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

[Lªuren]

Hi

Hope you had a good christmas, here are the contact details for US & Canada found on the NUK site to fond out about - a Spout for NUK FIRST CHOICE Learner Bottle;
http://www.nuk.de/nuk2003/html/main.php?path=%2Felternservice&lang=en

Gerber Products Co.
200 Kimbal Drive
Parsippany,
New Jersey 07054 - 0622
Free call: 1-800-4-GERBER
E-mail: parentsresource.gerber@ch.novartis.com
   

[Elisabeth and Victorias mummy]

Thank you

[The Vern]

Thank you both. In the meantime I bought an Avent trainer sippy thingy, similar to the NUK, so we tried that this morning. She took about 1 oz and then the rest through her regular bottle. I guess I'll keep offering it and eventually maybe she'll go for it. 

I'm a bit confused when throughout the day I should be offering milk. She has water with meals - should she have a sippy cup of milk with/for her afternoon snack? Or once I eliminated the mid-day bottle, that's it, and milk is only morning and night?

[Lªuren]

...., so we tried that this morning. She took about 1 oz and then the rest through her regular bottle. I guess I'll keep offering it and eventually maybe she'll go for it. 

Thats exactly what we did here and kept increasing the amount inthe sippy over time.

I'm a bit confused when throughout the day I should be offering milk. She has water with meals - should she have a sippy cup of milk with/for her afternoon snack? Or once I eliminated the mid-day bottle, that's it, and milk is only morning and night?

How many bottles of milk do you normally offer?  I wouldn't introduce milk during the day if you don't at the moment.    Use the sippy for water if that's what you do at the moment.

We only have milk morning and night now, he only gets water/juice during the day with meals.

[The Vern]

Oh, ok, I'll continue doing water in the sippy during the day as we have been, to avoid more confusion, and just do 2 milks (morning and night)  She still hasn't taken more than 1 oz from the sippy in the morning and no more than a sip or two at night.  How long did it take you Lauren until your lo was good to go with the sippy? 

[Lªuren]

2 or 3 weeks for a complete swap to sippy.

[debo620]

ok, so were doing not bad with a straw sippy, I decided to ditch the am bottle today---so we went straight to breakfast and his 7oz of milk in a sippy with and after breakfast. He did well, but seems to leave the last 2oz of formula in the cup, I don't know if its because the straw doesn't reach that well down to the bottom,---maybe its more frustrating, but I did give the last 2oz in a bottle. The same thing happened with his afternoon snack, 5oz from sippy and 2oz from bottle.

I'm going to go looking for a better soft straw sippy----one that actually reaches the bottom of the cup. perhaps there is always a little waste with a straw sippy? I hate to actually waste the milk, especially since formula is so expensive. maybe once we get on to full cow milk---the waste wont be as much of a concern.

[nwmm]

I know it is easier to transitions some kids to sippy cups than others.  This is what worked for me....

I stared using different sippy cups at the meals once we were advised to -- 5-6 months??  My lo never drank that much water during the meal time, but I always tried.

At 12 months, I was advised to transition the morning bottle to a sippy cup - - at breakfast.  My lo had a bad cold and I had a bad cold so I ignored everyone and worked just to get the liquid into her.

Around 13 months, I gave her a sippy cup made by Gerber.  It may be cheating because it does look like a bottle.  They call it the transition cup. (See link.)
http://www.gerber.com/bf/products/transcup/index.html

I gave it to her in her highchair while I purposely kept myself busy.  For the next few days I let her drink as much as she would from the cup and then gave her the rest in a bottle.  Pretty soon, she drank more and more.  I did not give her breakfast at the time.  I never made a big deal when she drank or did not drink from the cup.

Then, at other meals and during the day my DH and I drank from sippy cups in different colors!  My dr. advised this because kids want to imitate.  Sometimes the cups were the same as my lo in different enticing colors or I drank from one that then I would clean and give her the next day.  Basically, we stayed one cup ahead of her. 

Now, at "bottle time" I do try to give her the milk in different sippy cups so she hopefully gets used to using the various ones I have spent tons of $$ on!

My challenge is to get her to drink the necessary amount during a meal.  She has been fine drinking the milk from a sippy cup -- but not at meal time.  Like some of you said, you would rather get the milk in your lo then be concerned about how they get it.  Now, I am slowly working on moving bottle time to meal time.

