Breast to beaker...which beaker?

[futurity]

Hi

I am breast feeding my 5 1/2 month old son and have started to think about moving him over to feeding from a beaker (been told this is best at his age rather than trying bottle). He takes water from a small Boots beaker and I was given another small beaker from a friend which he also uses but I think these will be too small for milk so am wondering if anyone can recomend a beaker which I can use.

Thanks!

He'll have a good sucking action so you could try the superb Anywayup cups. I can't remember when ds started using these, he was probably a lot older but they are really good. The Tommy Tippee leak everywhere but might be easier for your baby.I'm sure ds used a bottle until he was about 9 months, he had no probs moving to a beaker then.

I think I must be the only person who doesn't rave about the anyway up cups but still think the Tommy Tippee with the flip up and down spout is great.

You don't need to be able to suck porridge through a straw to get liquid out. Liquid does come out when the spout is up but you can control it. I offered ds sips from my own glass of water, which is always around, partic when breastfeeding. He could handle a pint glass by one year. Don't know if that's anything to brag about though.

My daughter went on to anywayupcups at about 7 months. But my ds is nearly 5 months and happily using the Avent no drip beaker and it seems great. I got one in my bounty pack. I think they cost about £3.50 though.

I absolutely detest Anywayupcups. I bought one when I'd gone out without a beaker and used it once - then I could never get the s0dding lid off. It ended up in the bin. Hate them hate them hate them! Grrrr, rant over Mind you, I believe they do screw top lids now though... I think he'd probably be too young to suck it, especially as he's learning to take something other than the breast - you really need something that gives a quick result so he's not giving up too easily.

My favourite cup of all time is the Avent Magic Cup. Ideal for milk as it comes apart completely for cleaning. An added bonus if you've got any Avent bottles - you can just buy the spouts as they are compatible.

I really like, or more importantly my 'resistant to anything bar mummy's breast' baby likes, the Heinz Baby basics one, it's small enough to get his hands around and lift, plus has soft-ish spout

We had real trouble with all the non-spill type beakers - I've got a cupboard full of them and DS can't get more than a few drops out of any of them. So we're using the "spill if you turn them upside down" type (including the old style Avent soft spouts which they've stopped doing now), and the lidless, but excellent Doidy Cup (available here ) which teaches a sipping action without having to tip the head back. Yes some gets spilt when he tries to use it himself, but I'm convinced it's the fast track to drinking from normal cups.

I agree with emmagee about the Heinz ones - soft spout and friendly handles at 4 and 8 o'clock instead of 3 and 9,if that makes sense!! these got ds used to spouts after breast and then moved him onto the Avent non spill ones which are excellent.

I've found with the Tommee Tippee one (the one with the pop-up spout, not the easi-flow one) that if DS throws it with sufficient force on the floor the lid comes off!! So we are sticking to water, which doesn't seem to excite him very much. Anybody tried the other Tommee Tippee one with the non-spill spout? How does it compare to the Avent?

GillW, I've just bought some doidy cups (DD didn't like spouts anyway, we always ended up taking the lid off & letting her drink from the rim) & though they are great & I think the best way of getting babbas to drink properly, they can be tricky to use.
DD tips her head forward & down & went so far the other day that she got some water up her nose (you can imagine the scenes & cries we had with that! Not something I want again.)
Also, tried giving her formula in it the other day, all was going well until she did the arm flapping thing and knocked 3oz all over herself, carpet, cat & mummy.

Anyway, do you have any tips on using doidy cups - are there any 'half-lids' you can get to reduce spilage? Also what are nurseries likely to make of them? (they use plain spillable tommee tippee ones there).

Elwar - haven't had any problems with getting DS to drink from the Doidy cup - he seems to have taken to it quite naturally. Having said that we've only used it for juice/water so far. I'm planning to start milk from a beaker in the next week or so, probably only for a small teatime drink at first as DS is usually so hungry/thirsty and eager for his milk first thing in the morning that it probably would go everywhere! Our nursery is quite happy to use the Doidy cup by the way - we just send it with his bag of spare clothes/suncream/bottles, etc.

