When did your little ones first drink through a straw?

[christy005]

I cannot remember when my oldest son was able to drink with one.
My DS is 17 months now and cannot use a straw at all, although we have tried. I am wondering if that is normal. We are also waiting on a speech evaluation, because he is saying maybe two words (mama and dada, and not very consistently), so I wonder if there is an issue with the muscles or something that is affecting speech.
Thanks

[mel_mama]

My son is 21 months and still can't seem to get the hang of it. However, he is advanced verbally and is speaking in sentences at this point (maybe 100 words or so?). So I'm not entirely convinced the two are connected...

[sunflwrmoonbeam]

My 14 month old has been able to use a straw for about a month. I don't let her often, because she'd rather play with the cup, but she's got the straw down fine.

[Chamomile Girl]

My kid first used a straw at about 9 months old. We were amazed he figured it out, but he has consistantly been able to ever since. Not much in the way of words going on here so I'm not sure they are related either.

[ellemenope]

Is he not understanding how to suck, or is he sucking but just not hard enough to consistently get liquid up?

If he just doesn't seem to get it, I might suggest you try a really tiny thin straw first and then work towards those big fat ones they use for kids' cups. I have tried a few and they take a lot of suck power . If he has only tried those he just might not understand yet what he is supposed to do.

DD started using straw cups at 10 months. She didn't 'get' traditional sippy cups until months later.

[Abraisme]

My dd has been using a straw since 9-10mo, she's now 13mo and uses a straw type sippy cup all the time.

[MamaPhD]

DD is 21 months and can use straw sippy cups or just a straw in a regular cup. She's been doing it for a while, so I'm guessing she started around ~16 months? Not sure about the speech thing...

[mbm]

DD's been using the straw sippy since about 12 months, and she could use regular straws at about 18 months.

My mom was amazed, and told me that her kids all had trouble with straws until we were FIVE.

[limabean]

We've always used sippies with straws instead of spouts, so our kids used them from maybe 9 months onward with no problems. We use the Thermos Foogo brand, though, which are easy to suck from. Some of the straw cups they sell are ridiculously hard to get liquid out of, even for me!

[bender]

Mine started with a straw around 9 months or so, but then my parents used a sippy with him, so he got used to tipping a cup. Now, he tries to tilt the straw cup, but gets no liquid, and gets pissed off, so he refuses to use it. He will drink happily from my camelbak bite valve bottle though.

[crunchy_mommy]

I don't exactly remember because we didn't do sippy cups & only used straws in restaurants but I want to say around a year old?

Have you tried this? Put the straw in the water, put your finger firmly on the top, and pull the straw out so the water stays in the straw, and then let him drink from the bottom. That's what we did with DS the first time or two & he got it right away.

[EdnaMarie]

My 17-month-old has been drinking from a straw for some time, but we taught her using the trick of getting the liquid up to the top of the straw for her and that's how she learned it. I'm not keen on straws for babies in theory (my older daughter didn't have one until much later) but... baby has to be like big sister.

As for your son's speech, two words at 17 months is still well within normal range. Keep in mind that as a first-time parent you may be missing a lot of words (I know I did).

[Latte Mama]

Around 8-9 months. My DS wouldn't use regular sippies because he didn't want to turn them up so we got the straw cups. But he also started stealing sips from my water mug around that time which has a big straw.

[tabrizia]

DD has been using a straw since 6 or 7 months old, we started her with a straw sippy rather then a regular sippy cup because DS didn't get the hang of regular sippies for ages and ended up mainly using straw sippies, so that was what we had.

[cristeen]

Since about 6 mos. But he was supplemented at the breast from early on, so he understood the concept well. But at a year he still cant figure out the ones w a bite valve, and he cant be trusted not to flip up a regular one that will spill, so we still use bottles.

[justKate]

At 19 mos., DD still doesn't really "get" straws. We got her to drink out of one of those hard plastic ones at Sea World about a month ago because we had one of those slurpees and it was hella hot. (I know, way to go mom, giving the 18 mo a slurpee.) We've tried it with regular straws since then and she still doesn't get it.

So the straw thing wouldn't bother me. As far as words go, two is not a lot, but don't think you should stress too much yet. Does he use any signs or have sounds that mean things, even if they aren't words? I hope the speech eval brings you some comfort.

[Everrgreen]

I don't think it's related to speech. My DS is almost 20 months has been using a straw forever (maybe since around 12 months) and is still non-verbal

[Kim Allen]

both of mine started drinking out of a straw at 8-9 months. I honestly was a lil shocked the picked up on it so early.

[physmom]

I don't know... 8-9 months? A friend of hers had one and she used it immediately. We never had tried before that. Then again sippy cups baffle her even today but she can use a normal cup just fine?

Is it because he doesn't seem to like it or he doesn't have the muscle strength? It might just be a preference issue.

[mckittre]

I don't think it's related to speech. My 19 month old can't use a straw at all (takes it out of the cup and tries to lick off the bottom), but speaks in 6+ word sentences.