Talktools Honey Bear Drinking Cup with 2 Flexible Straws - Includes Instructions - Spill-proof Lid by TalkTools

Product Information

There are different options for weaning off the bottle, you can go to a sippy cup, a straw cup or an open cup. The majority of pediatricians will now recommend a straw cup as it is better for oral motor developmentas well as keeping the cavities away. As a parent of a child with Down syndrome, the straw cup was the only option I considered as I knew that it would serve the doublepurpose of building musclesand helping with speech developmentwhich you can read about in our post “ Why A Straw Cup Is Better Than A Sippy Cup” Before 12 months old, we do not want a baby to fill up on water instead of more nutritious formula or breast milk. Therefore, if you are using water for cup practice, we recommend a very small amount of water (1-2 oz at most) solely for practicing the skills of cup drinking. How to teach baby to drink from a straw

Teaching cup drinking is an important skill to learn for when baby is eventually weaned from the breast or bottle. The goal in the 6- to 12-month age range is to practice the skills of cup drinking—not to replace the breast or bottle. Starting open cup practice early (ideally around 6 months of age) allows your baby plenty of low-pressure time to hone cup skills before transitioning off bottles or breastfeeds. If you’ve missed this window and your baby is now 12 months or older, all is not lost! Your 12+-month-old still has time to learn this skill! Which cup should I use for my baby? Quentin, 8 months, reaches for his cup. Giving your baby the chance to reach for the cup before you bring it to their mouth will speed the learning process for independent cup drinking. Baby putting food in cup/splashing I think simply using the straw consistentlybuilt strength in the mouth. So don’t give up if it is a mess for awhile, they will get stronger. Straw Cup #3 Option 1: (12 months +). Thinkbaby Stainless Steel Thinkster Bottle was created by physicians and scientists. They state that, “Thinkbaby straw bottle has a soft silicone straw, making the transition from bottles to straw cups easier. Also, they sell replacement straws, which is AMAZING and unusual! It is also stainless steel so your toddler’s drink will stay nice and cold!”Straw Cup #3 Option 2: THERMOS Vacuum-Insulation Funtainer with a Pop-up Straw (and fun button for your toddler to push)! This straw cup is one of our favorites and will truly grow with your child. This cup is stainless steel which keeps drinks cold all day long! It has the perfect sized straw for proper tongue posture too! It keeps drinks cold with it’s insulation technology! And the bonus is that you can get almost any of your child’s favorite characters on this thermos! We put this one after Thinkbaby because although it is a similar design, Thinkbaby offers handles therefore it is easier to hold early on. MILK STRAW CUPS WE LOVE:Milk Straw Cup Options: (12+ months old) When it comes to milk cups we recommend using a straw cup that is EASY-TO-CLEAN! That is the number one factor (followed by proper tongue placement, of course). We recommend using simple straw cups (a simple valve or valve-free) so you can easily remove milk residue. You can absolutely offer your toddler milk in an open cup too! We just prefer serving milk in an easy-to clean straw cup. You have three great options here:

There is one cup out there that we have yet to try but when I saw it on TV I knew that the people whoinventedit were brilliant.

Other than the straw cap that goes with the 360 Miracle Cup that I mention above and the Lalo cup, I also like these two weighted straw cups for tots. They are easy for little ones—babies and younger toddlers included—to figure out how to use, and as long as you’re diligent about cleaning the underside of the tops and replacing the straws regularly, they should last a while. A: We only recommend juice for constipation (prune, pear, peach juice diluted with water). Otherwise, juice isn’t necessary for babies and young children – fruit is a better option! We recommend that you continue to offer your baby BOTH open cups and straw cups as your baby transitions off of bottles. This way your baby/toddler will be comfortable using various drinking cups while maintaining a mature swallow and proper tongue placement.Honey Bear Straw Cup is the famous straw cup from Talk Tools. Our occupational therapist was attempting to get Noah to like the straw again close to his birthday. We attempted to use the honey bear, which I am sure a lot of you have used with huge success. Many of these processes can be modified and adapted through close observation. Weekly intervention and counsel with a speech and language pathologist can also be quite helpful. It looks like a little container that is commonly used to store honey. However, this adapted cup has helped many children who have struggled in their initial exposure and experience with straw drinking. It does this by creating a safe and no-fuss method to intake fluid. Use a straw that provides a little more resistance and a slower flow so baby has to "work" at it a bit more. Ideally, this encourages baby to close their lips more forcefully around the straw, thus helping keep the liquid inside the mouth. The Munchkin weighted straw cup is a good one for this kind of practice (our product suggestions are never sponsored). Some of the stainless-steel and glass cups are more expensive upfront, but they also tend to last for years. Chances are that unless you lose it, you’ll have a stainless-steel or glass cup for the duration of your toddler’s childhood—and beyond. We’ve had some of our cups for 9 years now and they still work just as well as they did when I first bought them. Best Overall: Lalo Little Cup

Make it a habit explicitly, so they learn to drink on their own. When out and about, both of you take five sips of water every hour. Do it as a team, make it fun (count out loud, make up a song, etc.) Kary Rappaport, a Solid Starts feeding specialist, teaches her daughter Lucy, 7 months, how to drink from a straw with the pipette method. Straw trainer method The best time to start introducing your baby to a cup is during mealtime! You should offer your baby little sips of water with breakfast, lunch and dinner. You can start this process around 6 months of age. Here is the way we guide parents on HOW to do this transition at each age:These stainless cups are fitted with a silicone sleeve so they’re easy to hold (even when cold), and they’re bright and fun. They are easy to clean, come in 8-ounce and 10-ounce sizes, and are very durable. When choosing an open cup, we recommend using a small cup that’s easy for baby hands to hold. Since you’ll be dealing with many, many spills, look for a cup that holds no more than 1-3 ounces. A small cup also makes it less likely that your baby will flood themselves with liquid. There are many cups on the market that fit this description, but a shot glass or small glass yogurt cup will do just fine, too! Now, before you tear through your kitchen and trash your sippy cups or worry you’ve irreparably damaged your child, we just want to point out that using a sippy cup will not damage your child and likely have zero noticeable impact. In fact, one of our staff feeding therapists occasionally used sippy cups with both of her kids because she already had them and they were spill-proof. While sippy cups may not be ideal for oral motor skill development, babies are incredibly flexible and resilient. Chase the why. If your baby is older than 8 months and/or starting to show outright refusal or frustration, continue to stay calm and unruffled. Take a minute to ask yourself, “why?” Does your baby want to do it independently and you’re trying to help? Is your baby just completely baffled about what to do with the cup or straw? Allow your answer to guide your support. For example, if your baby is independent, you may need to be hands-off, even if that means your baby spills water over and over again. Put only a small amount in the cup, bring a towel to the table, and remain calm. Modify the recommendations above based on what you suspect might be contributing to the refusal.