TTMA: Sippy Cups

[mrsdee1982]

TTMA Sippy Cups.  I don't know the first thing about them.  When am I supposed to introduce them to C?  She just turned 7 months.  How do I introduce them?  With formula?  With water?  With juice?  Are they supposed to replace bottles?  When should she no longer be drinking out of bottles?

I just realized that we got some Sippy Cups for Christmas, but I don't know anything about them.

[jessila]

My sister got O one for Christmas. I know that the babies are allowed to have tiny amounts of water so I put an ounce in it for him. The first day he just laughed at it whenever I put it up to his mouth. The second day he realized that it did something. By the end of the day he was grabbing it by the handles and trying. I put more water in it bc he couldn't quite tip it back far enough to get it to his mouth. He took a few sips from it then I snagged it so he wouldn't fill up on water. I'm hesitant to put BM into it because I don't want him to waste it. But I think he'll be transitioning from bottles to sippy cups faster than I anticipated. He's just over 6 months.
I think that they're supposed to be transitioned from bottles around 1 year old. But, I could be making up information. I'm not comfortable giving him juice at this time. He seemed to enjoy the water.

smile.amazon.com/Nuby-3-Stage-Bottle-Handles-Non-Drip/dp/B00FE8C4G6/ref=sr_1_7?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1451926728&sr=1-7&keywords=nuby+sippy+cup

[alayne926]

I just started giving S a sippy of water over the weekend.

I wouldn't do juice just yet. They don't need the sugar.

With DS, we started giving water in the sippy and then went cold turkey when he was a year with whole milk instead of formula.

[periwinkledaydreams]

We just introduced a sippy with a little bit of water this past week. The packaging itself is labeled 6+ months, it's from a brand that has stages that change the shape of the spout and cup at 9 month and 12 months etc. As far as what you "should" do, you'll get different answers from different people of course and it just depends who you want to listen to. ie My WIC nutritionist told us not to use sippy cups at all and to only give water in an actual cup, which she also gave me a tiny actual cup to practice with. I know from working in early childhood clasrooms that very young LOs can master cup drinking and there really is no "need" for sippys, but they are practical, and we personally want to offer our LO sips of water more frequently than I can be sitting there working with her on her cup mastery skills. All that to say.. I don't think this is one of those things where there is a "should". Just do what you want with the sippy. Eventually introduce a real cup, and know your LO is capable of that sooner than you'd probably think!

[Widget123]

Jan 4, 2016 12:11:19 GMT -5 periwinkledaydreams said:

We just introduced a sippy with a little bit of water this past week. The packaging itself is labeled 6+ months, it's from a brand that has stages that change the shape of the spout and cup at 9 month and 12 months etc. As far as what you "should" do, you'll get different answers from different people of course and it just depends who you want to listen to. ie My WIC nutritionist told us not to use sippy cups at all and to only give water in an actual cup, which she also gave me a tiny actual cup to practice with. I know from working in early childhood clasrooms that very young LOs can master cup drinking and there really is no "need" for sippys, but they are practical, and we personally want to offer our LO sips of water more frequently than I can be sitting there working with her on her cup mastery skills. All that to say.. I don't think this is one of those things where there is a "should". Just do what you want with the sippy. Eventually introduce a real cup, and know your LO is capable of that sooner than you'd probably think!

In addition to preventing your LO from drinking too much liquid at a time... a good thing about sippys is that your LO could decide to dump water on himself/herself, the car seat, the crib/bed, etc. not because he/she doesn't know how to use a real cup, but because it is fun to do so, and the sippy minimizes the damage.  Or when he/she is older, put food in the cup, etc. 

[Widget123]

I know we have talked about some of this stuff before, but I agree with alayne926, to avoid juice, at least for now. My pedi pushed for us to eliminate bottles with DD as soon after her 1 year old birthday as possible but it took us a few months. At daycare my LO will practice drinking breastmilk out of a sippy before his birthday to get him ready for the transition, but probably not until around 10 months-ish. Until then, just an occasional sippy of water.

[erbear]

We have like, 5 kinds of sippys - the munchkin 360 cup, a munchkin straw cup, 2 nubys with handles, a free Minnie Mouse one from BRU that has a spout and a munchkin latch trainer cup. She can only get stuff out of the latch cup. We give her water with dinner but she needs to get juice for her constipation, so we give her 2 ounces in that. I won't waste BM in a sippy because she winds up spitting a lot of it out.

She has figured out how to take sips from our cups and H gives her water from time to time. The other day he gave her some and she spit it out all over him so he gave her more and she did it again, lol.

[periwinkledaydreams]

Jan 4, 2016 13:01:50 GMT -5 Widget123 said:

Jan 4, 2016 12:11:19 GMT -5 periwinkledaydreams said:

We just introduced a sippy with a little bit of water this past week. The packaging itself is labeled 6+ months, it's from a brand that has stages that change the shape of the spout and cup at 9 month and 12 months etc. As far as what you "should" do, you'll get different answers from different people of course and it just depends who you want to listen to. ie My WIC nutritionist told us not to use sippy cups at all and to only give water in an actual cup, which she also gave me a tiny actual cup to practice with. I know from working in early childhood clasrooms that very young LOs can master cup drinking and there really is no "need" for sippys, but they are practical, and we personally want to offer our LO sips of water more frequently than I can be sitting there working with her on her cup mastery skills. All that to say.. I don't think this is one of those things where there is a "should". Just do what you want with the sippy. Eventually introduce a real cup, and know your LO is capable of that sooner than you'd probably think!

