Sippy Cups....How Do You Start Them on It, What Do You Put in It??

I never gave my child a sippy cup. I gave her a regual plastic cup with a handle and she learned to drink from that. Was really easy as well.

We've never had anything but water in sippy cups- everything else went in an open cup to drink at the kitchen table. My boys understood the difference immediately, and it sure makes cleanup easier!

I put formula and or breast milk. I just gave it to them at meal times and let them play with it. Tried to show them how to use it, let them see me drink out of it but didn't make an issue out of it. Just let them play, play, play. Eventually mine started using it. It took a few weeks.

My daycare starts the kids out on the really cheap throw away type of cups. There is no spout, so it is easier to use but with my second I took the spout out of the cups until he learned that something would come out of it that he wanted. Once he started drinking regulary without the spout I added it back in. I did this with my son but not my daughter and he picked up on it way quicker. Not sure how much it helped but I think it did.

We JUST went through this! Son is 13 months.

Whole milk or water.

Our ped said no use for juice of any kind till 2. He'll get all the vitamins and whatnot from actual fruit and other sources.

We simply disappeared the bottles one day. He'd had a few experiments with sippy before that (with both milk and water). He never looked back.

Now we give him a sippy of milk at each meal, and water in between. It will be tremendously helpful if you're a SAHM to have two sippies (one milk, one water) in the fridge at all time. Makes it a TON easier. :)

With both of my kids:

All I did was, buy sippy cups that I liked.
Filled it with water.
Put it on the coffee table in the family room or put it on the floor near them.
Showed it to my kids "Sippy cup! Wow!"
Left it here on the coffee table.
My kids, then... would go up to it and put it to their mouth, and drink from it, whenever.
Casually.
They were less than 1 year old when I did this. Probably about 8 months old.

That is it.
No "transitioning" anything. Or "introducing" anything.
Just water in it.
Never juice.
We never gave our kids juice, until much older.

My son was breast and bottle fed. He had no problems with sippy cups.
My daughter was exclusively breastfed, would not take a bottle, and she had NO problems with sippy cups either.

For starters, just use milk or water in it.

Also, put him in his high chair with it and don't put the little plastic insert in that makes it "leak proof." Let it leak until he figures out that there's milk in there! Once he figures out he can get the milk out, he'll start sucking on it and you can put the "leak proofer" back in. It's most likely that he can't figure out how to get the milk out, so he's not interested yet.

Just my 2 cents - just my opinion - DO NOT give him juice! It's totally unnecessary. It's just about the only thing I've done right with my kids (so I like to talk about it -haha) I just put water and milk in the sippy. Don't even bother with watered down juice. My kids are 8 and 10 and still only drink water and milk. If we're in a restaurant my older one likes Sprite and my little one likes lemonade. I do buy the occasional Caprisun - for picnics or treats. But really, if they're thirsty, it's water they ask for. I think it just never occurs to them to ask for juice. I don't think I've bought one of those huge bottles of juice in my life.

Our babies had a bottle (just 1-2/day) until 14 or 15months (~3 month weaning period). I introduced a sippy first with just water at meals (leaving the valve out b/c they don't know to suck on it that hard yet). I wanted the bottle to be different from the sippy so I never put formula/breastmilk in a sippy.. Then during weaning, offered either water or regular milk in the sippy. (We didn't do juice until they were older.)

You'll want to try different types--the silicone spout is good for beginners, but once they bite it, throw it out; then the Gerber hard spout is my favorite (no spills) as soon as she could use it with the valve, and there are a few straw sippys that don't spill.

Don't stress too much . . . I know I did, and it isn't much help. My pediatrician also gave a paper to us about how he needed to be off the bottle at 12 months, but it also said that some children take a little longer to transition. The paper stated NO LATER THAN 18 Months! I you are still offering a bottle at that point, there is no more transitioning, it is just cold turkey.

We started with water in the sippy, and gave it throughout the day. My son originally liked the ones with the silicone spouts (like a bottle nipple). We eventually switched to the straw kind and the take and toss ones. After those leaked, I got a great recommendation to try Tommee Tippee brand. They are GREAT!!!

My son was not off the bottle until 13.5 months. When it was time for a bottle, we would just give a sippy of milk instead. We slowly took away each bottle until he was only drinking milk from a sippy. This method also worked well because at a year old, the amount of milk is supposed to decrease. He did not want to drink as much milk from a cup as he did with a bottle.

I borrowed a bunch of different sippy cups from friends before knowing which ones to buy. I just gave my son a different cup with his favorite drink (milk) and watched which one he got the most out of. I think most of them are safe enough for the dishwasher but knowing me, I stayed away from the ones that weren't dishwasher friendly (the lightweight ones that would easily flip over or couldn't fit in a removeable basket).

I started when my kids were 6-8 mo old just putting water in it. I nursed my son until 11 mo and then he went straight to sippy cup with formula for a month or so, then transitioned to milk with SOME juice. I think people give kids WAY too much juice IMO. I nursed my daughter for only 9 months. She wasn't ready for sippy cup only, so she did a bottle for 2mo, then sippy cup at 11mo. At your sons age, I would give water/juice from sippy cup ONLY. Then I would gradually start replacing one bottle feeding of formula with formula in sippy cup - start with daytime feedings. It's not the end of the world if he is still taking a bottle sometimes at one year birthday, but you do want him off it shortly after that. Good Luck!!!! Remember, he won't starve himself!

My older daughter transitioned to a straw sippy at 12 months no problem. The baby was another ball of wax. She had no interest in the sippy cup and I tried several different types. Finally at 14 months she started taking the straw sippy cup and once she did that we just tossed all the bottles so if she wanted something she had to drink out of the sippy.

Now much to my chagrin she has started biting off the tops of the plastic flexi straws so once she does it to all her sippies, they are gone and she only gets a real cup. I am not happy because that will mean spills galore, but I am not buying anymore sippy cups for her to bite the straws off.