Sippy cup expectations

[HBabyG]

Hi,
My DD is 7 months old and we have been trying to get her used to using a sippy cup for about 6 weeks now.  I have bought a few different types but have been persevering with the TT first cup as this seems the simplest design and thought it would be best not to keep changing cups so to avoid confusing her too much.
Anyway, I'm not sure how well we are doing.  She will drink about one sip (either milk or water) from the cup (after a bit of mouthing and chewing on the fold down 'teat') but is not interested in holding it for herself and wont want any more from the cup than this.  A bit later when I offer her the bottle she will quickly down 6/7oz, so I know she will have been hungry for her milk when I offered her the cup.
I think I will now try a different type of cup but I'm not sure at this stage what my expectations should be.  Am I aiming fer her to take the equivalent of a milk feed, or there abouts, from the cup or do I offer it alongside bottles?  What does everyone else do, and what have you found that works?  When did your lo's stop taking bottles and had all their milk from cups?

[Lolly]

We only offered water from a cup at this age along with solids. Drinking milk from a cup is much harder than sucking it down from a bottle so you really don't need to be in a rush to do it. My DD switched to a cup for her morning milk around 13 months and we just recently switched her bedtime milk to a cup.

I would just offer water with food at the moment and allow her to play with it and practise drinking from it, we just put it on the highchair tray/ table and left them to it really. You can start switching from bottle to cup around 1 year - which is what most people do to be honest!

HTH!

Laura

[Seona1973]

I also just did water from the cup along with meals at that age and didnt offer milk in a cup until a few months later. DD had milk from a cup from about 15 months and ds had his from a cup from about 10 1/2 months as he took to the cup so well.

[HBabyG]

Thanks for your replies.  I know all children are different, but which cups did you find worked best for yours?

[Lolly]

The tommee tippee first cup was the one we have used the most! I have had a variety of different cups over the last few years but never had any luck with non-spill spouts, non-spill straw cups were ok when they got to around 1 year.

Laura

[clairebear79]

We have 2 different tommee tippee cups - one is a non-spill type with a soft spout & one is the TT first cup (free flowing).  The non spill one is nicer for him to hold & ok it wont make any mess, but he really struggles to get any water from it at all.  He'd need to suck it quite hard & the idea of a cup is to learn to sip not suck after all!  So in my book its rubbish.

I much prefer the free flowing one - he gets on much better with this as the water comes out more easily.  ATM I put it on his highchair & let him have a go, he puts the spout in his mouth but he's not quite mastered tipping his head back to get a drink yet.  So I usually let him have a play with it then help him tip it to make sure he gets some.

I tend to fill it 2/3 full in the morning then let him drink from it through the day.  He only really takes a little bit, maybe 1-2oz.

HTH.xx

[*Liz*]

My DS was a good 11mths before he took more than a few sips of water from a sippy cup. This is quite normal though - it just takes time. Most babies are about 12 mths before they are capable of drinking a full milk feed from a cup - then milk comes out really fast and makes them very windy if they gulp too much.

DD has managed a cup well from about 6 mths. It makes me laugh to see her with it as I remember J was so useless. She holds and tips herself - I had to do it for J for AGES. Actually she is obssessed with cups and crawls around baby groups trying to drink everyone elses drink  .

I would put money on her getting the hang earlier simply because DS still uses a sippy a lot of the time and she has been able to copy him.

After a lot of trial and error DS took a tommee tippee first cup (and he still uses that now when we use one at 2.5). DD can use a tommee tippee as well, but she tends to gulp and choke, so we use a new one called a tommee tippee 'tip it up'. It is non spill but only needs VERY light lip pressure to work. The fluid comes out a bit slower so she doesn't gulp so much.

Don't worry about this at all yet - your LO will get it in time.

[~*Nicole*~]

We used straw sippy cups at first and DD began having her formula in them around 10.5-11 months when we pretty much ditched the bottles. We then moved to the hard spout type and kept teaching her how to tip them...which she never mastered with her bottles, lol. Once she got the hang of that, we switched her to milk at about 12 months.