Xander would just understand what to do with the cup. I should have expected that Xander would have just as much fun chewing on the straw as he did chewing on the older sippy cups. So now we’re back at square one. If anyone has any suggestions on how to convince my kid that drinking out of sippy cups is way more fun that chewing on them, I’d love to hear them!
James has been drinking out of a sippy cup for a couple of months…the kind with a straw.. He does like to chew on the straws as well.. But he never took a bottle either.. I would say keep offering it to him.. Daily… He will eventually figure it out… James did.. In the car while we were trying to get him to nap my mom jokingly offered him a blended coffee beverage with a straw… He had NEVER managed a straw before that day.. So if all else fails offer something you would normally never offer a baby through a straw… Then he’ll figure it out..
(I am not condoning giving babies anything bad for them… They just tend to know when they are NOT supposed to have something and will work harder to get it…)
I think he’s just not ready for it. Natasha is doing the exact same thing and we’ve been trying sippy’s since she was 6 months old (she’s over 10 months now). I even have several sippy’s, with all these funky packages that said “new & improved” blah blah blah, she didn’t take any of them and just chewed. I think when they’re ready they’ll know what to do. For now, she takes water & juices from a spoon.
We had the same trouble. What we eventually did was fill them with things that she really wanted to drink. Since we very rarely give juice, that was her incentive. She never figured out the Nuby cups, but prefers the playtex ones. I just made sure she knew what yummy drinks were waiting for her and she got with it right quick!
Forgetting the problem part, can you believe he is old enough for a SIPPY CUP?????? wowsers.
and still so darn cute!
As my only experience is with Justin drinking alcohol out of a sippycup (gosh.. I hope not the same ones Xman is drinking out of…), I can give no assistance
Hehe
Hi Sara,
I just started training my 6 month old daughter on a sippy cup. Borne Free makes a safe (bisphenol-A-free) cup that is kind of a hybrid between a bottle and sippy cup. It’s a nice way to tranistion a baby who is used to sucking on a soft bottle nipple. My daughter has already gotten the hang of it… Might want to try something like that with your son. All the best to you!
I understand the desire to have Xander use a sippy for convenience sake (and I’m with you there). We were told that we should try to get Joseph to learn to drink out of a cup normally first. To be honest, we have tried all three and he hasn’t taken to any of them. We will keep trying.
In the meantime, to ensure that he gets enough fluids with his meals, we do the fingertip-over-the-straw-top thing and deposit the contents right into his mouth. He enjoys drinking that way.