I've been using a variety of beakers for ds. His favorite from early on - about 7 months when I gave up breastfeeding, was from Tesco. It's part of their wide neck feeding system ie. it's like a bottle but comes with a big spout instead of a teat, and with handles. It's got measurements on it like a bottle, and is easy to tip formula into, and ds found it really easy to use because the spout is really long, lots of space for his nose! (Not non-spill, but not as easy to fling the contents out as some of his cups).
Had no luck at all with the Avent magic cups, tommee tippee was okay but very messy. He's just started using anywayup cups (11 months) and is happy with them.
We also got some nipper gripper style non-spill bottles with a spout in place of the teat from tesco but they were impossible to clean and had to be thrown out after one use.

Florence, dh just brought back 2 new tommy tippee flip up top (if that's the one you are on about, nothing to compare it with here).

The main thing I noticed was the different texture of the cup lids. Much less brittle and prone to cracking I think.

The first thing to notice about the things was the indecent amount of packaging. The cups reeked of plastics once I had got through so went in a trip to the dishwasher.

I've always used the tommee tippee beaker with the non-spill (not pop up) spout. The spout is rubbery and looks like a nipple and sort of seemed better when my ds was toothless. It also has comfortable large handles. But ds would quite happily drink from anything (including the toilet) so I'm not sure he's really a discerning judge. I find that when he throws it on the floor, the lid doesn't come off, but the valve does pop out which is really annoying. Also, when he did get teeth he chewed holes in the rubbery spout and I had to get tommee tippee to replace them (for free). Now that he's older and doesn't need handles, I've been using an american beaker that everyone seems to love. It's made by Playtex and has a non-drip screw-on lid, but no handles. It seems to be immune to damage when thrown on the floor and comes in two sizes. My neighbor's son had swallowing problems when young and she said that it was the only beaker that he could use. I haven't seen them for sale here but you could probably order them online and get them sent over here.

Thanks for all your advice. I bought the Avent bottle and gave that a go yesterday with water which was fine so I have tried today with milk...not so fine!

We had lots of rolling around in mouth and then finally sucking..he took a wee bit of milk..then stopped...then started for about 20 mins and then the inevitable screaming!! This was all done at the 11am feed so was wondering whether to try at breakfast when he is most hungry??

Any advice/experience on how to do this!?!

When you say milk, do you mean breastmilk or cow's milk? I would stick to giving him the breastmilk by breast so it's not too confusing. It's way too early to be giving him cow's milk as a drink and I found that even when my son was older that he never really liked the cow's milk until I had completely weaned him. I would stick to water in the beaker.

I meant formula in the Avent Beaker

dd never went onto the bottle, and here we are 1 year later, still bfing!!! (sort of happy about it sort of tired with it now! - just morning and night!)... however the good side to thisis that si've never had to try and get her on the bottle for formula and she loved water from a really early age... 3 months or so... we think it's becasue she used to atch us drik from a glass at dinnertimes and she became very interested in it ad we used to let her have a sip ow and agin...in fact thisis how we found out she had her first tooth... there we were giving her a drink when dh says... what is that sound.. clink clink clink! so we looked and thyere was a tooth comin through, needless to say sipping out of a glass was stopped and we bought her a little plastic cup... however.. i digress!!, we bought her the avent magic spppouts (as we had millions of bottles - ready in earnest for the never to be seen drinking from a bottle baby experience!) and it took a while but they have been brilliant... purely because they're soft, easy to adjust flow 0 take filter out or put it in! - plus used the bottles whcih made them incredibley adaptable...

avent magc spout beakers for me!

hope i haven't waffled on too much!!!

whoops! apologies for the typos!

very tired this morning... and not even dd's fault! went out drinking last night! and stayed out until.... gasp!... 11.pm!!!

Does anyone know of a bottle which does not spill. My daughter 19months has a bottle last thing at night, takes it to bed, and uses it as a comfort, sometimes it spills getting milk over sheets. Also sometimes she drops it when walking. Any recommendations - used Tommee Tippee but they spill!!