June 15, 2016 Dana

NEW: OXO Transitions Soft Spout Sippy Cup Set!

Given that the bottle or your breast have been his sole source of food for the entirety of his short life, your child may look at you like you’ve got three heads if you try to get him to test out a sippy cup. Pediatricians recommend teaching your baby to use a sippy cup starting between 6 and 9 months, and transitioning entirely away from the bottle by about age 1, but there are plenty of recalcitrant kids out there who are still hooked on the bottle at age 2 or even older.

However, starting your child on a sippy really is serious business: the way that children drink from a bottle causes milk to collect around their teeth, putting their hard-won new teeth at risk of decay. Drinking from a cup is also an essential skill to master, requiring kids to improve their hand-to-mouth coordination.

The new OXO Transitions Soft Spout Sippy Cup Set is designed to ease this rite of passage by making it as easy as possible for kids to get at their drink comfortably. The unique almond-shaped spout opens when your baby’s mouth touches it, conforms to his palate, and has a natural flow rate – not too much, not too little. The removable training disk helps kids learn how far to tip the cup, and the big handles make it easy for them to hold onto. All of these features are designed to minimize frustration as your baby learns how to drink from his sippy cup, warding off tantrums.

We’re also big fans of the leakproofing on this sippy cup. A word from our Head Buyer, Jill, mom of Reese, age 2.5:

“A non-leaky sippy cup is also like the Holy Grail to moms. After your first plane ride where you open your diaper bag and there is a pool at the bottom, you will search high and low for that non-leaky cup. This new cup doesn’t leak! It has a cool valve that only opens when your child sucks on it. They double up the protection with an easy, connected flip cover to really seal in any drips.

“Reese is beyond the transitioning features, but she actually really loves using the cup. It’s easy for her to hold because of the shape and she finds the flip cover to be quite fun. When we are at home and not on the go, she likes the training ring which has 2 flow speeds.

“The line is really customizable and many of the parts mix and match, so it’s a good investment, too.”

You can see how easily Reese handles the cup here:

Finally: no matter how great a sippy cup is, it’ll only be useful if your child is willing to use it. Here are a few tips for getting your kid to use it:

Try a variety of cups. Every kid has different preferences, and they may find that the valve in one cup makes it too much work to drink out of it, or they may find sucking on a straw to be easier. (The Zoli Bot is one straw cup that we often recommend; the rooster-faced Lollacup Straw Cup has a similar weighted straw, and an adorable birdie face!)
Deploy water strategically: There are various suggestions for watering down milk or juice and offering them in the bottle or sippy, but I especially liked this suggestion from Parents.com: use the bottle only for water, and only serve up more-coveted milk and watered-down juice in the sippy!
“Special milk”: Finally, I really like this plan from Aha! Parenting. The writer recommends adding a teeny bit of food coloring to the milk you put in the sippy cup, to make it more exciting. You simultaneously start watering down the milk you offer via bottle, thus making the sippy cup seem cool and making the bottle less alluring. Clever!

The OXO Transitions Soft Spout Sippy Cup Set is only one of many sippies in our selection, so if you’re not sure if this is the sippy cup for you, ask us! Our store staff are great at troubleshooting sippy issues (we spend all day, every day listening to parents), so drop in at any Magic Beans store and you’ll get an earful of recommendations! You can also easily reach our friendly experts from anywhere in the country via 866-600-2326 or questions@mbeans.com.