It is often seen that many babies are still using bottles when they are two or three years old, and even some are still holding bottles when they go to kindergarten.
Holding the bottle all the time is not conducive to the baby’s good living habits, and it is also harmful to the baby’s body. It is very important for the baby to learn to drink milk and water from the cup.
Today, Clove’s mother invited Tang Wei, a parenting research consultant, to talk to everyone about how to let her baby learn to use cups.
1. Why should babies learn to use cups?
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that babies should gradually stop using bottles by the age of 1 and quit bottles by 15 months. There are many hidden dangers in babies using bottles for a long time.
1. Dental caries risk
Many babies like to drink bedtime milk with bottles and even sleep with pacifiers. The deciduous teeth are always soaked in milk, which greatly increases the risk of dental caries.
2. Risk of obesity
The baby has been holding the bottle, which is easy to drink more milk unconsciously, thus causing obesity.
3. Affect the development of language ability
Holding the bottle for a long time will prevent the oral muscles from being exercised, which is not conducive to the baby’s learning to speak and hinders the development of the baby’s language ability.
Let children learn to use cups, in addition to getting rid of bottles as soon as possible, it is also conducive to exercising the baby’s hand-eye coordination ability, improving fine exercise ability and promoting brain development.
2. How old can the baby use the cup?
At the age of 6 months, the baby can begin to try to use the cup.
The baby’s fine movements, muscle strength and hand-eye coordination ability are not yet fully developed, and the process of learning to use cups may be quite long. Mothers should have enough patience and give them sufficient transition time.
The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that babies should be skilled in drinking water from cups by the latest age of 2.
3. Choosing the right cup is very important
Babies usually go through three stages in using cups: straw cups-duckbill cups-open cups.
- If the baby is used to using bottles, You can introduce the straw cup at the beginning. Choose a light weight, suitable for grasping and small size cup. If the straw cup fits well, Then let the baby try the duckbill cup. This kind of cup needs to tilt the bottle body to drink water, which is a good transition for the baby to use the open cup. When the baby can skillfully use the duckbill cup, the ordinary open cup can be introduced.
There are also some babies who will jump over this process, skipping straw cups and duckbill cups, and directly using open cups. This shows that the baby’s adaptability to open cups is better, and parents just need to pay attention not to let the child choke.
4. 4 Steps to Teach Baby to Use Cups Well
Usually the baby can learn to use straw cups and duckbill cups by himself, and may encounter some difficulties when learning to use open cups.
I still remember when my family Dabao used the open cup for the first time, he was choked and did not dare to use the cup again for a long time.
Therefore, the baby’s use of cups should be done slowly.
Teaching babies to use open cups can be divided into the following steps:
Step 1:
Choose the cup your baby likes. If the baby doesn’t like the cup, it will probably be pushed away by a palm.
Step 2:
At first, only a small amount of water was poured into the baby’s cup to prevent them from choking themselves when they were dry in one mouthful and from being afraid of difficulties in drinking water.
Step 3:
At first, if the baby does not accept drinking water, he can pour some milk or breast milk into the cup, dilute it slowly, and finally replace it with white water.
Step 4:
After drinking water or milk from a cup is successful, give the baby an encouragement.
When parents drink water from cups at ordinary times, they can consciously demonstrate and explain the process of drinking water to their children, so that children can learn to drink water from cups faster.
Be patient enough and never roll up your sleeves and feed yourself in a hurry.
Finally, I would also like to urge all mothers not to use cups of vegetable water, fruit juice, etc. as far as possible, so as not to let the baby get used to drinking white water. You know, the best drink for the child is plain boiled water.