Transition From Bottle To Cup and OXO Cup Review

This weekend, we started to make some big strides in the transition from bottle to cup, so I figured I’d share our tips with you and review the two cups OXO sent us to try out!

Here are my top 5 tips for transitioning from bottle to cup.
1 – A straw cup may be better than one with a spout. Heidi, a speech pathologist who blogs at Mommy Speech Therapy has a great article outlining why straw cups are better for speech.  Essentially, she writes, it helps “position your children’s tongue correctly for speech,” whereas spout cups actually impede proper tongue placement.
2 – Try to avoid establishing the cup as “water-only”. This has been our biggest barrier so far. Olivia has been drinking water from a straw cup since she was 6 months old, so now that we’re giving her milk in one, it’s a paradigm shift – she tends to sip more vs. drink continuously as she would from a bottle. Instead, offer sips of water from a training cup (you’ll need to hold it at this point) and milk from the straw cup from the very beginning (in retrospect, this is what I would have liked to do with O). Or, pick two different styles/colors and designate one for water and the other for milk (this is what I’m doing now).
3 – You can go cold turkey (especially if you have the switch to whole milk coming up), or you can swap out the cup for a bottle one at a time. I don’t think there’s one right way here – it’s all about what you think will work best for your little one. We tried to use our family vacation to go the cold turkey route but soon learned that Olivia needed the comfort of her bottle feedings in order to adjust to her usual sleep routine in an unfamiliar environment. I would much rather her (and us!) be well rested, so we opted for a gentler transition. If you go this route, the evening bottle would be the last one to phase out, since it’s probably the most comforting one.
4 – Integrate milk into mealtimes vs. making it a separate meal. This one kind of goes hand in hand with the gradual approach in #3. We’ve started offering milk instead of water in a straw cup at breakfast or lunch time. If you’re like me and worry about your little one’s milk intake being too low, you can do what I’ve started doing as part of this transition, which brings us to #5
5 – Fill a glass bottle or pitcher with 16-24 ounces (2-3 cups) of milk and serve from it throughout the day – whether it’s in a cup, stirred into cereal or an omelette, etc. This will help you keep track of how much your little one consumes in a day. Note that the AAP states that after 12 months, little ones should be getting most of their calories from solids.

Special thanks to OXO Tot for sending us their Straw Cup and Training Cup to help make our transition smoother. These are definitely our new favorites around here. Here’s why:

• Both cups are really easy to grip, and I like that they’re only slightly tapered in the middle. For the most part, they’re shaped like regular cups – no large grooves or funky shapes means O’s transition to real cups will be easier.
• The training cup top is quite innovative. It has a perforated insert at the top that controls the flow and prevents all of the liquid from just pouring right out. Although Olivia is just starting to learn how to drink from it (hence, spilling quite a bit), it’s certainly much easier to work with than a regular cup. The insert can snap off once she is ready to make the full transition and use it as a big girl cup.
• The straw cup is also really cool – unlike our other ones, the lid on the OXO cup twists to conceal the straw and prevent spills. The other neat thing is that the twist part of the lid is made out of the same grippy material found on the sides of the cup. This helps little hands learn how to twist the top open on their own.
• Both cups are super easy to clean. They’re top-rack dishwasher safe, but I usually wind up washing them by hand.
• As with all of OXO’s products, the design is great. I love the crystal clear material, too. And, I think it goes without saying these days, OXO’s cups are BPA, phthalate and PVC free.

Already going for the big girl cup!

Perforated insert on the training cup.

The OXO straw cup.

Note: This is a sponsored post. OXO provided me with the cups mentioned here, but as with all of my reviews, the opinions are my own.