Lots of questions on getting my weaning baby to drink!

[Angelina7]

Hi, my 6 month old is doing really well with her weaning, she chooses to eat more now & therefore has less formula, though she is still having enough formula for her age. But I am worried she may become dehydrated as it's very difficult to get water into her. I have 2 cups... One non spill one... How do I get her to understand that she needs to suck?? Also one baby first cup that's not non spill so I can assist her but can't leave her with it. Any tips gladly accepted as it's all new to me :-) thank you

Don't worry. She's still having formula and food is 95% water anyway. You could try her on an open cup - they get the hang of it pretty quickly and there's no point her learning to suck on a cup. Just give her water in the free-flow one and let her spray it around a bit - she'll soon work it out.

Thank you, that's very reassuring :-)

My dd2 wouldn't drink out of any of the different cups I bought for her at first. In the end I used a small Avent bottle, and Avent sell a separate double handle that you can put on it, so she could still hold it like a beaker. That worked really well and then in time she came round to using a beaker with a spout instead. I found that if I left a beaker on a surface or somewhere just within her reach, she was more likely to help herself to it that if I gave it to her or put it on her tray - the thought that it belonged to someone else made it more tempting!

I'd just experiment with lots of different cups, if you can afford to buy a few. Tommee Tippee free-flow ones are good - though like you we prefer the non-spill ones, they have only been good when she has worked out that she wants and likes water and so can be bothered to suck. Straws might be interesting too. We also found that even at 6 months she liked to try and drink from an open cup so we helped her do that, even though it is a bit messy... Basically, I think that have to learn that they want water before they can be bothered to work out different cups.

Even at 2 we have to swap cups around every month, the novelty of a new cup or style of drinking still works on her!