Sippy Cup. - Islip,NY

Look for a sippy cup with valves - most have them and regulate the flow of the liquid based upon how hard the child sucks.

Some are better than others, so I'd recommend buying a few different ones and seeing which works.

Some are made for younger children (6 months +).
Don't be surprised if you're giving both a sippy cup and a bottle if he refuses the cup. Neither of our kids really took to the cup until they didn't have a choice between it and the bottle.

Good luck.

With my first I gave him the advent sippy cup for 6month olds (it has a softer spout) with water, when I started him on cereal at about 5 months old. He would often just play with it, but I continued to give it to him at least once or twice a day. Then, one day when he was about 8ish months old, he figured it out. once he was old enough for cows milk, I started to replace nursings with a sippy cup of milk. As he has gotten older, I keep updating the sippys to his age and abililty.

As a side note: At the begining, i didn't like the sippys that had a valve to them like the gerber or platex ones beacuse every time he dropped it, it would fall out into the drink and I would have to fish it out or else there would be water everywhere!

You can start early, we started around 11 mo and got serious at 12 mo. We started w/the Nuby sippy cup for both kids. It has a sylicone tip that I think works as a good transition from bottle to sippy.

My son REFUSED bottles as a baby, however he started sippy cups around 4 months and by 6 he could drink out of them on his own! I also tried the take and toss and in the end found that the soft tipped ones worked a lot better. We loved the Dr. Brown sippy cups. Once he got use to that we introduced the platex cups and I LOVE THEM!! There lids are all interchangable and they are easy to clean. Plus I don't have my husband always getting frustrated because he dosen't know what lid fits :)

I was told by a few sources that cups with valves are not the thing to reach for. With that said, there are some decent cups out there that have either removable valves or none at all that are no-spill or at least spill very little. I introduced a sippy to my son around 6 months and used take-n-toss sippies. I found that something that was important with my son was that he could hold the cup easily by himself. I liked the tnt cups because they have multiple sizes of containers that fit the sippy top, I think its like 4oz, 7oz, 9oz. If you stick the sippy top on the 4oz then its squat enough for them to hold top to bottom and bring it to their mouth. We started out with those and moved up to the larger sizes. They're easy to open for you to refill and I have never had one open when my son tosses it off the highchair, nor does it dribble out as it sits there before I get to it. I also like the soft spout Gerber cups (though I took all the handles off of mine, DS didn't like the handles) and those have a removable valve. Munchkin makes some variable flow ones that are pretty decent too.

My only other advice is to not stock up on one sippy until you figure out if your little one likes it or not.

I think a good transition cup from the bottle is the Gerber Nuk...my son actually still uses that for his milk when he isn't sitting and drinking from a cup at the table. Get a variety and try them yourself. The Nuk, doesn't have one of those valves, they just suck on it. I find that with the valve ones, when I tried to suck I couldn't get anything out - no wonder my son was so frustrated and didn't like them. I had to bite and then suck to get the fluid moving.

We love the playtex sippy cups! I introduced the sippy cup as a toy with water to my daughter when she was 6 months, and now at 8 months she drinks like a pro. It comes out as fast or as slow depending on how hard the baby sucks because of the valve, and then when they are ready you can remove it and it flows like a regular cup.