Please tell me about bottles vs non-spill cups and oral health!

[penona]

My 2yr old DTs still have a night time bottle . During the day they mostly drink from open beakers and cups, occasionally use a straw for thicker drinks (like a smoothie), but I can't imagine giving them their night-time drink in an open cup... all nice and clean from the bath and in new pjs... would just be mad!

My other mum friends who still give their kids bedtime drinks all use non-spill beakers, but they don't seem to me terribly different from a bottle in terms of not being an 'adult' way to drink. Mine have tried these non-spill cups a few times but totally fail to get the hang of them.

So (finally) my question is, is there any advantage in using a non-spill cup over a bottle from a dental or speech perspective? Or is it OK to stick to bottles until they either give up the drink (not relishing that battle) or are safe to use an open cup?

whispers....mine was 3.5 when the teat on his milk bottle finally gave up the ghost so i didnt repalce it.

So i found a cup that had a lid on that i could pop a straw into for his bedtime milk.

He didnt stop having bed time milk till he was 4 and i started to get him dry at night.

I was advised about teeth but tbh he is 6 in a day or two and still has the most lovely shiney white baby teeth and hasnt lost a single one yet (much to his annoyance!)

Speach not a problem, the kid never shut up srom the moment he opened his eyes till the moment he closed them at night, and it was clear as a bell.

As long as i was getting a good amount of milk into him each day, i wasnt so fussed on how i got it into him.

there is no advantage in a non-spill cup over a bottle.
because of the non-spill-ness of them they force the child to suck on the spout in a very similar way to which they'd suck on a bottle. thus the effects are similar in terms of jaw/teeth formation and liquid pooling around the teeth.

I think if you're only giving one milk drink a day in a bottle then there really is nothign to worry about, especially if they drink well from an open cup the rest of the time

if you did want to use a cup instead of a bottle then use a free-flow one like the basic tommee tippee style. slightly less mess than an open cup

Thanks, makes me feel better! We did have tommee tippee first cups with a hard spout but it takes AGES for them to drink from them, I'd be up there all night getting 8oz of milk in!!!

Found it v difficult to get any research about this - all the advice is to wean them off bottles, but surely if just onto a non-spill cup is just a way to get more money off you (those cups are v expensive! much more so than a plastic beaker from Ikea!!)

Babies use a very different sucking action to drink fom a bottle with a teat than from other lidded cups. So children who are given bottles later than a year have to continue to use this immature sucking action beyond when it would naturally mature and disappear.

The tongue has to move forwards and backwards to get the liquid out of a teat effectively.

If you tried to drink from a babies bottle you would probably find it very hard because you have developped a mature sucking action- using your cheeks.

Try different types of lidded cups - perhaps when you visit other people's houses if you don't feel you want to buy a whole array of them.

Or just give them their drink with a straw.

Ds had huge difficulty with lots of cups but happily used a tomme tippee 'easy flow' type cup. Took him ages to be able o drink from an anyway up cup and I had to dig at the valve to make it less stiff!

Sports top cups are good although without the valve, a bit more messy.

They'll get it