Sippy Cup - Ithaca,NY

Give it some time for her to learn. Don't push the issue too much. She will get the hang of it. Just be patient it will come to her. Good Luck!

My son wouldn't ever take a sippy cup either. We tried for months and he just wouldn't get it. One day out at lunch he wanted my water, so I held my finger over the straw to pick up and put some in his mouth, and he sucked immediately and knew what to do. So I let him try it himself and other than it being too fast for him at first, he had no problems. He was probably only 8 or 9 mos and supposedly they can't do straws til later, but that was all my son would do. This is the response I just gave to someone asking about which straw cup to try:

I like the Munchkin brand. (Target,walmart, etc). They have the flexible straws and are BPA free. I also have one of those dishwasher baskets for bottles (also munchkin) that goes in the top rack with the little flip down straw holders on the sides. I put the straws in those, the tops in the top "nipple" part and the lids in the big part. I never have to hand wash, and I think I have the worst dishwasher in the world. I do make sure to never let milk dry in them, and if it does just soak them for a few minutes. My only complaint is that the straw holders on the baskets start to wear out and I have to replace the baskets every 6-8 mos. But they are only like $4 so the convenience is worth it.

The straws on the Munchkins aren't hard to suck, they are valveless. I did notice when I first bought them that sometimes they wouldn't separate easily for my son who was still very young. So I would just pinch them and that would break the seal of the plastic sticking on itself.

Try a regular cup. My daughter never understood sippy cups, but was able to drink from a regular cup after a couple of tries (and a few spills :D).

Have YOU tried to drink out of them? What do you have to do? Except for the Gerber Nuk, I had to bite to get anything out.

The other thought, if she can get liquid out, is if she is teething, it might just feel really good to her.

We didn't use the valve at first. Then once she started sucking we put the valve in to prevent spills.

I just went straight to a straw cup (foogo on amazon) for car rides or bedside and holding a cup w no top for meals. Why bother w a sipp cup?

She is too young for a sippy cup. Wait a few months.

This is kind of a non answer, but she will eventually just get it on her own. The same thing happened with my son and I thought we would be on the bottle for the rest of his life. But eventually one day he just realized that a) He was thirsty and b) there was liquid in that sippy cup. and then presto, he started drinking from it. I stressed so much and the day he got it, the stress was all over. But without being able to talk or really understand a large vocabulary, there were few ways to tell him what to do. I would put it up to his mouth but he had to figure it out on his own.
I started using the Born free cups as they don't have the negative pressure or whatever it is called, so they are easier to get stuff out of. We really liked them, but they are NOT spill proof. My son made a mess before he got the hang of it. But I felt like it was less like a bottle because he didn't have to suck so hard. Now we use a cup all day long unless we are on a car trip or something where glasses are too difficult.

I believe it's more of the idea of giving her the cup and when she is ready to actually drink from it, she will. It's like giving them a spoon at 6-months -- they hold it, throw it and sometimes it makes it into their mouths. I introduced several cups starting at 6-months. She only started drinking from it at 12-months. She uses the Playtex with the handles and a Nuby that more resembles a bottle.

My daughter (10 Months) did the same thing with the soft Nuby cup. I let her play with it, chew on it, etc... and eventually she did get it. Now she actually drinks from it when she wants to. It may seem like forever, but I think all you can do is keep trying.

When we introduced the sippy we started with the Nuk ones since they have the silicone spout like the bottles. We had them around all the time so our son would casually drink with them. By 9 1/2 months we had him off bottles and onto just sippy cups. Around 11 months we switched him to the Playtex cups (which are the only ones I've found are truly non-leak).

Have you tried any of the straw cups? She might do better with that.

Have you tried a straw sippy cup? My neighbor couldn't get her son to take a sippy cup, but he handled the straw kind much better.

Our daughter only ever really liked the Green Sprouts sippy cups with a hard little spout. They are for 3 months and up, supposedly. She never liked the soft spout ones, and never got the straw. She would just chew and play with them. I think they were too much like a bottle, which she also rejected.

She is now graduating from the Green Sprouts to a regular juice tumber, but we still bring the sippy for outside. It is very water tight when closed, unlike a soft sippy, which all seem to leak when you press the spout against somthing (another favorite pastime she had), and she enjoys being able to open and close the little spout herself.

Just hang in there and try not to get too frustrated. With my first I gave him the advent sippy cup for 6month olds (it has a softer spout) with water, when I started him on cereal at about 5 months old. He would often just play with it, but I continued to give it to him at least once or twice a day. Then, one day when he was about 8ish months old, he figured it out.

As a side note: At the begining, i didn't like the sippys that had a valve to them like the gerber or platex ones beacuse every time he dropped it, it would fall out into the drink and I would have to fish it out or else there would be water everywhere!