Do you want to chat about transitioning to a sippy cup??

[~*Nicole*~]

Sorry, no tips, DD just started sucking and figured it out on her own pretty much. Keep offering it and putting it in his mouth and hope he sucks??

[Canadian_Mom]

So we are trying to transition DS to have a sippy instead of one of his bottles.  He takes a sip, then pulls it out, sip, pulls it out, and repeats this a few times then gets frustrated.  I know that he can drink from the sippy, as he does it with meals.  We use a sippy with meals when we are out of the house to make less of a mess.  Any suggestions on how to proceed?  Keep trying with the middle of the day feeds? Or should I try a morning feed when he is more hungry and motivated to eat?  Do I keep trying with the sippy first every day and if he gets frustrated move to the bottle?  Maybe try a different sippy to transition off the bottles?  I don’t want to push it too much, but I would like to start to transition him off of the bottle.

[Little toes]

DD chews her sippy cup, it has a soft spout. Hoping she'll grow out of it and learn to suck water out, instead of it 'accidently' coming out while chewing.

[Grants]

Hi nadia, my lo has a similar problem. He is 11 months and is on 3 bottles a day. I want to do the middle of the day bottles as well but my ds is not interested at all. He drinks water from a free flow cup since he is 4 months old. But he is not interested in drinking milk out of it! I have tried different cups and now i ended up with the same kind of cup he drinks water from the only difference is that i bought a different color and with no handles as he kept playing with the handles of previous cups. I started giving him more milk in the evenings and mornings and now he only need to drink between 90 and 120 ml from the cup to meet his day intake and even though he only needs to drink a small amount from the cup he is still not interested. I really would like him to take the milk from the cup as i would like to drop his afternoon bottle b4 he goes to nursery in september. I dont like the idea to give it in the morning as i want him to take a big amount in the morning to boost his intake for the day and i know if i try and give the cup in the morning he wont drink as much as he would if i gave milk in the bottle. Does anybody have a suggestion ? How long can it take for los to take the cup? 

[Grants]

Hi again little toes! :-) Have u tried the tomme tippee free flow cup? Its a very simple cup but its fantastic as there is no soft plastic on it so no distractions for the los!

[Grants]

Hi again little toes! :-) Have u tried the tomme tippee free flow cup? Its a very simple cup but its fantastic as there is no soft plastic on it so no distractions for the los!

[Little toes]

Hi Grants, I tried that cup but it's just like another one I have. And no luck, she just chews on it.

[Grants]

Oh no!!  I think the tomme tippee beaker is so "boring" and has hard plastic, so no chewing on it?!?! Oh well ...I'm sure she will grow out of it soon! x

[*Liz*]

The chewing thing - one day my DS just stopped this - but he was about 11 mths at the time. I was ready to give up hope of him ever drinking out of a cup when suddenly he did. It was on a heat wave week so I assume he finally got thirsty?

Milk in a cup is a hard one for a lot of LOs - and some take longer than others. I would just stick with one milk feed for now and see what happens. DS always refused milk from a cup and what actually happened is he just dropped the middle feed at 1 year old, and then dropped the am milk feed at about 18 mths. Obviously he gets the extra calcium from dairy in his diet at this point so I wasn't concerned and I was happy enough to have a bedtime bottle to keep his intake up. Over the last few months he has got less and less interested in sucking from a bottle as he wants to read his books and play. Started to drink it like a cup - so a few sucks, then stop for a bit, repeat, repeat. He is just shy of 2 and one day I gave him a cup with a picture of a truck on and said he could have this instead and match it to his truck books. That was it. He drank the whole lot and went to bed. Obviously nearly 2 is later than 'ideal' but it was completely painless as he was ready, and a very proficient cup drinker anyway. So I guess I am saying don't worry too much - you will get it off them when they are ready even if they seem very resistant at this age.

[Grants]

Hi Liz!
Thank you very much for your comments! I cut his afternoon bottle 3 days ago. So now my DS is on 2 bottles. I did it gradually. He was on 4 bottles and then I cut 1 bottle when he turned 10 months and another one 3 days ago. (I shifted amounts on the bottles before I cut it completely, this way I gave him more time to get used to the change. I would increase amount on the bottles I wanted to keep and decrease formula in the bottles I wanted to cut)  I wanted to cut the middle of the day bottle because he is going to nursery for 2 days in September and I wanted him to have all his bottles at home. He is still taking the daily recommended allowance of formula from 2 bottles and I'm also topping it up with some dairy during the day. It would be so nice if he could drink some milk from his beaker as I would like him to take some milk at nursery as well!! Plus if he drunk milk from a beaker it would give us another option for dairy. He is not keen on yogurt either so I’m kind of stuck for dairy. (He is a BLW baby so hates eating things with the spoon) On a good day he will take some yogurt but it is not regularly I’m not so concerned about cutting his morning and evening bottle. I will keep it for awhile even after his first birthday and see how it goes. I will just make sure he brushes his teeth before bed (he already does it anyway). Anyway….so do you think he will eventually drink milk from his beaker then??? Should I just keep on offering small amounts to him to help him getting used to the idea? 

[*Liz*]

Yes - eventually he will - I'm sure of that  . My DS had NEVER drank any from his beaker until the night he drank the whole thing! I guess he was just ready to move on. Nursery may actually help as he will see other LOs doing it and copy.

I think the key with this is to go at your LOs pace. Tracy said that a lot of LOs will be nearer to 2 when the manage this one.

[Grants]

Thank you Liz!! It was really helpful talking to you!

[Grants]

Liz, i would like to ask u another question. How did u introduce cow's milk to ur lo? What age was he? How did u do it? Did u do it gradually? I have read that from 1 year los only  need 300ml of cows milk or 2 servings of dairy products daily.so do i  give my ds 150ml of cow milk in his bottles in the morning and evening?

[*Liz*]

I did this at about 15 mths as DS was a recovering milk protein intolerance. But I would have done it at 12 months if we hadn't had that issue.

He was always very picky about changing tastes so what I did was to dilute the formula over the space of about 2 weeks until it was all cows milk. I did both bottles at the same time so he wouldn't notice the difference. So started from a 6oz bottle - then did 4oz formula (with 4oz water made up as usual) then added 2oz of cows milk. Did that until he was happy then went to 3oz and 3oz etc.

At age 1 J was having 6oz in the am and 8oz before bed. Now at age 2 he has nothing in the morning, 2 portions of dairy a day and 3-6oz of milk in a sippy at bedtime. So it has slowly changed over the year - he has basically done this himself though. Started to refuse the am bottle a few months ago.

[Grants]

Thank u very much liz i will use the same method with my lo in a few weeks time when he turns 1.