[RNapmomma]

my 5.5 mo old ds refuses bottles. he is at dc 2x/week as i woh p/t. it is onsite so i nurse him at lunch and before we go home. that's probably enough and he will start solids soon but i wish he would drink. i also have 110 oz of bm in my freezer and adding more each day i work. wondering if anyone has had luck with a sippy at this age and what brand?

thanks

 

[amj'smommy]

Hi

My son is a few months older than yours but he is doing pretty good with the Avent sippy cups. I started him around 6 months giving him just an ounce or two of water in it to get him used to it and so far so good. You could leave out the leak proof valve part and just tip the cup into his mouth so he'll get the breastmilk without having to suck too hard on it the first few times or just try it with the valve and see how he does. Oh and so far I haven't had any problems with my son's latch while nursing (some say introducing sippys too soon can mess up the babys latch) HTH... Good luck.

 

[merrick]

DS was able to drink from a sippy at that age. He didn't like bottles much then either. Most of the time he would just drink enough to get by until I got home, or his dad, or nana, or gma, would bring him by my work to nurse.

 

[kaydee]

My son did better with a sipply that used a straw than with a sipply cup with a valve. He was a bit older, but it might be worth a try.

 

[Jordansmommy]

We have a sippy graveyard in the basement. We have tried every freakin brand of sippy out there.

Our first successful sippy was when DD was 6 months. The Evenflo straw cups worked well. Unfortunately they really shouldn't be put in the dishwasher. There are two cups molded together with a picture in between and water gets in between the two cups and wets the picture and stays wet. Not great. But if you're willing to wash everything by hand this works well.

Of course after DD figured out that it was fun to turn them over these went the way of Old Yeller. They are only spill proof when you don't try to spill them.

We tried the Avent, but the soft rubbery tops were so chewable that all DD did was chew. No drinking took place.

Right now we're on the Playtex sippies with two handles. They have hard tops, and DD likes them a lot. The rubber inserts inside the cup prevent them from spilling. I have put these in the dishwasher and they hold up fine but I still like to wash the rubber inserts to get them very clean.

Good luck!

 

[Llyra]

I started letting Julia drink from a sippy cup around 6 or 7 months. She was eating a lot of solids pretty early and was getting constipated, and I thought extra water might help. It didn't, but that's another story. She liked the cup and lot and regarded it all as a big game, so I let her keep trying a little every day.

Anyway, I could not figure out how to teach her to suck from the spillproof ones-- it's a much different kind of sucking than sucking on a nipple-- so I either used the Avent trainer cup and left out the spillproof thingie, or I used the First Years cups and broke the spillproof valve with a knife so that the liquid flowed freely. It is messier that way, though-- some of the liquid inevitably goes down her chin. She still doesn't drink out of it independently though even at almost 10 months; I need to hold the cup for her if any real drinking is going to happen.

I also taught her how to sip from a regular plastic or paper cup, and how to drink from a straw-- I put the straw in a cup of water and put my finger on top to trap the liquid, and then put it to her mouth, and she sucks the water out of the straw.

I have heard of babies as young as two or three months learning to sip from a cup, when they were refusing bottles. I think you just have to keep trying a few minutes a day and they get the hang of it eventually.

 

[kerc]

dd began sippy-training as soon as she wanted to hold her own bottle. first we began with the avent sippys. but I hated how the valves worked. she did bottles though so it was handy to go from sippy to bottle when she got ticked off.

we used to use playtex ones, both with and without handles. The valves are replaceable and well beyond when erin could handle no valve we still used one for when she had a cup of water at night in her room.

safety first sippys -- the ones you're supposed to use and toss are really leak-proof and require lots of sucking (dd wanted us to try them out with her when we got some for free). I recommend for older toddlers, but wee ones it is hard.

If you don't really care if your kiddos shirt gets wet, you might try a mouldable cup with no lid. The paper bathroom cups come to mind, but I know there are others made specifically for cup feeding breastfed babies. Childcare provider could mould it into a shape he could drink out of.

 

[fiddledebi]

I would also try various kinds of bottles. We felt really lucky that dd easily took to the very first, cheapie Gerber bottle we bought, but boy did we pay for it when we started looking for a sippy cup. We too have a sippy graveyard in the basement.

Anyway, if you've only tried one kind of bottle so far, maybe you could try another. Lots of babies seem to like the Avent bottles, but if you're already trying that, maybe a different kind would be worth a shot. I liked the Gerber ones a lot because (aside from the fact that dd was fine with them) they actually fit on the end of my pump attachment, so I didn't have to transfer anything.

How long have you been trying bottles with him? It might just take some time, too. Be careful of that big freezer supply and be sure you're dating everything. My milk tended to last about 2 weeks in the freezer before it started smelling kind of "off." Unless you have a deep freeze, I'd be careful of storing it too long.

Good luck!