4.15.2008

 

The Sippy Cup Post

So we're in Sippy Cup Limbo right now. Sounds scary, right? It is. First, we tried the Gerber Fun Grips Soft Starter, which is one of Kent's favorite toys, but not so much something to drink from. First of all, it claims to have a "soft spout," but it's not very soft at all, so it makes an excellent thing for a teething boy to chew on. Also, there's a little plug that fits inside to control the flow, and you put that in once your kid learns to suck through the spout. Kent has not learned this, so the plug is currently out, meaning that every time he turns the cup over, a little bit spills out, usually not into his mouth but all over his shirt or on top of the Cheerios on his high chair. This is okay when there's water in the cup, but it's made me not want to put diluted juice (sticky) or breastmilk (liquid gold which I really don't enjoy pumping) in the cup, since it's just going to get sloshed around. We fill it with water during the day and then put milk in there most evenings, since it's right before his bath and I'm okay with wasting a little every day in the name of his education, but he hasn't gotten the hang of the thing in the few weeks we've been trying. He gets some in his mouth, but it hasn't been enough to get him to start trying to drink out of it. He's still mostly interested in chewing on it, banging it on the high chair, etc.

So today, I inspected various other sippy cups at Target with Kent's help, and we decided to try the Nuby Grip 'n' Sip, which has a soft straw. One of my LLL friends mentioned that her son got the hang of a straw much easier than a harder spout, so I thought we'd give it a shot. He definitely didn't take right to it, though I realize we just started trying today and I shouldn't expect much yet. Kent and I took turns with the Nuby; first, I'd show him how to suck on the straw to get some diluted juice, and then he'd take the cup and chew on the straw. I think he may have closed his lips around it once or twice, but he wasn't sucking on it (how do you teach sucking??), and it's not an easy straw to get anything out of, anyway. In all their efforts to make sippy cups spillproof, these companies have also made them drinkproof, so that no liquid actually comes out unless you very deliberately put your mouth in exactly the right place and very purposefully drink from it, which you can only accomplish if you already knew how to do it in the first place.

I don't feel like it's money wasted, because I know eventually he'll catch on to drinking from something other than a boob, and then he'll be able to use all the sippy cups we've collected for him. And if I had all the time in the world for him to learn, I wouldn't be worried. The problem is that he's starting daycare in a month and a half, and in addition to my being freaked out about every other aspect of leaving him with strangers for six hours, two days a week, I'm also trying to get him in the sippy cup groove so that he can actually drink something while he's there. He used to take bottles fairly easily, even though it was obviously not his preferred method of delivery, but now he doesn't drink out of those, either.

Next to try is another kind of Nuby whose spout is much softer and more like a nipple. It feels like a step backward, but if we don't have progress with the two cups we have, I'll be ready to try something else soon. Sigh.

***

Sometimes I take a step back and wonder what I ever spent time thinking about before I had Kent. What's that you say? Grad school? Nah.

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Comments:

Erica, I hate to tell you this, but whatever cup Kent likes to drink from, your next kid will hate. That's why I am now glad I saved all the different kinds of cups we collected the first time around. However, when he gets a little older, I would recommend the coolster tumbler, which you can see here:
http://www.playtexstore.com/mas_assets/full/PLA05781.jpg
It looks just like an adult coffee cup, and truly is "cool" in both senses of the word. Also, I found this funny music link for you. Enjoy!
http://www.disinformationtshirts.com/prodimages/mozart.jpg
 
Hello! Don't fret. John also had to go down the straw path before he could progress to the sippy cup spout. It took a couple of weeks for him to get the hang of it but he did. Just keep letting Kent practice with the straw. He'll get it! Heather
 
Nicholas didn't drink from a sippy cup for a while. It took lots and lots of tries. Finally he woke up one morning and drank from one of those basic Tupperware cups (plain opaque solid spout lids). Then he had it. His favorite was the Nuby cups with the soft spouts. And he also teethed all over the rubberized spout ones, I had to throw them away for safety reasons. Kent is being very normal. And maybe he too will wake up one day and give in to the whole concept.
(BTW - my secret word is fakyu. Very funny!)
 
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