When to offer a sippy cup and what to put in it?

[P.J.]

DS is exactly 5 months. He can't sit on his own yet and shows zero interest in food ~plus he's too young~ so we're not offering solids yet. When he's ready we're going to try BLW. He has, however, shown great interest in drinks. I don't know if it's just the appearance or what, but he's always grabbing for people's drinks. I doubt this is from his own thirst as he's BF on demand and often.

So I'm wondering when it's appropriate to offer him a sippy cup. What are the advantages and disadvantages of giving him one? I know you can also just assist a baby to drink from a regular cup, but I think he'd like to do it on his own and I suppose that's more in line with the self-feeding approach of BLW. Also, would I just put breastmilk in it? I would think water will give him a false feeling of being full and could lead to him not getting enough from nursing. We use the Avent bottles (w/breastmilk when I'm not here) and they have little handles you can put on so baby can feed himself...maybe we should try that first, so it's something he's already getting anyway.
Or should we just skip or postpone him self-drinking from a bottle or sippy cup for some reason I'm not seeing?

[corban's mum]

umm standard advice here is that if a babba has any teeth stop using bottles n switch to a sippy cup, with breastmilk in. if no toofy's are there yet then i'd probably let him use the bottle with handles on if he is having a bottle anyway why not let him give feeding it to himself a shot? and ive also heard that no water should be given to breasftfed babbies until theyre eating solid meals, though i dont actually think even that is really needed as ur LO is exclusively breastfed

anyhoo i'm no expert but that's my angle

[GoBecGo]

My DD is 4.5months. We let her hold an empty sippy (she has never taken and won't take a bottle) and once i put a half oz of breastmilk in it which caused great excitement (her aim is terrible, she put the spout against her eyelid and made enthusiastic sucking noises ). For us the sippy with/out BM in it is a good way to entertain a baby who wants to join in at dinner time but is a little too young to be having actual food. I am going to try breastmilk slush in a bowl with spoon too

[Perdita_in_Ontario]

We offered it to DS starting at roughly 5 months. I offer water with meals now he's older. I do this because he rarely takes much in - if he really did drink, I'd probably pump. But I don't really want to pump so for the tiny bit he drinks I'm okay with water. He likes it mainly for the noise it makes when he tosses it on the floor.

FWIW, I have the removeable handles for the Avent cup and I don't notice any difference in his ability to use it with or without, so I usually leave them off.

[paxye]

We skip it... I have never owned or offered a bottle..

we used to have sippy cups but we just start with real cups now... offer to drink water from our cup and then start to offer a small cup with small amounts of water when they are a bit older...

[rhiOrion]

We started letting DD play with sippy cups at about that age. We put water in it. I put breastmilk in it one time and since it all ended up on her shirt it just made her smell awful if I didn't change her clothes right away.

I feel comfy putting water in it because she mostly just lets it run back out of her mouth anyhow.

[mamazee]

I started giving my kids a sippy cup with a little water when they started solids. It seemed to me to help keep them from getting constipated.

[octobermom]

We skiped them with my first and went straight to open cup (shes did take a bottle) ..
With my current she has a really hard time with an open cup so we are doin a sippy with her (no bottle) we started when shes started solids shes just jsut a bit of water and really only goes through a few sips a days.. Shes still gets most of her needs from me.

Deanna

[akind1]

when we first started doing solids - around 6 months - we gave DS a sippy to play with, with some water in it. I really recommend trying a couple yourself to see how easily you can drink from it. The first ones I had required hard work to get water out of. I switched to ones by Nuby, and I like them. you get water out by kind of biting down on the spout, which is what a teething baby naturally does anyway, so DS is able to easily get water out when he wants it.

We have recently - DS is 11 months - started working on the open cup concept, again with water. he does really well, but then, I have often given him water out of my own glass, so he had the idea, we are just letting him try on his own now.

FWIW - DS does and can take a bottle (he gets maybe 4 total a week) and has 6 teeth.

[Knitting Mama]

Cecilia plays with a sippy cup with water with a reaaaaaally slow tip. She doesn't swallow practically any; she just plays with it and lets the water dribble everywhere. She's 6.5 months and having pretty infrequent, BLW style solids.