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.
oxo-training-cup

Already going for the big girl cup!

oxo-training-cup Perforated insert on the training cup.

oxo-straw-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.

Disclosure: Posts may contain affiliate links. If you purchase a product through an affiliate link, your cost will be the same but we will automatically receive a small commission that goes straight into Olivia's piggybank. All product opinions are our own, and we do our research to only recommend the best!

10 Comments

  1. I have tried so many sippy cups (for water) with Olive, and seriously she won’t take them. She hated the Tommy Tippee, we just finished struggling with the Nuby and I just bought a straw one today! I’m hoping that she’ll just….take to it. I wonder how you teach a baby to suck through a straw……

    • Olivia really didn’t like other ones, either, so maybe you’re in luck with the straw! Which one did you buy? We started out with the Playtex Little (L’il?) Grippers and with those, you can actually gently squeeze the center of the bottle so the water comes up the straw a bit while it’s in her mouth. After a few of those, O started to get the hang of it! Let me know how it goes!!

  2. Hi there! We have been struggling with our 11 month old for awhile now to get the hang of a sippy cup or straw cup. She will only chew on it and we have the oxotot straw cup which she did not take to. Any additional tips? I am thinking of trying the playtex ones since straws seem better anyway but we have switched so many times I just don’t know where to go…..
    Also, you have given me really sound guidance on naps before – I was wondering how you dealt with your daughter’s nap schedule when she was 11 months old – we’ve been kinda working on a 10 and 2 schedule but her naps have never really lengthened, other than the OCCASIONAL 1 hour and 10-15 minute nap (she sleeps 12 plus hours every night though). Sometimes she rubs her eyes before the 10 and 2 times and we put her down and get longer naps but it is not consistent. Would you recommend the schedule, going by her signals, or a combination of both??

    • Hi! Sorry for the delayed response! We loved the oxo straw cup, but the playtex is hands down O’s favorite, so maybe hat one will do the trick. When I was first teaching O how to drink using a straw, I would give her the cup and squeeze a bit of water or milk out of it so she “got” what was happening, then squeeze a little bit into her mouth while she had the straw in there. The playtex cups are good for that b/c they’re not rigid.

    • As for the naps – I think a combination of both is the way to go. I also found at around that age (and even a few months later) that putting her down at 9:30 would lead to a longer nap sometimes. It seemed way too soon to me, but somehow it worked. I think the key is to get to her before she has a chance to get overtired. Sometimes that may be 9:30, others it’s 10. Sounds like you’re taking the right approach by going with your instincts

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