Recently my wife and I were talking about how we transition our child from bottles to drinking from a cup. Since I’m still relatively new to all things baby, I did some research. I expected everyone to say steer me toward sippy cups as the first step, and then to standard open cups in the distant future. Largely that is what I found, but not totally. I was shocked that many people don’t even bother with sippy cups. How does that work?
When should you start and end the transition to cups?
The time period for teaching your child to use a cup is a lot sooner and shorter than I ever expected. Generally you are encouraged to start after your child turns six months old, and be done by the time the child is one year old. The American Dental Academy prefers the weaning to be complete by the first birthday to help reduce the risk of baby bottle tooth decay. This tooth decay can start as soon as the baby’s first teeth emerge and is due to “frequent and prolonged exposure of a baby’s teeth to liquids containing sugar”. In case you are interested in reading more about this, here is the document published by the ADA concerning this.
Transitioning breastfed babies
Since your child probably has never drank any liquid from a hard container before, you’ll probably need to place a little bit of breastmilk around the rim of the cup. That will provide your baby with a flavor and experience they are immediately familiar with, and will help them associate the cup with drinking.
From there you can either continue to provide them with more breastmilk in the glass to reinforce that association with drinking, or switch to water. If you use water, then it can be used as a snack between feedings.
You’ll likely want to give them breastmilk before switching to water or practicing with the cup to ensure that they are not so hunger that they have no interest in learning. If you give them half their usual meal and then switch to the cup, then they’ll be more content and willing to interact with this new experience.
Transitioning babies from a bottle
If your child already drinks from a bottle, then they’ve already had the experience of drinking their meals from a container other than their mother’s breast. Does that really have an impact? I don’t know. I’d guess it does, but I couldn’t find any studies on the matter.
While I know many babies drink breastmilk from a bottle, I’m going to speak about formula. Know though that formula and breastmilk are interchangeable here, so when I say formula know that I’m also talking about breastmilk.
Like with breastfeeding, you might want to start with a little bit of formula. Drinking from a cup will be a very new experience, so providing something familiar like the taste of formula can be helpful. That familiar flavor that they’ve come to associate with meals can teach them quickly that the cup is for drinking and meals.
While you are still teaching the baby what the cup is and how to use it, you should continue to feed your baby at least half their formula through the bottle. This will prevent their hunger from becoming a frustration and barrier to learning the cup.
As they become more familiar with and welcoming of the cup, you can start providing their meals entirely through the cup and pack away those annoying bottles.
The Montessori method for weaning babies to cups
The Montessori Method, from what I’ve seen, are the most active and vocal proponents of moving directly to standard cups. Based on their experiences, I’ve learned that babies as young as nine months are able to effectively use standard cups on their own.
This method goes much farther than I ever expected. Instead of using the standard hard plastic cups, they use glass. Glass glass. The kind that can shatter if drops. This is to help teach them children the negative effects of misusing their items. While babies do occasionally drop and break these glasses, with careful monitoring it doesn’t happen that often. You can teach respect for possessions without waiting for the glass to fall.
I said that Montessori encourages the use of glass, but that doesn’t mean you just pull one of your usual glasses from the kitchen. You need a baby sized glass. Some people use basic shot glasses. Others use something like this glass I found on Amazon.
So how do parents keep their child from breaking a glass every five minutes?
How to monitor your baby while transitioning to a cup
When you are teaching your child to use a standard glass, be it plastic or glass, you need to monitor them very actively. You need to ensure they treat the cup appropriately and don’t develop bad habits.
Initially this will be easy, your six month old likely won’t be able to hold the glass well on their own. This means you’ll often be holding the glass for them so they can at least gain experience drinking from the cup.
When your child is able to hold the glass on their own, that’s where the fun starts. You want them to treat the cup with care and to not consider the cup a toy. Unfortunately they’ll likely be at the age where it’s great fun to bang whatever they are holding against anything else in reach. WIth their toys this is great. With an open cup, potentially made of breakable glass, filled with liquid, this definitely not wanted. So if the banging starts, the cup should be gently taken from them. Tell them to stop and explain that the cup is not a toy. They probably won’t understand what you’re saying right now, but it’s always great to verbally interact with your child and build that routine.
When you take the cup from them you should place it somewhere in their sight but out of reach. If they reach for the cup, then you should give it back to them. Repeat this process until the meal or drinking time is over. Stay strong and be patient. This process can take three months or more even with daily practice.
What kind of cups should your baby use?
This is really up to you and your baby. The cup should be sized appropriately for your baby and easy to grip.
If your baby is able to hold their bottle on their own and feed themselves then maybe target a cup that holds about the same as the bottle. If your baby is breastfed, then look at the toys they are able to hold. The cup, with liquid in it, should weigh about the same.
Grippiness is also very important. If it’s really hard to hold onto the cup, then your child will probably get frustrated and less interested in learning. So look for cups that either have a very textured and grippy surface, or has many indents that those little fingertips can grab onto.
It’s also important to use the same cup. Maybe get several of the same one. If you have several small cups with different sizes or textures, it can be difficult for your child to learn quickly. You should stick with one cup and let them get used to that. Once they’ve mastered that one cup, then you can start introducing others, and the transition will be much faster.
What kind of drinks should you put in the cup?
Again, the type of drink is entirely up to you and your child’s preferences. The general recommendation is to use either water, breastmilk, formula, or milk. Remember that, especially early on, liquid will be spilt. Quite possibly a lot of liquid. If you give your child a drink that can stain or become sticky, then that’s just extra cleanup for you.
So in my mind water is definitely the winner here. It’s easy to clean, important for my baby to drink (especially in the hot summer months), and quite inexpensive.
Breastmilk would be good once the fear of frequent spilling is reduced. Breastmilk is work to get and often valued like gold. I remember when we would cry a little any time our baby spilled any breastmilk.
If your child generally drinks formula from a bottle, then I think formula is another great choice once the baby starts spilling less. It still costs more than water, but it generally isn’t that bad. When your child has a good grasp of drinking from a cup then you’ll want to consider giving them all of their liquid meals from a cup.