Feeding Your Baby - Using A Cup
Teaching Your Baby to Use a Cup
- Use a small plastic cup.
- Hold the cup yourself and let baby sip from it.
- Drink from a cup along with your baby to show baby how.
- Try teaching cup drinking during baby’s bath when spilling doesn’t matter.
- When baby is ready to try the cup alone, give a cup that is small.
- Don’t fill the cup all the way.
- Tell baby what a good job he or she is doing.
- Expect a lot of spills. Keep a towel or dish cloth handy.
When to Start the Cup
- At about 6 months, put all of baby’s juice and water in a cup. You will probably need to help baby with the cup at this age.
- Also about 6 months, start giving a little formula in the cup.
- Around 9 months, baby will be able to drink well from the cup.
- Start to wean baby from the bottle slowly.
- Around 12 months, a baby who has been slowly weaned from the bottle is usually ready to give it up.
Special Bottle-weaning Tips
- Weaning will be easier if you have never gotten in the habit of putting baby in bed with the bottle. Hold your baby during feeding and then put your baby to bed. As baby gets older, use a cup and then put baby to bed.
- If your baby MUST have a bedtime bottle, put plain water in it.
- Try to get baby off the bottle completely by between 12 and 15 months of age. The longer you wait, the more difficult it will be.
- Help baby to give up one bottle at a time. Begin with the feeding that baby is least interested in.
- Instead of the bottle, give a cup of formula at that feeding every day. Do this until baby gets used to it. This could be about a week. Then pick another feeding to use the cup. This is how to wean your baby slowly.
Why Wean Around One Year of Age?
- Your baby is ready for weaning. Baby may not give up the bottle as easily at 15 or 18 months.
- Your baby can get tooth decay if he or she spends too much time on the bottle.
- The bottle can cut your baby’s appetite for foods that are needed for growth and a healthy iron level in the blood.
This page last updated on 3/06/08.