changing from bottle to cup

[Nickyfen]

Hi this is my 1st time posting a message!
Can anyone help - my 8 month old happily drinks water from a cup with a spout, but I have read that he should now start having his milk feeds from a cup as well. I tried this the other day and he got so upset I had to pour the milk in to a bottle. Does anyone have any advise or can recommend a good cup to use? Thanks!!

[mears]

You could leave his milk in a bottle just now - 8 month old babies will still like to suck. It is good he takes water from a cup so just keep that going. Once he is on cow's milk instead of formula you could give that in a cup.

[moondog]

You could try a doidy cup. They are slanted so it is easier for alittle face to drink from without having the contents down his/her front.

Alternatively,skip the spouted cup and go straight onto a plastic cup (I did.)

If he doesn't take to it,it doesn't matter. 8 months is still very young!

(Welcome btw )

[mears]

Watch out - you'll get addicted now you have done that first post

[Nickyfen]

I didn't expect to get a response so quickly - thanks!
What is a doidy cup I haven't heard of it before - is that the makers name or style of cup?

[moondog]

Both,nickyfen. Urchin catalogue sell them,or you can probably buy on the Internet.

[Nickyfen]

thanks i'll have a look!

[Seona1973]

this is where I got my doidy cup

I didnt bother offering milk from anything other than a bottle until dd turned 1 as I wanted to be sure she took her milk properly as she wasnt a big milk drinker. She (21 months now) will drink out of any open topped cup and has learned how to drink out of most lidded beakers too (better for out and about).

[poppy101]

Seona what kind of beaker etc did you use for your lo ?

[Nickyfen]

Seona when you offered your lo milk from a cup how did you go about it? Did she not take to it at first or did you find she was ok with it because she was that bit older?

[Seona1973]

Sorry, havent been about for a couple of days!

The first cup dd got on with was the tommee tippee first cup - it has a flip down spout and is a freeflowing one and is widely available in the supermarket, chemists, mothercare, etc. (dd couldnt get water out of the other cups we tried) I always offered water with meals out of it from around 7 months - at first she would only take a couple of sips (literally) but she did improve over time - I always left the cup on the highchair tray so she could fiddle about with it herself too. Once she had the hang of having to suck from the spout, she was able to use the cups with valves e.g. avent magic cup, etc (I avoided the anyway-up cup though as I found it difficult to get anything out of it!!)

When I first stopped the morning bottle and offered the cup, I tried offering it in place of the bottle before breakfast but she was having non of it...lol. I therefore offered it along with breakfast instead and she took a little more. I stopped the evening bottle one night after that when she started playing about with the bottle and sprayed the milk about (that was why we ended up using the avent magic cup as it is non-spill)

Her intake did go down for a few days as she got used taking milk from a spout instead of a bottle but there wasnt any crying/moaning about it and it never affected her sleeping through either.

From 1 year the recommended intake of milk is between 12-20 ounces inclusive of milk in cooking, in cereal, dairy products, etc so they dont need to take so much milk as a drink so this was why I wasnt as worried about her milk intake after she reached that age.

Sorry for rambling!! If theres anything else you want to know, just ask

[Seona1973]

forgot to say that she was off bottles by about 14 months. She now has an open cup (doidy/any other plastic cup) of milk or fresh orange with her breakfast and still has a small avent cup of milk before bed although sometimes I give her the cup half an hour or so before her bath and she will drink most of it then.