Watching your baby grow is both exciting and a little tough. Most mothers want babies to stay small forever but then they also embrace each new phase of life. As your baby grows and changes, he or she will go through a number of transitions, learning about life over and over again. One of the transformations will be moving from a bottle to a sippy cup. Although not a big deal to mom and dad, this step is a big deal to many babies.
If you think about it, babies also find themselves between two worlds – the one of being the cuddled baby and the one of becoming independent. Babies find feeding time an enjoyable part of life, a time of relaxation and comfort. Giving that up for a piece of independence can be exciting and scary at the same time.
Typically, a baby around the age of nine months will have the appropriate motor skills to begin handling a cup. However, remember this transition takes time to master so spills are going to happen. For this reason, we recommend you start with water. That way, as spills occur, nothing is damaged. Your child will soon become accustomed to this new challenge, actually finding it to be fun.
Keep in mind that when your baby first starts experimenting with a sippy cup, he or she will still be on bottle feedings. In other words, this transition period takes several months to complete. Usually, by the time that a baby is around 14 months, the bottle is gone and the cup is now the full-time method of drinking. However, some babies will learn quicker and some slower.
Babies naturally become attached to the bottle, physically and psychologically. Therefore, you want to wean them at the right time, making the process easier for you and the baby. To make the sippy cup more enticing, we suggest you choose a bright color, one with perhaps a cartoon character, animal, or a creative design.
The sooner you can get your baby off the bottle and onto a cup the better. Unfortunately, sucking on a bottle at an older age can lead to a number of problems to include bottle rot, which is when tooth decay sets in from the formed acid and bacteria in the mouth. To help my son wean from his bottle at 10 months of age, we held a formal ceremony. There were balloons, cake, and lots of family cheering him on as he dropped the bottle into the garbage. At that time, he was presented with a wrapped sippy cup. He took to the change immediately.