In addition to preventing your LO from drinking too much liquid at a time... a good thing about sippys is that your LO could decide to dump water on himself/herself, the car seat, the crib/bed, etc. not because he/she doesn't know how to use a real cup, but because it is fun to do so, and the sippy minimizes the damage.  Or when he/she is older, put food in the cup, etc. 

Exactly. Or at least that was the point I was attempting to make.. I was told to only use a real cup, but that's not realistic for me. It requires hands on teachig time and constant supervision. Sure, we'll spend time doing that too, but there are other times (much more frequently) when a sippy is more practical IMO! Obvs my toddler won't be getting an open cup in her carset, that's just bonkers.

[Bluedaisy]

+1 for no juice. I would also add that it's important that sippy cups are eliminated before kids get too old. When I taught kindergarten I had a kid come to school using one. Our speech path, occupational therapist and our physiotherapist almost had a stroke. I think other than the no juice and not for too long it's up to you personally.

periwinkledaydreams, one of the suggestions I've heard for letting them use their own real cup is to have it on a little table where they are allowed to sit and drink. It's only partially full of water and they aren't allowed to move it from the table. That way the mess is contained.

[billyhorrible]

We started with straw cups with both boys around 6 months. With LBB we used straw cups because he was obsessed with the fact I always drank out of one (A habit from nursing, cups with lids and straws are much less likely to be knocked over by flailing arms).

The added benefit is that you don't have to wean them from a straw cup like you do with spouted one, so we're starting with them again for BH. We use these ones by Playtex


I love the idea of the 360, and have one in my amazon cart (and zulily cart), just haven't pulled the trigger yet because I'm lazy.

We put water in them now. At 11 months, I started sending them to daycare with him. It took them one day to convince him that "big boys don't use bottles" and he started drinking BM out of them. At that point he was using them exclusively for water and milk, just switched out the BM for WCM when my freezer stash ran out at 13 months.

[musicfrk2002]

I must be the odd one out giving J juice once every few days. We've been doing it off and on since he turned 4 months to try to help with his constipation. Maybe an ounce or two at most. We have some playtex ones, and a couple nuby ones, and they all have handles which helps him hold them on his own.

[Deleted]

I started DS1 at about six months and introduced P to them a couple of weeks ago. I love the Nuk soft spout cups because the spout is the same material as a bottle but shaped like a sippy so its super easy to learn. DS1 loved his and P is warming up to them too. Right now he mostly lays down while drinking from it because he hasn't figured out how to tip it up to get the milk out. We haven't introduced water yet and im not big on juices because of all the sugar at any age so dont plan to try that any time soon.

[Deleted]

DS never got into sippy cups. If he has water or juice he drinks it from a straw cup like the one billy horrible posted or he drinks out of a normal cup. He also drinks from sports bottles (like adult work out sports bottles). I think because he sees us drinking from them and they resemble a bottle spout but for grown ups.

He is 2 going on 3 and still has a bottle of warm milk twice a day. Morning and before he goes to bed. We kind of just ignored the pedi on stopping bottles at 1yr. I'm sure we will stop eventually but for now I don't loose sleep over it.

[Bluedaisy]

Jan 4, 2016 14:35:22 GMT -5 billyhorrible said:

We started with straw cups with both boys around 6 months. With LBB we used straw cups because he was obsessed with the fact I always drank out of one (A habit from nursing, cups with lids and straws are much less likely to be knocked over by flailing arms).

The added benefit is that you don't have to wean them from a straw cup like you do with spouted one, so we're starting with them again for BH. We use these ones by Playtex


I love the idea of the 360, and have one in my amazon cart (and zulily cart), just haven't pulled the trigger yet because I'm lazy.

We put water in them now. At 11 months, I started sending them to daycare with him. It took them one day to convince him that "big boys don't use bottles" and he started drinking BM out of them. At that point he was using them exclusively for water and milk, just switched out the BM for WCM when my freezer stash ran out at 13 months.

I don't breastfeed but I have one of the lidded cups with a straw that I have with me all the time.  IT's clear and LO thinks it's the funniest thing on the planet if I shake it for him.  I think I'm going to buy some straw cups.  People bought us some of the old school ones but he's not too taken with them.

[Bluedaisy]

Jan 4, 2016 14:56:46 GMT -5 musicfrk2002 said:

I must be the odd one out giving J juice once every few days. We've been doing it off and on since he turned 4 months to try to help with his constipation. Maybe an ounce or two at most. We have some playtex ones, and a couple nuby ones, and they all have handles which helps him hold them on his own.

I won't give juice just to drink so it won't be in a sippy cup but he's also had some constipation issues so I've been giving half an ounce at a time in a little medicine bottle that holds exactly half an ounce.  I've done it twice now if he goes a couple of days without a BM.

[ashbash]

@jimbobcooter that is what we use too and both kids have done really well with them

[erbear]

Jan 4, 2016 14:56:46 GMT -5 musicfrk2002 said:

I must be the odd one out giving J juice once every few days. We've been doing it off and on since he turned 4 months to try to help with his constipation. Maybe an ounce or two at most. We have some playtex ones, and a couple nuby ones, and they all have handles which helps him hold them on his own.

Nope, I said I do it, too for constipation. I wipe down her gums after, too, cause I have guilt over giving her something so sugary, but if it helps ease her pain, I'll do it.