Just when I think I've hit my stride as a parent, I feel like another milestone (or lack thereof) sticks out of the ground and trips me. Bedtime has become very smooth and without any problems. Luke gets his bottle, I brush his teeth and then we put him in the crib while he's still awake. We don't hear from him again until morning. Now, it's the sippy cup saga. His teacher at school, who I trust, suggested that we start to really work on transitioning him away from the bottle. Let me say, first, that she was not at all pushy and was willing to go along with whatever we wanted. She's right, though. Luke does drink water from his cup, but not his formula. I had visions of friends whose 3 year olds would not give up their bottles and I decided that we should go for it. So, we began. He hates it. He'll take a few sips, but ends up crying. I think it's because of the flow rate. He probably has to work harder with the sippy. Then I hear people talking about straw cups. Should I try that instead? I am lost and torn. I think he can do this, but isn't there a solution that doesn't involve fighting your screaming child?
I am not the kind of parent who caves in at every little protest, but I am also not a parent who thinks that you should force your child into a transition that they may not be ready for. Maybe I need new tools? I know that this will all work out. I know that he's not going to be asking for his "baba" in Kindergarten, but I also know that there are developmental windows when certain transitions are more easily accomplished. Any and all thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.
In the mean time, I leave you with a short video of Luke's audition for Aerosmith. Watch out, Steven Tyler.
21 comments:
I don't have any helpful advice on the sippy cup issue; I was hoping you'd have other comments I could cheat off of when it's our turn! I wish it were easier to just accept that they'll do things when they're ready, rather than feeling the need to push them sometimes. But our "Nugget" needs pushed, I think, otherwise he's just content to stay where he is!
Good luck with the transition!
Good luck with your transitioning. I just went to the dr office and it turned into a bottle/sippy cup discussion
I love the star puffs on the forehead. Totally cute ;)
at this time with my other kids, i was just giving them straight milk in the sippy cup, without the spillproof valve in them, just to make it easier to get out. milk at this point won't hurt him, and i always got grossed out by formula in a sippy cup (have no idea why). good luck, transitions are always tricky!
I wish I could remember back 10 years so I could help you with this stuff! I recall we had no trouble transitioning Ev to the sippy cup; he just wasn't all that attached to the bottle. Maybe cuz he had a binky? Now the BINKY, that was hard to get rid of... I think he was 4 by the time we did it.
Keep the formula in the bottle and water or regular milk in the sippy cup and I agree with Kelly -- take out the valve for a while.
If you make the sippy cup stress-free (i.e. don't make a big deal and don't worry if he doesn't like it for weeks) and different from the bottle, it might be easier for you. Bottles while cuddling, sippy cups for big boys in high chairs.
Best of luck!
there are sippy cups made by nuby that have a really soft silicone spout. i liken it to a compromise step between bottle & sippy cup. we have them and they work great but that said, i'm one of those moms with a toddler & a bottle. with all the battles of child rearing this just isn't one i'm willing to fight. pacifiers either. my boys were done with all that by the time they started school so i figured i done good. LOL
we used the nuby kind too for awhile. beast didn't switch to a sippy cup until he was nearly 2. i know, i know. he just wasn't ready, so i didn't push. but now, just 6 months later he's using a regular cup. straws are still an issue, but i know people who've gone that route in place of a sippy.
i'm no help. you do what's right for you & luke. only you know what's best for him! not even your doctor does! good luck!
Lyla has no problem with sippy cup, but she does not do the bed time routine well.. . she never sleeps before 9:30-10, and never stays asleep for more than 4 hours.
With our boys we just cut them cold turkey when they turned 1. After a few different sippy cups we finally found one that worked!
I hate it when the 'rules' change! LOL
Good luck
All three of my kids have shunned sippy cups and we have instead used straw cups with great success.
The trick to getting them to suck the straw hard enough those first few tries is to do it with a really short straw and something sweeter like juice -- the little apple juice boxes are great for this because you can help a little by squeezing the box -- once they get a taste of the juice, they sip harder and it only takes a few tries before you can give them regular straw cups with anything in them.
