hello,
so i'm hoping someone can give me advice to help me figure out this situation i am currently facing. here is my (long-winded) detailed background and problem...
my baby is 8.5 months old and is breastfed. since she was 3 weeks old, my husband has given her a bottle once a week to ensure she would take a bottle from him, family members babysitting, etc. a few times, she has refused a nightime bottle but still sleeps through the night and takes the bottle fine on the next occasion (thus, we chalked it up to her being more tired than hungry).
she began solid food at 6 mos and i introduced a sippy cup (with water in it) at 6.5 months at mealtime. she picked it up right away and took a few sips. i was ecstatic--although, she only did it a few times and then just chewed on the cup. i realized a few weeks later it coincided with her first teeth coming in. the pediatrician said to just keep offering the sippy cup at meals and one day she will just 'get it' and begin drinking from it. since then, she has continued to play with the cup (rather than drinking from it) at mealtimes.
around 8 months, i thought it would be a good idea to use the sippy cup lid on her weekly bottle so she would understand it was similar to a bottle and begin to use it. she refused the bottle with the sippy lid and then also refused with the regular nipple lid. this situation happened for 2 weeks in a row. however, we noticed that she was chewing on the bottle nipple rather than sucking on it. she wasn't upset about getting a bottle, she just would not suck on it.
last weekend, i tried to give her a bottle (i didn't have the sippy cup lid anywhere in sight!). she just chewed the nipple and would not suck on it. if she accidently got some liquid in her mouth, she spit it out. we tried formula and expressed breastmilk with the same results. i then sat her up and took off the bottle lid and fed her the liquid like a regular drinking cup. she took the liquid (of course, spilling about half of it), yet she didn't spit it out. that told me she wasn't refusing the liquid, just the bottle.
has she 'weened' herself from the bottle since she will not suck on it?
in the meantime, she is breastfeeding fine and still is not too interested in a sippy cup. in the last few days, i have given her a NEW sippy cup (i went out and bought about 5 different ones!) with diluted apple juice and also with formula. she will drink the liquid when i take off the lid and use it like a regular cup; this situation is not ideal as she tries to grab the cup from me and 'leaks' much of it out of her mouth. i then put on the sippy cup lid and she doesn't really want to drink from it. she would rather play with the cup.
is it too early for her to use a sippy cup?
what do you think i should do?
thanks much!
Hi I.- You seemed to have gotten a lot of good advice. Here is something different. Try taking the plug out of the sippy so it is easier for her to get the stuff (it will fall into her mouth like a cup but withoust so much mess). My kids never did take a bottle but all ended up with sippies eventually. Don't worry you are a great mom and she will be fine!
B.
If you're home with her this isn't that big of a deal. My son refused bottles starting at 7.5 months and has never taken one again. I worked full time and pumped, so this was a major issue. We got around it by getting him to drink from a regular cup (he didn't like sippies either) at meal time (just a swallow between bites). He seemed to think the sippy cup was a fun chew toy that annoyingly leaked sometimes. We just had our sitter start feeding him solid foods when he was hungry while I was at work. We tried to incorporate as much of my pumped breast milk as possible into his food so he still got it.
If your only worry is that you won't be able to leave her and go out, just have your sitter feed her some real food. She'll be fine. And eventually she'll figure out either a regular cup, a sip cup, a straw cup...
As for the bottle thing, I would not bother her with bottles for at least a week. You can "ask" her if she wants some, but don't be surprised if she doesnt.
If she is still exclusively breastfed, then why the sippy cup? She's a baby and knows what she wants and she wants only you. If you are intent on the cup though, they have sippy cups with straws but I think she's a little young to understand the straw but you never know. You may have to give up on your husband giving her a bottle once a week if she is refusing it. My daughter won't take a bottle hardly ever (she is breastfed) and would rather go to sleep and wake up when she knows I'm back to nurse her. If you don't want to deal with the mess she makes I would discontinue the cup for now. If she's nursing enough, you won't have to worry about dehydration so she doesn't really need any water since your milk has a lot of water in it.
I also noticed that so many of your responses assumed you would go to cow's milk at 12 months but you can continue to breastfeed, don't assume you have to go to cow's milk. Breastmilk is far superior than anything else. Good luck and relax, it will all work out.
Without having read any of the other posting responses to your "dillemma" I will tell you with full confidence that she will get it and she may get it differently than you'd like it. In other words, each child does things differently as you probably may guess. NOT ALL BABIES TAKE A BOTTLE OR A SIPPY CUP. My my own experience I can tell you that my daughter never took a sippy cup with a lid on it till around 20+ months and she refused the bottle entirely until she was 2 years old, which at that point was just a toy to her. You cannot force these things and getting worried or frustrated about these littler things will make you annoyed and you will get caught up in the insignificant matters. Let it go and do not worry AT ALL. You have to ride the waves and do not push it. Give her cups of water and let her drink what she does and if she pours it out just wipe it up. Its not a big deal. Do not introduce juices or anything else in an open cup if you do not want to deal with the mess. Also, your daughter sounds like she's about done with the bottle, so move on. I guess this might sound a bit abrupt and I apologize if it does but you'll see it'll all work out and you'll laugh at this later on. Don't sweat it. Enjoy your little one and G-d bless her and your family.
