What is the best cup option for your child? Spoil alert, it is NOT a standard sippy cup

 

What is the best cup option for your child?

Since I know that my posts get a little chatty (understatement) Here is a TL/DR: Sippy cups aren't the best choice for oral development. If you've been using sippy cups, it's nothing to freak out about. There are a lot of alternative cups, including many that almost match the convenience and ease of the sippy cup. There is nothing simple about parenting. Even something that seems pretty basic can get a barrage of opinions. This includes sippy cups. Sippy cups, really? Here’s the scoop. To understand why sippy cups have come under fire recently, here is a bit of physiology. Bear with me. Baby’s mouths have some unique characteristics that help them safely feed and swallow. There is typically not a lot of open space in their little mouths. The tongue takes up most of the room. The palate is flexible and moveable at birth but will harden over time. The development and shape of the palate are significantly influenced by the placement of the baby’s tongue at rest and during feeding. Not only is the mouth a little different, but the normal infant’s swallow includes a tongue thrust that is necessary for latching and sucking As the babies and their mouths grow, the initial swallow and tongue pattern should change. The development of a more mature sucking pattern is vital in overall tongue positioning. With this more mature swallow, the tongue rises higher in the mouth and can do wave-like motions that are needed for dealing with more textured foods. With proper swallowing patterns, the tongue naturally rests on the roof of the mouth. That helps the palate to widen. It is all connected; the wider palate impacts the nasal septum which can help facilitate the much preferred nose breathing. If the early tongue thrust pattern persists, the tongue doesn't elevate, Instead it tends to rest forward in the mouth. This can impact speech and language development. In extreme cases, kids can end up with high narrow palates and lower, more forward jaws. Those kids can in turn end up being mouth breathers with an increase in drooling issues. (If you haven’t read the book Breath, I highly recommend it. It explains why nose breathing is so important.) Why does this all matter?  Frequent drinking from a sippy cup can change tooth and jaw development and makes it easier for tongue thrust swallowing patterns to persist! Studies have shown that children who use sippy cups during their early years have an increase in malocclusions (poor bite alignment) and cross-bites. Chronic pacifier use can have the same effect, so ideally the ‘pacifier fairy’ comes and makes those disappear by 18 months. Of course not all kids who drink from sippy cups have problems, but if we can avoid the possibility in the first place by offering alternatives, it seems like a good choice. Before I go on, if your child has been relying on a sippy cup for most of their drinking, please don’t beat yourself up. You can’t manage the past. It isn’t too late to make changes. I don’t usually routinely offer water until kids are starting to experiment with solid foods. Let them drink their milk from the breast or bottle, but move on to a cup for their water. How much water depends on your individual child. As long as they are peeing and pooping well, I don’t focus on an exact amount.  A note about hydration - For young infants under 4 months, they are likely getting adequate liquid just from their milk intake. Of course, factors such as extreme weather or illness can impact the hydration level so in some cases they might need some extra fluid. The best way to tell if your little one is getting enough to drink is to look at their urine. If it is darker and less frequent than normal it is time to offer water or pedialyte. Intro to a cup: I asked Jody Vaynshtok, one of my favorite speech therapists, and a consultant at Oath Care for her expert opinion on how to make this progression. Jody likes to start with an open cup like the EzPz - the cup is the perfect size for little hands, weighted to help with little ones learning motor movements, and silicone, so they can add pressure (or even bite) and it won’t cause any problems.  Open cups are an important skill. Try to find opportunities where you just don’t care about the mess. They need to learn this. Of course there are times when you would rather not have everything in your orbit get spilled on. This is where straw cups come in. Sucking from a straw is another good skill for your little one to master.  For this, a great option is the Honey Bear which is a soft squeezy bear with a straw. When you squeeze, this pushes liquid through the bear and up into the straw - that’s when they take over to swallow. The straw can be cut down over time so that it gets shorter and shorter as the child learns the (tough) motor pattern of sucking up liquids and swallowing. Jody calls this a transition cup, so once they master the swallow with a straw you can move onto other cups with straws. We used the Honey Bear with my grandson Elliot and the learning curve was very quick. If you don’t have a transition cup, here is a method that can help you teach your early eater how to use a straw There are several pop-up straw cups on the market that don’t leak. Once your little one masters it, go ahead and cut the straws so that they are pretty short. This ensures that the tongue can still elevate. Jody’s Cup recommendations EzPz: great for starting with an open cup - they also have a version with a straw that’s fantastic for training little ones to use a straw. Cup and straw: functional and cute is always fun to have in the house! These cups have silicone straws so you won’t be worried about them walking around with it and potentially hurting themselves. They can also double as an open cup. 360 cup: if you are afraid of the mess that an open cup can make this can be a good alternative - my only caveat is that some kids become frustrated by the cups slow pour and a pattern of adding pressure to the top of the cup to release the liquid needs to be learned.  All this natural learning is taking place within the first several years. By the time kids are over three, they hopefully have the correct swallow pattern.  Remember that our only concern is for the formative years when kids are learning to swallow correctly. If you have a favorite cup that isn’t sanctioned, just put it away for a little while. Also, if you continue to use a sippy cup occasionally, for instance in the car, I have no trouble with that. As long as most of the drinking is with the preferred cups, you should be just fine. These are Jody’s favorites for kids over the age of 3. We are assuming that by that age they have developed the mature swallow pattern. Camelbak: their designs and so cute, and the ease of use lures you in, but for little ones the soft spout is very similar to a bottle nipple and may continue the immature swallow pattern. Soft sippy cups: this is just a bottle in disguise. Although it may be easy for your little one to use there is no differentiation between this top and a bottle top. There are plenty of knockoffs on the market. When you buy a cup, make sure it is made from safe BPA free plastic. Mama Ellie liked using stainless steel shot glasses. They were a good size and there are no plastic concerns. Note about bottles Prolonged bottle use will have the same impact as the sippy cup. The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that babies get rid of the bottle between 12-15 months. If your child is one of the ones who will only drink milk out of the bottle and doesn’t want it in a cup (that’s a thing, I don’t know why) I don’t worry about them using the bottle for a couple extra months. If your little one does stay with the bottle for some extra time, here is a gentle reminder: Please don’t let your child have a bottle in the crib. One benefit of transitioning to a cup is eliminating that habit!