As you know, our precious boys were born 11 weeks premature, it was 3 weeks before they could even try to drink from a bottle. They struggled a bit to learn how to "suck, swallow & breathe" simultaneously. They did manage to figure it out in another 3 weeks time, but not without some gagging issues & not without taking 40+ minutes each to take a bottle.
So when it came time to introduce sippy cups I was kind of nervous about changing the way they drank. They had just started holding their own bottles & were drinking them in 10 minutes time. Things had just gotten easy & I wanted to enjoy it for a little bit, after all, I had been feeding 3 babies one after the other, 4 or more times a day for 6 months.
Well finally at 8 months I broke down & got the boys some sippy cups. All they wanted to do was chew on them. These boys are teething machines!!! The cups I had gotten had rubbery mouth pieces so I looked for something harder, maybe not so nice to chew on. It didn't matter what I got, they just wanted to chew the mouth piece.
My sister, a speech therapist, had been suggesting straw cups. She said they are better for oral & speech development. I had tried some after the original sippy cups, they too had rubbery straws & were great for chewing on. I was doubtful the boys would be able to figure out the straw without using sippy cups first because of their original problems. Well they sure proved me wrong!!! When we got back from my moms, 2 weeks ago, I went & got another type of straw cup. These ones you can squeeze & bring water to the top of the straw so the boys could get a taste. The straw was not so great for chewing but that didn't keep the boys from trying to chew the handles. I was persistent & would take the cup & put it back in their mouth the way it was suppose to be & took them away when they insisted on chewing or playing with them.
A couple days ago I noticed Kellan actually sucking water up into the straw, then I noticed Garren doing it. Yesterday I finally saw Caden doing it. Today all 3 boys were drinking from their cups. Garren takes really long drinks of water, Caden just takes short sips & Kellan is somewhere in between. I will say, they do choke on the water sometimes which is what I was afraid of. I'm sure in a couple days they will learn how to control the water in their mouths & we will be able to start putting formula in their cups. I'm hoping to be able to eliminate bottles & have them only drinking from cups by Summer.
Wish me luck!!!