That video is a classic, so funny :)
and i don't know what a sippy cup is, sorry cant give my two pennies worth here :)
That is an awesome video! I still think that Sacha and Luke were separated at birth.
Seriously, I've been working on the sippy cup since month 6 or so. (Seeing as we can't get Sacha to take a bottle, we are just bypassing that whole thing.) Some kids get it right away, some need preactice. We are still, at 10 months, in the practice stage.
Keep with it, and keep trying different cups. We use the Nuby, where there is no valve, and the top if soft so it is like a bottle. Good luck!
We went cold turkey on the bottle. Braden knew that if there was a bottle, he could weasle us into giving it to him. All he would have to do is protest enough. However, as others have said, you could start off with a flexible spout cup first. It's between bottle and sippy cup. Some of the cups have a valve that turns, one for slow flow and the other side for fast. It took us several sippy cups before we found the one he loves.
We also mixed half formula with half milk, and allowed the formula to dissapear. The doctor said it was a pshycological thing. My formula belongs in a bottle. My milk goes in a sippy cup. Different tastes, different ways to ingest them. Good luck!
OMG, that video made me laugh out loud! I played it three or four times. I love it.
Re: sippy cup--we had the same rejection issue with Child, so we used Nuby with him, as several people have mentioned--and it worked like a charm. However, I can't remember if Nubys are BPA free (four years ago, we knew nothing of BPA, so I never checked on that). With Baby, we use the Born Free sippy cups, and they, too, have a soft spout--and although it is not as soft and nipple-like as Nuby, he has no problem with these sippies and chugs the milk down as fast as he would with a bottle.
Good luck!
That video cracked me up! We'll have to get Luke and Baby M together to form a band! My son is obsessed with musical instruments.
As for the sippy cup thing we're sort of in the same boat. I've been giving him one at home since he was about 6 months with water and he likes to play with it more than use it. At his day care they noticed he's been drinking a lot less from the bottle so they asked if I would bring in a sippy cup because he takes them from whoever is sitting next to him in the high chair. They will give him half of his formula in the bottle and half in the cup. They told me he goes back and forth, but he prefers to eat finger foods so he just gives them a look of "Feed me something REAL!" Our biggest problem with giving him a cup is that I'm trying to teach him he eats and drinks in his chair. Once he is up there though he only wants food and will throw the cup if food isn't offered. Oh, and someone told me to get the sippy cups with the valves and take the valve out. She said it makes a mess at first, but once they get the hang of it the flow is faster. We use the Nuby ones (nipple like sput), but we did have one Gerber Graduates with a valve that I gave him last night and this morning-he seemed to do surprisingly good (I did leave the valve in though).
Sorry I wrote a book!
hey there - sounds like you are doing a good job. Just keep encouraging him, following his lead and try to not make it an issue. Keep replacing the bottle with the sippy and before you know it, he will be on the sippy cup. I'm doing the same with miss ava and the breast. We are replacing a feeding with a sippy cup of milk. I gave some to her and she loved it! I think i found my incentive!
Best of luck on the transition! I wish I had some sage advice, but we just got the girl one of those 'transition cups' ourselves and she might take a sip or two, but that's all at the moment.
That video of Luke is really great! Totally could put Steven Tyler out of a job - and I wish he would too! :)
I dunno...wait two more months and then just give him a regular cup...he'll probably only dump the whole thing on himself a couple of times before he gets the hang of it.
This is why I am not a parent.
But, hey...remember Rivette's little girl?? She was only 14 months and drinking out of a glass ginger ale bottle (natural of course...) like a pro.
I mean what do kids in places without sippy up technology do??? What did our parents do when they were babies...they learned to drink from a normal cup somehow.
OMG that video was awesome. That boy has some lungs!
He is so stinkin' cute!
I have no suggestions on how to make the transition. Hannah is just about as stubborn as a mule when it comes to change! Good luck and let us know how things work out!
Probably not much of a help since B never took a bottle, but he loves the numb sippy cup. The one with a handle on each side is really easy for him to use. He didn't start to use it a lot until last month.
By the way, LOVE the stars on the forehead. So cute.
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