The Sippy Cup Blues

I am 100% sure that every mom goes through crazy dilemmas, but I haven’t heard any of my other mommy friends complain about this one. I have just recovered from the Sippy Cup Blues. Or maybe it’s more like, Dylan has finally moved past the Sippy Cup Blues.

I had been trying, while no avail, to get my son to drink out of a sippy cup. I’ve heard all those people freak out when they see a celeb’s 4-yr old on tv still drinking from a bottle. So I was determined to not be one of those Moms. But kids are often not on the same page as their parents, huh?

When I was ready to introduce the cup, I bought 3 different kinds. My Mother-in-law saw one of the stages one, where the first stage looked almost like a nipple tip (perfect! I thought) Then I bought two other stages cups just to increase the chances of success. Dylan would put them in his mouth and then stubbornly shove them away while making a “Why would you give me such a disgusting thing?” face.

After a few weeks of this, I started confiding in my Coastie Mom Friends. I even loaded Dylan’s diaper bag with the cups to show them what I was working with! Two of my friends pointed to two of my cups, saying that those were the ones that worked for their kids. Arrrg!

So we tried juice, water, formula, begging, pleading…(okay, maybe I did the begging and pleading. Josh was more lax about it in true Dad fashion). After about a month, Dylan did decide that one of those cups made a really good chew toy. But he wasn’t really getting any liquid out through all of that manic biting.

Now, I will completely admit that I am a first-time mom who learns by trial and can get totally obsessive about new things. But, in my defense, I just want to be the best Mom I can possibly be and there is a learning curve that comes with this job!

I have learned in the last year that all of those clichés you hear are all totally true. Time does fly by, they do grow like weeds, the love you feel for your child is unbelievable, and…kids tend to do things on their own timeline. Dylan’s timeline for using a sippy cup started about a week before his birthday. My mom started giving him one of my old ‘Tupperware’ Sippy Cups (Yes, she still had a 30 year old sippy cup. She’s a Grandma, what can I say?). He caught right on.

Here’s the catch. I had been giving him the new age no-spill cups. He needed to use the old-school kind (or stage 3-4) that allows water and milk and juice to be dumped all over the floor! Oh well, at least he was finally catching on and not making faces every time I handed him a cup. So when we returned from Grandma Linda’s house, I went back to the store and grabbed a few more cups that were various stages of the sippy cup line. Now I have a cupboard full of sippy cups.

Maybe once he is used to the idea, I’ll be able to put those nifty little plastic stoppers back in the mouth of all those cups and he can stop pouring Milk everywhere! It's the small victories, right? At least the battle is coming to an end and I can get him off the bottle before he starts Kindergarten. Whew!