Weaning from breast to cup

Hello everyone!

I am in the process of weaning my breast fed nearly 6 month old ds onto a cup (in time for when I go back to work)Ill keep breastfeeding him when I am with him and express my breast milk for him to drink from the cup.

Does anyone have any tips or suggestions on how to make it go smoothly? IE - how much to give him and how often?

Also, I am using an avent sippy cup which he is slowly getting the hang of but can anyone recommend a cup which works really well?

Any suggestions on what worked best for anyone would be much appreciated

Tan1

My DS is breastfed and uses a sippy cup. I don't think the type of cup is really important, just that the same one is used consistently. When the sippy cup didn't have milk in it I left it in the lounge with water in it. It took a while for him to really get the hang of it and be happy with it. (Maybe 4 weeks?)

We didn't wean to a bottle because he refused to take one and was more interested in the cup.

My girl liked the sippy cup early, and is now a bit obsessed. We just got a super cheap sistema one from the warehouse and that was much better than the tricky non-spill one (although she gulps and sometimes dribbles if she's got too much).

Could try a bottle too just in case? I find the bottle is more efficient at getting milk in, on the rare times she'll take that.

Great advice everyone! We will get there in the end. He went really well on the cup this morning after a sleep. He seems to take to it better when he has had a sleep and not feeling grumpy!

I've been working the last couple of weeks so DD8mo has had to get really used to a sippy cup (she won't have a bar of a bottle, plus I agree with you in that if you can go straight from bottle - cup then it's less re-training of drinking technique). She's had one i've used since she started solids (5mo) and was really iffy on it for ages. perserverance is totally the key, I also would try and give it to her with her meals and encourage her along by mimicking drinking out of it, making big enthusiastic gulps etc etc. I would take it away if she wasn't liking it, before she got agitated that I was trying to force it on her. I also think the stock standard, old school cheapies are better than the fancy pants no spill ones. It takes them awhile and they will cough up water/drink too much but they get there!

Both my boys took to bottles really well but the other thing they LOVED right from the beginning (when they first started on solids at 6m) was straw sippy cups. I use the Pigeon 8m + straw cups, I think they hold up to about 200ml? Once they realise something happens when they suck it's like a lightbulb going on! And once they've mastered a straw you never have to worry about them drinking while you're out or on holiday as they're really easy to find

Good luck with the weaning.