HTH - - someone 

[debo620]

well Stacy--know what you mean about the buying all these different cups----I think I buy a new one every week.  Noah seems to be taking less and less milk from the sippy rather then more and more and will drink the rest from the bottle. Maybe offering him the bottle afterwards has just confused him.

[Lªuren]

I got to the stage where if I tried a brand of sippy cup and it didn't do what it said, I would take it back and get a refund. In one instance I even complained to the manufacturer 

I bought a sports cup last week that said it was non/ spill, I was able to trip it upside down and the water came out, needless to say it went right back and we bought our old faithfull the AVENT magic cup and the sportster again.

[jumblebox]

Our DS is only 9.5 mo, so we don't have a lot of pressure to switch to sippys, yet. But DS is extremely independent (pulling up since 7 mo!), and has picked up on the sippys really well. What's working best for us right now is the old-fashioned cups that just have a spout with a slit. Our only problem is that they only hold 7oz.

We started with the Nuby soft spout with water when we started him on solids at 4 mos. LOVED water. (It helped that we had a really hot summer, so he was probably thirsty a lot.) Before we offered him any other sippys, I'd test them myself. If I couldn't get a drink out of it, we didn't offer it to him. (That cut out all the ones with no-spill valves.) We stuck with the Nuby until a month or so ago, and started experimenting with some hand-me-down cups from a friend. Most of those were just too hard to hold or drink out of.

For the past couple months, he's had an open, double-handled cup in his bath - to play with. He's actually pretty good drinking his bathwater with that.  (We save soap til the very end of bath.) Tried the avent sippy spout (minus the valve), but he didn't really go for it. We had a freebie sippy - the type with just the spout/slit - that he showed an interest in. That's when I bought more with the same type lid. Now that's the only type he'll take.

He also has a game he likes to play, that might've helped. He takes a big, plastic cup (one of ours - like 32oz maybe?) and puts a tennis ball in it. Then he acts like he's drinking out of the cup, and the ball bumps his nose, then he tips the cup down again. Over and over. I just showed him how to put the ball in the cup... he invented the game.

Anyway (sorry, I get wordy when I'm up late), we now finish some meals with formula in his sippy cup. He seems to do fine with it. I think he's just young enough that - at least for some feedings - he still needs the snuggle and ease of being held and drinking from a bottle.

Hope something in this helps...

[Lªuren]

Thanks for sharing Jumblebox

[Mum2Connor]

Hi ya I just wanted to check if we're on the right track.  DS is nearly 10 months.  On the weekend he really got the hang of drinking water from his sippy cup rather than just playing with it, helps when it's been so hot here    Its a MagMag cup by Pigeon and he's using the spout attachment - although I'm yet to try him with the straw. 

He's still on 3 bottles p/day, so I put some milk in his bedtime bottle and it went down a treat. I offer water usually just after solid meals after coming out of the high chair as he gets impatient and lets me know when he wants out with a little tantram    Is the idea to replace formula bottles with sippy cup completely?  Hope that's not a completely silly Q. I'm still offering 240ml of formula as he usually finishes bottles 1 and 3, and drinks less of bottle 2 (which I assume he'll drop sometime soon?), he is also a good solids eater.  Am I right in assuming that I still need to make up the formula in bottles then tip into the sippy?  And when going out take both and transfer formula milk to the sippy.

Many thanks
Sonja

[rmercer]

my baby is 13 months and will take a sippy cup no problem for water and juice but will have nothing to do with it when i put milk in it.  Any suggestions?

[debo620]

rmercer,
if you look back through the last few pages of posts, there are lots of great tips.  I personally have found it best to just keep offering the milk in the sippy. Noah is now taking his milk in the morning with breakfast and as part of afternoon snack out of sippy and then 7-8oz before bed in bottle. I have found that as long as he takes at least 5oz out of the sippy, then I have stopped puring the rest into a bottle for him. He is almost 1 and a big boy....so I think his milk intake has dropped a few ounces when compared to total bottle feeding but thats ok...

Noah seems to do well with the old tupperware sippy cups, they are not spillproof but thats ok when he is sitting in his high chair....