Help with 1 Year Old Drinking Milk from Sippy Cup

I agree with what Ange said and using the Born Free sippy cups. They use the same valves, screw tops as the bottles, so all you need to do is buy new spouts and voila, instant sippy cup. My little guy had no issues making the switch.

Maybe you could also try doing 3/4 water, 1/4 milk and slowly raising the level of milk in the sippy cup?

Hi J.

My twins just turned 1 on March 24th. Recently about 2 weeks ago I took all the bottle away and stashed them in the basement. (so i would not be tempted to give it to them) One twin learned how to use his sippy cup since he was 4 months old. The other just started to learn also. I think that trying different cups was also what we did but I noticed that if the twins were hungry they may not like the cup but they soon realized that their was no more bottle and they had to use the cup.. Now i have 3 different kinds of cups and they use all of them. (i thought they didn;t like those but proves that all they wanted was their bottle) They have adjusted just fine. Bottom line Stash the bottle completley and if they cry a bit thats okay you know you have fed them well and the sippy cup needs practice. Give them 2 days and see if you notice the difference. Let me know how that goes.
Good luck

When someone figures this one out let me know. None of my three children would ever drink milk out of a sippy. The best advice I could give is to buy one of the sippies that have a straw in them. For some reason this helped with mine.

I think you just have to keep trying to give it to her in a sippy, or try in a regular cup. I've been giving my 16-month-old a regular cup to drink from since about 11 months, and he can drink all by himself (a little spill here and there, but I never put too much in :D). Sometimes the novelty of a cup is enough to get them drinking something new from it!
And drinking from a cup is a good skill to have, in case you're stuck without the sippy somewhere!
Good luck!

For my two kids, (who were drinking out of the bottle 3 times a day), I started about a month before they turned one. For one week, I started off with the afternoon milk in a cup. The first couple of days were the hardest. But if they really want it, they will drink it. Don't give in and go back to a bottle just so they get milk in their body. A few times or days without milk is not going to hurt them.

Anyway - first week - just the afternoon feeding in a cup. Second week - morning also in a cup and the third week, the last feeding of the day in a cup. If they're drinking 4 times a day - then, it would take 4 weeks by this process. After the first couple of days that first week, it was fine and a painless transition for my kids. But I never switched back to the bottle after trying to give them the cup if they refused to take it for that feeding. I do know a couple of families that used straws because nothing else they did worked. Good Luck!

When my daughter turned 1 and the doctor told me to start giving whole milk, I did that and put the milk in a sippy cup and got rid of the bottles. For her the bottles were out of sight out of mind. I noticed that she would drink everything out of a sippy cup but I was having trouble with her drinking the milk. I figured out that she just did not like the milk that cold, so I heat in in the microwave for 40 seconds to take the chill out of it and now I have no problems with her taking the milk out the the sippy cup.

We went through the same thing with our daughter. She refused to drink anything out of the sippy. She LOVED milk but disliked water. So anytime she got milk it went into the sippy, and only water went into the bottle. She learned quickly that if she wanted milk she had to learn like the sippy. Eventually she learned to like water as well and drank everything from the sippy.

If you find something that works please do share. I am having the same issue with my son who just turned 1.

My biggest concern was that we went cold turkey and he would not drink much out of a sippy at all. Milk or water. I was afraid he was getting dehydrated. I did go back to offering a bottle after 4 days. He downed 8 oz. of milk in minutes.

Now I am stuck back at square 1. I'm doing a morning and night bottle of mile to make sure he gets at least 16 oz of liquid a day but the rest of the day offering sippys. I've tried a bunch of different ones and none help. He maybe takes 4 oz of liquid out of a sippy throughout the day.

My twins have numerous issues so we have lots of therapist so this was recommended to me by them. It really breaks my heart to say this as well, but give your girl the milk in the sippy cup and that is it no more bottles. If she doesn't wanted it oh well. If she is really thirsty she will drink it. Yes, we did this for the boys. Yes there was a lot of screaming. Yes it broke my heart, but after 24 hours they finally used the sippy cup filled with milk. It is a lot of patience.

