My son is 11 months old, and I am still breastfeeding. My problem is that my son will take one drink from the sippy cup, and then just chew on the mouthpiece...drenching himself! He thinks this is play time! I am thinking of weaning him soon, and I am just at odds over the best way to do this. I have tried water, water/juice mixture,formula, and breastmilk in the cup...he will have none of it. It might help to tell you that he has never taken to the bottle! Any help would be appreciated, thanks.
You can always try the no-spill cups with straws. My son loves drinking out of these & makes less of a mess with them than he does with his sippy cups. Good for you for nursing for this long!!!
C. : )
Hi S.-
You need to know this is totally normal! It took my soon about 2 months to even realize there was fluid in there! I would put the sippy on his high chair everyday at every meal, And he did the same exact thing. Then eventually, somethng goes off in his little brain to try to suck on it... and he has loves it ever since. I have to say, it was no problem what so ever to take him off the bottle at a year, because he was alreay so used to the sippy. In my case, what may have worked to my advantage was my sister watches him twice a week and her than 2 year old was already using the sippy and he wanted to be just like her a drink from the same cup. But it still took a long while..
Hang in there! Remember. they are just babies and not use to change so fast, they just pick something up and we take it away from them, because they need to continue to grow. We dont like change, even when WE understand it is good for us...
it will get better, I PROMISE!
You sound stressed out. Relax! Its okay if he doesn't get the sippy cup right away- all he knows right now is a soft yummy nipple, not a hard plastic sippy cup! My advice is to try out different sippy cups until he finds the one he likes best. Or why not go straight to a cup? Many breastfed babies skip the whole sippy cup and go straight to a regular cup. Its foreign for nursing babies to have plastic in their mouths (unlike bottle fed babies who are used to a mommy substitute) So try to get him to drink more at meals helping him with a cup.
Why do you want to stop breastfeeding? The WHO (World Health Organization) recommend nursing until 2 or longer. The health benefits of nursing dont stop at 1! Mama's milk is still an amazing form of nutrition - not to mention all the white blood cells and immunization benefits he's getting! You don't have to nurse round the clock to receive those benefits, and maybe what you are looking for is some boundries on the amount of nursing he's doing. I would try to up the amount of other liquids during the day, and I would get to a LLL meeting quick! LLL (La leche League) http://www.llli.org/resources.html A great way to meet other nursing moms and to get advice/help on breastfeeding issues.
Hi S. -- I nursed both my duaghters. Quick question -- do you HAVE to wean him? K. S
