Sippy cups and the unweaned baby

anna7602

DD will be 1 year old next month, but I'm not planning on weaning her yet. She was taking bottles of EBM, but I am on a leave from work for the forseeable future. I know she should have been transitioning to drinking milk out of sippy cups soon, but now that I'm home, I'm just BFing. Should I start giving her some of my freezer stash in sippy cups during the day? She needs to figure out sippy cups aren't just for water at some point, but I don't know when.

Mominator

For now, DS only gets water in the sippy and is fine with it, he loves water. As long as I'm nursing DS 3+ times a day there is no need for cows milk, so I'm not going to bother with it until we actually start to wean.

julyjennifer

I wouldn't worry too much--you've got time to make a gradual transition.

You could try giving her a little bit of your thawed milk in a sippy, but I'd just start with a little bit in the cup (and maybe give the rest of it in a bottle, or to make oatmeal or something) so that you don't waste a whole bottle's worth if she doesn't drink very much of it from the cup.

Princess_Ariel

Since water and milk is all that babies really need at this point, I wouldn't worry about it.  You can give her some BF in a sippy cup, or wait till next month and see if she'll take regular milk in it (tho I've heard to mix the two till LOs transition).  Eventually your DD will have to learn to drink from a regular cup, so you could just as easily wait till then to introduce other liquids, or even try a straw.  While convenient, sippy cups are not the end all and be all.