Most babies will have to make the move from a bottle to a sippy cup. Even most breastfed babies are given a bottle of breast milk at some point because the mother is not available for whatever reason. But, by age one, doctors recommend that you switch the baby over to a sippy cup. These are great because the lids are designed so they don’t spill and they are easier to clean than bottles. So what is the hard part? The hard part is convincing the baby to give up the bottle! For many babies, the bottle may be a source of comfort. After all, when babies cry, what is the first thing we do? We feed them. So, giving up a bottle is much more than just a physical change.

How you transition your baby from a bottle to sippy cup is a personal choice. Some recommend a complete change. Simply take away the bottle and the baby is more or less forced to drink from a sippy cup to get liquids. Some babies take to it right away and many even use sippys before the age of one. My son was a bit fussier, so we compromised. I gave him a bottle with milk every morning, and then his juice for the day came from a sippy cup. He only fussed about the juice sippy cup for about 20 minutes before he started drinking from it. I think giving him the bottle a little longer made the transition easy. When I decided no more bottles, he only complained for a few minutes, and then took his milk from the sippy cup.

If your child doesn’t like the sippy cups with the hard spout, remember that they do make sippy cups with plastic spouts that are more like nipples.