Beaker/ Cup - HELP!

[shish]

My ds. now 6 months old, has never accepted the bottle, so I have exclusively b/f him. He is now on solids and hving 3 meals a day. I have been trying to give him water in a beaker for last 3 month. Have been using avent magic cup, without the valve in. I offer water at every meal, but without any luck. As sson as he sees the beaker, he wants it and will put it in his mouth, but doesn't actually drink from it.

Does anyone have any tips?? Should I try a different type of beaker? I'm quite keen to reduce the daytime feeds, but I'm worried he'll dehydrate if he's not drinking any other fluids..

[munz]

tbh j's only just worked out the beaker thing at 8.5/9 months - the tomme tippe ones you have to bite and suck, (I tried all differnt ones but he wouldn't get them) so I used to give him his water from the bottle still then one day I thought ok will try again and he actually did it - I think it's just perseverance and finding a cup which suits you.

are you demand feeding/is there any reason you would like to drop the feeds - or is it as he's now on 3 meals p/d?

[MrsBadger]

maybe try an open cup (be prepared for spills but they get the hang quite fast) - the Doidy cup is meant to be pretty good.

[IdreamofClooney]

we used many different cups and beakers - DS settled in the most basic tommie tippie one, with the lid and the spout that flips up. He is now 18 months and will happily take milk (out of the red one) and water (out of a blue one) by himself.

We also have a diody cup which is recommended for BF babies and in theory can be used in place of bottles / spouted cups and he loves drinking out of it but boy is it messy! Even if you only put a tiny drop in it still gets everywhere. You can of course just offer water out of any open (plastic) cup and hold the cup until the child is old enough not to spill everywhere but is very time consuming and I found it difficult to encourage the child to drink the volume of fluid required this way.

[liquidclocks]

DS was FF and would do the same until he was about a year - let him experiment with it. If your BF he should be getting what he needs from you. I think our big mistake was trying to force it - for about a month he would cry when he even saw our cup. Also buy a selection of 3/4 cups - we started with an anywayup cup and ended up on boots soft tip which are easier to suck from. He'll use anything now at 2 so don't stress

[USAUKMum]

It takes a while for them to figure it out. Both my BF babes had the advent (but we did try many cups). DD was never able to use the valve, but DS was able. I remember it taking a few months, but got there definitley by 1. (they were down to 3 feeds a day I think around then). Just keep trying.

[whenevilgotstuckupthechimney]

shish - my dd is 7 months and has been exclusively bf - now we're weaning i was really worried that she wasn't getting enough fluid as she wouldn't drink anything, from anything! spoke to nice midwife who said not to worry, bf babies will get enough fluid even if they don't feed very much (?!). yesterday (yay!) dd got the hang of a tommy tippy beaker cup (with handles and spout) after 6 wks of me putting it in her mounth and her spitting it out. she now drinks water if i hold the cup! just be patient, keep trying and don't worry

[notnigella]

hi shish, myself and a couple of friends had same problem and found that this nuk cup with a soft spout like a bottle teat was the only one they would use at first, and have now graduated to regular valve cups.

[Tommy]

I had this problem with DS2 - in the end I used to give him the beaker and he played with it - wasn't ever sure how much waster he actually drank out of it - but eventually he got the hang of it.
The Tommee Tippee was most successful here as well.
Good luck - he won't dehydrate if you offer him water

[shish]

I went and bought the tommee tippee beaker with the flip lid a couple of days ago, and he actually drank a bit from it - althoughe he got himself quite wet aswell!! I think I'm honna keep trying with this one for a little while. Funny - it's the cheapest aswell Does it come in a larger size for a large amount of milk later??

I've seen the NUK one, thought about that too..

[xmasstocking]

My friend showed me some beakers they have bought for their 4-month old (they were struggling) - they are disposable ones from Asda (I think) and really cheap and she said that the water flows out really easily into their mouths so they don't even need to suck.