District: Parents as Teachers (Patty Ahlvers)

Learning to Drink From a Cup

December 08, 2006

Learning to Drink From a Cup

After your baby is about 6 or 7 months of age you can begin teaching her to drink from a cup.

Drinking from a cup will help her hand-to-mouth coordination and will prepare her for weaning from a bottle. Some speech therapists believe drinking from a cup helps strengthen the muscles used in speech.

You can start by putting a little breast milk or formula into a small, light cup without a lid. Help support the cup as your baby develops wrist control and strength. Use a brightly colored cup so your baby can see the breast milk or formula easily, and keep the lid off. Lids are a great convenience at times, but they do not help your baby learn to keep her mouth closed tightly around the cup. Once your baby is able to get most of the liquid down her throat you may begin to increase the amount in the cup.

Avoid giving your baby plain cow's milk until she is a year old. It doesn't have enough of the nutrients she needs and she may have trouble digesting it.

Practice makes perfect

Your baby may be clumsy with a cup at first, but will soon catch on. If your baby spills a lot, you may want to put her in the bathtub with a small cup of water and help her practice there. A cup without handles may be easier to use at this age. A doll cup works well, or you may want to try a Doidy cup. These cups, from the United Kingdom, are slanted so babies can drink from them without having to tilt their heads back.

You want your baby to learn to sip rather than suck. While it is tempting to give your baby a no-spill sippy cup, it really is a bottle in disguise. Your baby is still sucking on the spout rather than sipping from a rim. Some dentists believe that frequent use of no-spill sippy cups can lead to tooth decay.

Be patient and expect some messes. It takes time to learn new skills.