The sippy transition

While we had introduced Squirt to a sippy cup when he was about 4 months in our attempt to familiarize him with sippys (read: let him PLAY with the sippy), the actual proper transition to a sippy did not happen till he was about 9.5 months.

Squirt wasn’t really too keen on it. The sippy to him seemed like it was just another toy, and even though we tried to get him to use a sippy at least once a day, he still would prefer the good old bottle to consume his milk. To be fair, which baby wouldn’t!He would take only a few sips from the sippy and then turn his head away; perhaps, because he knew that he had an alternative.

So, when he hit 9 months, like his sister, I had it in my head that it was time for him to lose the bottle.

By that, I mean going completely cold turkey and not give him a choice. We had expected that the first weekend in which we went cold turkey was not going to be very successful. It wasn’t and while he did drink some from the sippy (quite encouraging), he wasn’t too happy about it. We had to revert back to a bottle on Sunday because he was a little under the weather.

We tried again the next weekend, and below is an account of our journey from bottle to sippy.

2^nd attempt Day 1: Saturday

His first milk of the day started with only his milk in the sippy. He took a little bit but was not too keen on this. We kept up and offered him only the sippy throughout the day.

While his intake was not much, he still managed to drink at least 300 ml exclusively from it. We made sure that he had enough solids and we did not give him the bottle when he went to bed at night.

[I admit that I was feeling a little apprehensive. Despite the fact that this was something  I had done before with Spud, I somehow  was constantly second-guessing myself , questioning if I am doing the right thing by “imposing” the sippy on him. My consolation was that Silver Bullet was behind me on this one and he was confident that Squirt will pull this off]

Day 2: Sunday

Nothing, but sippy day. His first milk feed was encouraging as he managed to finish off almost half the milk in the sippy.

I alternated with him using the Doidy cup at meal times and he seemed to be enjoying sipping his milk from him. He took it like it was second nature. I was jumping for joy in my head, but managed to keep my cool for fear of jinxing it!

He took the sippy cup at bedtime and finished at least half of the content. While it was not the usual amount that he would drink from the bottle at bedtime, just the fact that he actually took is milk from it without much fuss, was certainly encouraging

Day 3: Monday

Instructed our Nanny to follow through with using the sippy.  She was completely onboard with us. While she did mention that Squirt was not too keen, he still took some of the milk from nothing but the sippy. (hallelujah!)

I fed his milk in a sippy at bedtime and again, he finished half of the contents.

Day 4: Tuesday onwards

It got easier as the days passed. He got the hang of how the sippy works as he learns to control the flow of his milk intake.

By Thursday, he started to drink from his sippy cup like a champ.  There was no looking back!

While Squirt has been generally easier with taking to different things as compared to Spud, it was however, not without resistance. I guess it also proves the theory that persistence and consistency works – and when faced with moments of doubts, having a supportive partner helps. A lot.

We have, once again, been a bottle-free zone for more than 2 months. None of the kids would be needing any more feeding bottles or whatsoever. That has got to be the neatest thing ever!

Yet, I am humbly being reminded of a saying I came across a while back,  “ When a child climbs to the next rung on life's ladder, it means the previous rung is no longer going to be trodden on”

Related Post(s):
Spud's sippy story
Sippy cup in review