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Encouraging your toddler to use a cup

Moving from bottle to cup is a significant developmental milestone, and shows that your baby is growing up. It’s necessary that he makes the transition, because as he moves into pre-school and school he’ll only be given cups to use – like an adult.

Gradually change his relationship with the bottle

• From around seven months of age your baby is able to start learning to drink from a feeder cup or beaker instead of a bottle.
• Start by looking at your baby’s attachment to the bottle. Does he see it as a source of comfort and security as well as food ?
• If the bottle has become a comfort object, make sure you don’t give him the bottle in bed, or he’ll begin to associate the bottle with comfort and security at bedtimes.
• If he’s become attached to the bottle, try and encourage him to transfer his attachment to another object like a stuffed animal.

A gradual progression from bottle to cup

• When you start introducing the cup, put a little bit of milk in a cup at a time, starting with expressed milk at first to familiarise him with the beaker before the taste changes to that of formula milk.
• At the start of the process, he won’t be able to manage much from the cup so be ready to finish the meal with the bottle.
• He needs to work out how to stop sucking, and also how to manage the cup with his mouth and hands.
• When he’s able to drink around 4 ounces from the cup at one time he’s ready to move full-time to the cup, so gradually eliminate bottle feeds.
• Start with a spill-proof beaker with a soft spout, changing over time to a hard spout and then an open lidded cup with handles.
• Always use cups for juice rather than bottles, as children tend to use bottles as comforters in their mouths, meaning the acidic juice spends far longer in direct contact with their teeth.