Very important question about what to do with the milk after the cereal has been eaten

vtkgirl77 · February 2012

We used to give DD dry cereal for breakfast along with some other finger foods (fruit, muffin, etc.). In the past two weeks, she started asking for milk with her cereal. I think she must see a kid at daycare eat cereal and milk. The first day she asked for it, DH and I were looking at her and having "one of those moments". She's such a big girl and she looked so cute at the table happily eating her cereal without spilling. Sigh.

She was able to get every last piece of cereal out of the bowl with her spoon. Then, to our surprise, she picked up the bowl and started drinking out the remainder of the milk (like slurping it out). I guess she *also* sees some kid at daycare do this.

We both laughed but then we wondered how to handle this. I'm still on the fence. On one hand, I don't want to waste food and also it's a good thing if she gets more milk in her diet. However, I also don't want to foster bad manners because it's hard for a 2 yo to understand "you can do this at home but not other places".

So, what do you all think? I'm interested to hear the responses.

QueSrah · February 2012

We're not there yet (it seems like such a big kid thing!), but if you're concerned about waste I would probably put less milk in the bowl in the first place until she learns she can scoop it out with her spoon and sort of eat it like soup rather than drink from the bowl.

NicoNiko · February 2012

DD does this too. My mom taught her. At first, I tried to discourage it, but then I decided to let it go. Like you, I figured more milk is a good thing, esp. since my DD has never been very big on milk. We try to enforce manners, but we do let this go. And, confession: We do this ourselves now too and we all get a laugh about it when we have breakfast together. Harmless, in my opinion. Big Smile

amh_navyblue · February 2012

We just limit the amount of milk we put in...if she wants more, you can always add it in. I guess I don't see it as a big deal that she drinks out of the bowl...using a spoon to get liquid out is a pretty hard task, so I think the "drinking approach" just helps them to get something, likely with less mess and more success than with a spoon. As she gets older, she'll get better at the "spoon approach" and I would say it's likely she'll switch. I don't think letting her at this age drink her milk from a bowl is going to set that behavior for life:) DD#2 does this (drinks from the bowl), and DD#1 did when she was younger, but now she eats her cereal and soup "normally."

tomandcourt · February 2012

J totally does this, because he sees DH do it. I'm fine with it--I can't imagine there are going to be a lot of places where he's going to have the opportunity to slurp out of a bowl and embarrass us. And he'd be fine with us saying, no, we only do that at home.

umdbride · February 2012

I think I'd be ok with it - at least she's getting more milk! My guess is she may already be doing it at daycare too and it would be hard to say she can't when everyone else is. You could try to say it is ok at home but not at restaurants, but then how often would she really eat cereal with milk out somewhere?

You could also go with these sipping bowls Smile : https://www.amazon.com/Sip-Sip-a-bowl-Color-1-Bowl/dp/B001V6YIIW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328884351&sr=8-1

tracy042206 · February 2012

Hmmm, I never even thought of it as embarrassing. I just let Maggie drink it out of the bowl. I can see telling her in the future to not do that and to use a spoon but I can't think of many places where we will be eating cereal that we would need to tell her that now.

kastle · February 2012

I'm on Team Slurp.

Slurping cereal on Saturday mornings with my grandpa is a favorite memory of mine. It's fun & harmless. I still know my dessert spoon from my dinner spoon!

vtkgirl77 · February 2012

Thanks for all of the responses. I am sitting by DH at the computer and I was telling him what you all were saying. He says "well, the problem is that she started trying to slurp her rice and vegetables last night at dinner." LOL.

On a side note, DH is the one who has the bigger issue with this and part of the reason is because he used to have this roommate who would eat frozen meals and then put the tray up to his face and start licking off the remaining sauce. DH is sort of "proper" so I think this scarred him.

But I agree that it's pretty harmless. You are right that we can teach her not to do this when she gets older. And for the present moment, we can teach her "you can only slurp the milk but not your rice and veggies".

KelXoXo · February 2012

umdbride:
You could also go with these sipping bowls : https://www.amazon.com/Sip-Sip-a-bowl-Color-1-Bowl/dp/B001V6YIIW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328884351&sr=8-1

I was going to recommend one of these, my siblings used these growing up, and loved them!

WinesNotWhines · February 2012

This doesn't seem like a big deal to me, but I'm pretty lax about things like that.

Sofka · February 2012

we let DD slurp it out; she also loves to drink "juice" (a very very rare treat in our house) that's at the bottom of the container containing cut-up pieces of watermelon or honey dew melon

Want a personalized experience?

Very important question about what to do with the milk after the cereal has been eaten

Re: Very important question about what to do with the milk after the cereal has been eaten

Choose Another Board

Search Boards