I've been told that six months is the best time to first introduce a sippy cup, even though it will most likely take months for your little one to adapt to it. Apparently it is recommended that you just give juice in the sippy cup so your infant gets used to holding one. Anyone know if this is true? Alex has one, and drank just a bit out of it the other day, but he doesn't seem crazy about the idea.

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Tigriz
Mom to Alex - 1/21/06

Does it have handles? Try putting a wee bit of water in it and just letting him play with it. Or Avent makes a neat handle thing you can put on a bottle, so he can start learning how to use the handles while having a bottles. I thought that was a neat idea and used that with my eldest.

That's interesting about the handle you can put on a bottle. He's holding his own bottles these days, but only if we use a specific one which actually has a hole in the middle. (It's made to be easier for them to get their hands around). And the sippy cup I have is great, it's leakproof, so he can play with it and fling it around without getting juice everywhere. It's made by gerber I think, with handles on both sides, and a soft spout so it's sort of like the bottle. I guess just like anything else it will just take some time.

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Tigriz
Mom to Alex - 1/21/06

6 months for a sippy cup? Wow... I've never heard of anyone starting it that early. We transitioned to sippy cups around 10 months old and then to normal cups around 15 months.

They say to start acclimating a baby to a sippy cup sooner than later. I think it's a great idea.

It certainly can't do any harm to introduce the cup early just to ge thim used to it. We didn't introduce a cup until a bit later, but it I don't think it mattered.

Yes, I have heard 6 months is a great time as well. It took our daughter a little time to get used to them, but now she does just great. I believe we started with water in ours and then juice, as you're never supposed to give them juice in a bottle.

Our daughter can use a sippy cup but still prefers the bottle. She is 14-months-old. As far as I can see, there's no rush.