Drinking from a cup

[GRC]

Er, hi! Dad here. My little lad is 11 months now. He was exclusively breast fed until we started him on some solids a few months back, still with breast feeds for drinks. He is somewhat picky with his solids but nothing too dramatic. He like purees when teething (8 teeth now!, four tops and four bottoms) and he's often to be seen munching on a cheese sandwich or something.

Anyway, drinking from a cup is very hit and miss. I swear he's clairvoyant at times. Offering him the cup to hold will occasionally, very occasionally, result in him holding it and having a drink. Most of the time though he screams and pushes it away. What I find curious is that when he's screaming at me with his eyes shut, he still manages to push the cup away when I bring it to him. Must be the smell or sensing the motion somehow.

His mum had him at a mother and baby group yesterday though, and he took one look at another baby drinking from a cup, grabbed it (his own, not the other babies cup!) and happily slurped the lot.

We're trying to cut the breastfeeds down to two a day, morning and night and have him take liquid from a cup through the day.

Some others have suggested trying a bottle instead of a cup but won't that result in another cup incident later on? Plus, he's never been happy with bottles, since very early when we sometimes tried to use expressed breast milk.

Are we starting this kind of thing too early? Any good advice for cup drinking for an 11month old?

Thanks ever so much.

Gary, proud Dad.

What kind of cup are you trying? An open topped one or one with a spout? My DS won't drink from one with a spout but likes his Doidy cup - they're basically angled so that the baby can see the bottom. You can get them from John Lewis

It's a spout one.

Perhaps we'll try different cups.

ditto what kind of cup? also try giving him empty cups to play with, and cups in the bath and feed teddies with cups.

We have had a very similar experience with our 12.5mnth DD. She is still breastfed 3-4 times a day and will take water from an open cup if we hold it for her. We give her the cup to play with and she knows what to do but always ends up soaked. I suppose its par for the course. Tommee Tippee do a "sipper lid" which fits onto an ordinary sippy cup and has a hole that only lets a small amount of water out which stops the deluge a bit if she aims it wrong! (see their website tommeetippee.co.uk). Good luck!

I was actually going to start a similar thread. My DS is 20 months and drinks milk out of a bottle but water out of a cup with a spout. He makes attempts to drink out of a cup with no lid but it inevitably gets spilled all over his front I was wondering if that was normal at this age.

Nice to see Dads here, my DH posts here sometimes!

you have to only put the teeniest drop in the cup. you need 2 cups really, one for you, one for them.

The sipper lid sounds interesting. We only live 15 minutes away from the Tommee Tippee factory and they have an outlet shop there so we'll take a look.