Someone mentioned previous about the straw sippy cup. I just wanted to add according to speech therapist, it helps with children's speech development. However, they are royal pain to clean.

Good Luck!

My daughter also refuses to drink milk from a sippy cup. Juice or water is no problem. I bought cups with straws instead and that is how she drinks it. Playtex, Gerber and others make them. Also, she prefers it warmed up. I add just a bit of Ovaltine to the milk also--maybe a teaspoon just ot give it a little flavor.
As anther poster mentioned, the straws a re a pain to clean. But it can be done. Buy a pack or regular fuzzy pipecleaners. You can get them at Michaels or Joanne's-or even Target in the craft section. Fold the pipecleaner in half and twist a bit. The pipecleaner fits into the straw perfectly. Figure that a pipecleaner will last a week before tossing it out. I have not tried to wash them.

When my mother took away my bottle I stopped drinking milk. To this day I won't drink milk (I'm 44). I didn't want the same thing to happen with my kids, so I stared warming up the milk & putting in the sippy cup. It worked with both of my kids. If that still doesn't work than substitute the calcium with cheese & yogurt (not the kid's yogurt, they're loaded with sugar).

When I was starting to wean my son off of the bottle when he was a year old, I tried almost every sippy cup out there, but he wouldn't do more than sip a little, then he was done with it. And then he also decided he was done with the bottle - no formula, no milk, nothing! That made it easier to wean him, but worse, because I thought, how am I going to get him to drink anything now?! I had tried the regular sippys with the valve, regular sippys without the valve, AND sippys with a straw. (I wasted a lot of money on sippys!) I figured out it was the diminished flow he didn't like. We had modified some standard sippy cups to increase the flow (hollowed out the spout), and he liked those ok. And then we either removed or tried to modify any no-spill valve in both tip-up sippys and the straw kind. He still didn't want them.

Luckily I soon came across some small juice-box sized sippy bottles at Wal-Mart (in the kitchen section), with a drinking spout and a straw that goes down. Those did the trick! Those little juice-box bottles were easy to carry and easy to drink from. They were cheap and broke easily, but at $1.44, big deal! Then we soon moved on to the Take-N-Toss cups with lids and straws, and now that's all he uses. It's more like a real cup, and he gets to control how much he takes in, whether it be a sip or a gulp, and I think that's what he likes. And now he can drink from any cup/straw combo, and we're working on going without the lid & straw on his cups.

I hope this helps, I know the frustration you're going through! Just keep trying - something WILL work!

(I have to add, as for cleaning the straws, if you have a dishwasher, just place the straws over the posts on the top rack! If you don't have a dishwasher, just soak the straws in hot soapy water for a bit and rinse well.)

Have you tried putting other things in the sippy, like juice? She might be associating that the water comes from the sippy and milk comes from a bottle. So to her, when she gets the milk in the sippy, it's just not right. Also, maybe try putting some milk in a regular cup and letting her sip from that as well... my daughter loves drinking from our glasses, so it might help her to realize that milk doesn't only have to come in a bottle.

We had the same problem with our son. He wasn't even interested in chocolate syrup in the sippy. I decided to go cold turkey and put away all of the bottles. He hardly drank any milk for a couple of days, but was fine with by the 3rd or 4th day. I just made sure to offer him more cheese and yogurt in the beginning for the calcium. We also use a separate sippy for water (he loves water) and milk. Good luck!

My daughter had the same problem. My doctor suggested putting a little bit of chocolate or strawberry syrup in the milk to encourage her to drink it...it worked!! We only used the syrup for 3-4 days and that was the end of it. We also completely eliminated the bottle so she wouldn't hold out for us to give in. This way she learned that the sippy cup is all she gets.
Good luck!

Try the Born Free sippy cup:
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2661896

That's what I used no problem. It's almost still 'like' a bottle but a training cup!

Hope this helps!