Teaching a baby to use a cup

[muddypuddled]

Hi, I hope this is the right place for this. I have a 7 month old daughter who I breast feed. We've had lots of issues with an uncut tongue tie and lip tie but we've done really well and her weight has always been good. We really struggle to get her to take a bottle. After trying several types we've found that she will have the mam ones if she's not too tired or hungry. She will never take much from them though. I'm not that bothered if she never takes a bottle successfully but it would be nice to know that if necessary I can leave her and she wouldn't dehydrate (we're weaning fairly well). However, I feed her to sleep and she won't take a dummy. I'm going back to work in a couple of months but need to do some kit days first so I really want her to be good with a cup first so that I know that she will at least get some water. With a Tommy tippee cup she will drink from it but most of it falls out of her mouth and she just ends up soaked. With my son he would always take a bottle so when he started nursery he would just have a bottle of milk/water as needed because he too struggled with a cup for a while. Does anybody have any tips for me or is this just normal? Health visitor has been useless for us. Tia

[Toomanymarsbars]

She'll get the hang of it eventually, she's still quite young and all kids "get" things at different paces. My oldest refused a sippy cup but would drink from a straw, he was ok using a cup when he was about 16 months. My second was the same but cup was ok from about a year.

[FuzzyOwl]

Keep trying with the water in a cup each time she has a bath and if necessary out milk in instead to encourage drinking until he gets the hang.

[Kittyrobin]

It's probably something that will come naturally over time. keep giving the cup it's all you can do.

[PrincessHairyMclary]

She'll work it out, it requires a very different technique to drink from a shallow spout then it does from a nipple which goes fairly deep into her mouth and she is unlikely to become dehydrated whilst you are at work unless it's very hot. However she will make up for it when you return and feed for ages.

On another point my DD was also breastfed and couldn't work out how to hold a cup and drink from it at the same time until she was over a year whilst all my friends bottle fed babies picked it up straight away as they were used to holding bottles.

[muddypuddled]

Thanks all. Unfortunately I work 13 hr shifts so I need to make sure she'll be ok. I do wonder though if I just stay away from her for a long time like that, (leave her with my husband) whether she will take a bottle then because there's no other option

[SquidTableau]

My bf dd preferred to drink from an open plastic shot glass at that age and made surprisingly little mess - would this work?

[muddypuddled]

Worth a try thanks squid, although now I can only think of her lining up the vodka shots