The Great Sippy Cup Debate

The little dude is growing up. . . there's no question. He also has some strong opinions. He has been pretty good, over the last 7 months that I've been back at work, to drink his milk from a bottle when I'm not home. He's had the same bottles (Avent) the whole time, and he's never fought them too badly. Until recently. . . I have been trying to get him to drink juice/water out of a sippy cup for some time now, to help with some... ahem... other issues. We tried this one first:

(Nuby) It has a kind of camelback sort of spout. When Nolan bites down on the silicone, the 3 little slits let the water out. He liked it fairly well. He would drink out of it a bit. But if he pressed the spout against anything, including himself, the carpet, or the coffee table, it would leak. (though it's true that it doesn't leak if you just turn it upside down) I needed another option, for the sake of that table.

(Gerber) had one that looked promising. Some days it works great for him. He has to work harder at it, and sometimes you just have to take the valve completely out for him to be willing to drink from it. But he can hold it by himself, and it doesn't leak, so when the valve is in, he can carry it around with him. (Boon) I wanted this one to be his favorite. The hipster snob in me that loves the look of these and the spoon made by the same company, wanted it to be the go to sippy. But alas, he has to work too hard. He just isn't willing to at this point. . . hopefully later. It definitely doesn't leak.

(Gerber) We borrowed one of these really basic ones from grandma for the weekend, and he did OK with it. He needed the handles for holding on, though. It was pretty much the same success rate as the other Gerber one as far as willingness to drink from it.

And then things got really complicated. Nolan went on a bottle strike last week.

I know it's because he was getting a tooth, but now that the tooth is through, he still doessn't want the bottle. So I ran to the store again. None of the other options was working. We needed something he'd drink his milk (and, PLEASE PLEASE, some formula) from. So the following options were added:

(Avent) An adaptor you can add to a regular avent bottle he already has. . . in theory, I thought this would be a great option. No dice. SCREAMED at Tamera when she tried to give it to him. Even when it was just his regular milk, no formula added.

(Gerber) These have the same kind of spout. SO not interested. I liked that he wouldn't have to tip this one as much. . .


And my last resort. . . (Nuby) He doesn't really know how to suck through a straw, I thought. He loves straws, but he doesn't get anything up through one. . . oh well. . . it's worth a try. Yeah, this one is the winner. It was the one and only way Tamera could get him to drink milk on Friday. So I went and bought 2 more. . . because, as you can see, what we need is MORE sippy cups in our house.

I'm hoping that as he gets older he will be less picky. I've heard that happens. . . I'm hoping that all of these brightly colored plastic cups don't go to waste. . . I'm hoping I'm DONE buying sippy cups. Apparently I'm done buying bottles, at least. . .

Ben and I were laughing the other night about how funny it is that Nolan is a total brand loyalist within each category. But it doesn't cross over. He is Avent bottles, Nuk pacifiers, & Nuby sippy cups.

And don't try to get him to change his mind.