Hi there,
My daughter did the same thing, weaned herself of the bottle. She never liked a sippy cup so we taught her to drink through a straw. Get one for you and one for her. Show her how and she will imitate you. It might take a few tries and she might be surprised the first time she gets something. You can get a nubby straw cup that does not leak or you can just use the ones you get at restaurants with kids meals. I hope this helps.
I would say not to put so much pressure on yourself :) Maybe she finds it all amusing, maybe she likes the novelty of drinking from the cup without a lid, etc, etc. I find as a new mom myself that there are more quetions then answers. My suggestion would be just to take a break from it. My son is 15 months and still will only drink milk out of a bottle but he will drink water out of a sippy cup. He is picky about the milk but I don't worry. He won't be 2 or 3 still drinking out of a bottle. Your daughter is still young. You can't force change all you can do is offer it until she accepts. That being said she will need to get water in some form to help with digestion of solids and hydration. If she is still nursing then you don't have to worry about the milk portion. But just take a week or so off the bottle/sippy cup thing and introduce it again. It will happen :)
Have you tried the sippy cup without the plug? I found that that worked on my son for a while. A little messy but not as messy as drinking from a regular cup. Also you could try a straw. I used my finger to plug the top of the straw with liquid in it and then put it in his mouth so he understood what would come out and then let him try drinking it out of a cup. It's worth a try. good luck
As far as the bottle, I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you are breastfeeding she really doesn't ever need to take a bottle, so I wouldn't stress over it if she doesn't want it. If you nurse her until at least a year (this is what is recommmended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, WHO recommends two years) then you can just transition from nursing to a cup...
Which brings us to the cup. I agree with your ped, it seems like at a certain point they just "get it" and start drinking from the cup. Did any of the cups you bought have a soft spout? My son would only drink from those no matter how thirsty he got. I personally hate the Nuby ones that a lot of people seem to like they leak) but I like the Gerber ones at Walmart- they have blue lids and some have long handles. He will only accept those or a regular cup. I would also recommned trying something like watered down apple or white grape juice- water isn't really that much of a reward for learning to use a cup. She should be getting plenty of fluid from your breastmilk that dehydration isn't really an issue. Good luck.
Always keep in mind LESS IS MORE
Your daughter may just be getting confused she has to many options
Pick one or two and go with those and no more. Which two are working the best I would guess breastfeeding and a small bottle with handles so she can hold it seems to be her choice for now do just those two for a couple of weeks and then switch from bottle to sippy cup and then the bottle is gone and it is only breastfeeding and sippy cup and so on till she is just doing the sippy cup.
I think there is always a lot of pressure of when the right time is to introduce everything and if you don't do xyz, it won't work.
Every child is different and sometimes you just have to try different things.
one of the problems you might have is that you used water - so your daughter might now associate the bottle and sippy cup with water - not worth her effort! I would try again wiht the bottle using breast milk - then she will again think - ooh look what I can get from this. Try putting some of the breast milk on the nipple of the bottle, so she can smell it as well.
It might take some work, but she will get it. Then at about 12 months, reintroduce the sippy cup. And I would offer that with juice, breast milk or formula. babies don't naturally like water - my doctor told me to use it to wean from a nightime bottle when they didn't need it - because the woulnd't think it was good enough.
That's why you have to give them something they want
I hope this helps.
In my opinion, I think it is a little early to start the sippy cup. I agree witht the person who posted and said there is such pressure to start things at "just the right time" etc., but often that pressure is to start EARLY. She's only 8.5 months...she's still a baby! She has the rest of her life to be drinking out of a cup. If you wait until she is at least one (when you introduce cow's milk), you may have more success. So often we hurry our babies and children along, pushing them to the next new thing and then have the nerve to wonder "how did they grow up so fast?". If you wait, I guarantee she will not be using a sipy cup at her wedding!! :-)
That being said, when you decide the time is right, I have found that soft spout sippy cups are a good transition, and sometimes they will go straight to the cup, when they have more control of their motor skills to not spill it all over. Hope this helps!
My son did the same at that age for about a week or 2 he would not take a bottle. I introduced the sippy cup. The sippy cup I used is the NUBY brand. It has a silicone top similar to a bottle. They have several syles, we use both the one with and w/o handles. He drank from it, but only sips. I then tried a different bottle (we were using advent), and now he drinks from that. I bought the playtex drop-in style, the nipple is much softer than the others we compared and I got recomendations for that one from others (including Dr Sears in his book). It has to be the Drop in type Playtex bottle. The other playtex bottle has a different nipple. I wasn't that crazy about dealing with the drop in, but it's no big deal.
Now my son will take a bottle from anyone and I don't have to worry about him being dehydrated.
Good luck.
