Introducing a cup?

[Abubu]

Hi,

Not sure whether I should be posting this on here or on the weaning threads but here goes...

DD3 is 6 months and EBF. What should I be doing with regards to drinking with a cup when she starts eating more solids?

I know there are a lot of bottle to cup trainers available but what if she has never been used to a bottle to start with?

Should I go straight to one of these trainer bottles or introduce a normal bottle first?

Also should I be offering her a cup with her solids at this stage or not for a few months? If so should it have milk in it or another drink such as juice / water?

Never had this problem with DTS as they were bottle fed....

Thanks.

I think the advice is from 6 months offer water in a cup with solid meals - I offer it when I guess we're half way through and again at the end (and in between sometimes, bit random really!) But DD is 7.5 months and still isn't very "good" at drinking from a cup, I'm not worried because she gets all the fluid she needs from breastmilk for now. I just give her the cup for practice, guess I will have to stop breastfeeding one day...

I wouldn't bother with bottles at all if you're planning to carry on BFing, why introduce it just to have to wean her off it in 6 months? Also it can be pretty hard work to introduce a bottle to a 6 month EBFer - they just don't know what to do with it.

A free flow cup is best (i.e. no valve, so not the bottle to cup trainer things). We have a tommee tippee lidded cup and a doidy cup, she also sometimes drinks from an eggcup if they are both in the dishwasher.

For now I would avoid juice as it might encourage a sweet tooth - I would stick to just water or breastmilk / formula. Or if you do give juice then I think you're supposed to dilute it 1:10 in water.

And, in case you're wondering, plain old tap water is fine from 6 months, and you don't have to sterilise the cups, just use a clean one each time.

HTH!

RJandA said everything I would've :)

agreed. My DD drank from doidy cup and Tommee Tippee free flow with help from us. Then, out of nowehere, this week (aged 10months) she picked up the Tommee Tippee and drank from it all by herself. So sweet!

(we started with doidy cup as she refused bottle and other spouted cups. She really didn't want anything other than boob in her mouth. Then at about 8 months she suddenly decided she was willing to give it a go!)