I offered L a straw for the first time yesterday. It was just a regular straw at Panera, just to see what she'd do with it.
At first she just set it in her wide open mouth, and then eventually started chewing it.
How do you teach a kid that they need to suck and they magically get a drink?
Re: How to teach a kid to use a straw.
DS kind of figured it out on his own. But he still doesn't have the hang of a regular sippy cup (he can't figure out how to tip it back far enough).
We like the Nuby flip top straw cup. We just bought one and kept offering it until he figured it out.
We use this one, too, but slit the hole a little bit. I tried sucking on it and it was hard to get anything out.
I started by putting my finger over regular straws with water and droppering it into DD's mouth. After a little bit she started sucking on it, so I tried giving it to her the regular way and she got it.
She just figured it out on her own. She hated sippy cups and stole her cousin's straw cup the other day. We did go with the take and toss cups because it was the easiest for her to get anything out of. The nuby cup was virtually impossible for me to get anything out of, never mind her.