am I being silly/stubborn? - Page 2

[Peach]

Even at your dd's age, both bottles and sippy cups can interfere with nursing. She may chew on the sippy cup and start biting you!
The Avent cups are pretty hard for ones who haven't taken a bottle. My dd just gummed hers.
You could just give her a little open cup to play with or there are cups you can buy for really cheap at the grocery store that are regular cups with snap-on lids with mouth pieces. They don't have a mechanism inside that prevents spills, so she may make a small mess, but it'd be easier to deal with than an open cup.

And I hate cleaning anything up, so we waited until I wanted to give dd extra water--around 9 mo--to try a cup at all. I figured she could get her milk from me.

[DaryLLL]

Just chiming in from the opposite end of the continuum. My first dd showed a strong interest in a cup at 3 mos. Fully bfed baby. She would be sitting on my lap as I drank whatever, I really remember the morning cup of coffee. She would grab onto the cup with a death grip and totally know what to do, hanging her upper lip over the top of the cup. Of course I didn't let her have any coffee! but started letting her experiment with water then. She wouldn't really drink much at first, but it was messy fun.

I guess with all 3 kids, by the time they could sit up in a high chair, one activity they would love during mealtime would be to have a sip cup (back then there were no fancy mechanism cups, just had the Tupperware cup with a simple lid) and a plastic bowl, and the joy was in pouring the water from one container to the other, and onto the tray, and down the front , and onto the floor.

I never minded the "mess," as it was only water, it kept them entertained, so i could eat. then the water on the floor would be wiped up, and I would have a clean spot!

Cup play was also popular in the tub. I tried not to stress out too much if some bathwater was drunk.

[abigailvr]

My DS has had about three bottles in his whole life. I wish I could say that he had never had one either! I kept putting off offering one, and I sort of hoped that he would refuse when we finally did, but he didn't care either way. I am a SAHM, so he doesn't really need to take a bottle, so he hasn't had one since November.

He's really interested in cups though. He grabs for my cup when I'm drinking near him, so I have started giving him a sippy cup with water in it. He doesn't get much out of it, but he loves to play with it. One think that made it a bit easier for him was taking out the valve that made them no spill (the avent ones) so that liquid would come out either way. I think it helped him figure it all out.

If he weren't taking one, I wouldn't be sweating it, though. I am with him all the time, so I see no reason for him to "need" to have a cup at all. He just likes it.