Faced with the multitude of tools available to us to give our baby a drink, we are sometimes a little lost. And yet, the switch to the bottle is not compulsory for baby and there are many other ways of offering him milk and water.
The different tools
The straw cup
The straw is a very nice tool that can be offered to baby from 6 months and even before in some cases.
If offered correctly, it is a tool that respects the physiology of swallowing, the oromotor development of the baby, but also its independence.
To drink from a straw cup, the baby does not need to put his head back (with a neck extension). He is autonomous to bring it to his mouth thanks to the small handles of the TUMTUM cup for example.
With the straw, the baby learns to use his lips and tongue, independently of his jaw (an excellent exercise for babies with limited tongue movement and a low tongue, the straw will then allow an elevation and retraction = a receding tongue).
Learning to use the straw tool can be done in a few minutes, but sometimes it is necessary to follow several steps by breaking down the learning process.
Discover our 2 min video explaining the straw on our Youtube page by clicking here
The glass
Baby can drink from a glass very quickly, just like us, well almost. However, it is important to offer him the right tool that will be adapted to his grasping abilities and that will enable him to bring it to his mouth by himself. In order to facilitate gripping, the glass should have a diameter corresponding to the opening between the thumb and the index finger and it should not be too high so as not to cause the head to extend (head backwards, a position which can increase the risk of false routes) when baby drinks.
We can therefore offer baby from 6 months small glasses such as Babycup, which the baby can take with one hand and swallow correctly.
A few tips to get you started: only put a few millilitres of water in the baby cup. There is a natural tendency to fill it. Your baby has not yet mastered the gesture and a full cup is not very stable. As our baby's movement is not precise, the experience may end up as a shower.
The 360° cup
A good tool to go out for a snack or a small picnic to avoid small leaks. To trigger the 360 cup mechanism, the lips must close on the edge of the glass. Baby learns to hold the glass with his lower and upper lip to drink from the glass (be careful, sometimes before 9 months the upper lip is not yet mobile). Another advantage of the 360 cup is that it keeps the little tongues in the mouth. Indeed, it can happen that a baby or a child (I think of our extraordinary children) sticks out their tongue to drink. The small drawback of the 360 cup is that it can tend to overuse our muscles and in an asymmetrical way, so we will be careful that it is not the main tool for taking liquids from baby. To trigger the mechanism, some babies will set up compensations such as clenching their lips very tightly or holding on with their teeth. If this attitude is observed in baby, it is important to offer him another tool on a daily basis.
The cup with a spout
I'm not going to tell you much about it... because we're only going to avoid it so as not to set up a swallow with an open mouth and a low tongue.
To remember when offering a new tool Before our baby is autonomous with the tool, it may be necessary to offer it several times without waiting for food.
- Offer the tool when baby is in his "green zone", i.e. avoid offering it when he is very hungry, it is not the right time.
- The new tool can be presented to the child outside of mealtimes, so that he or she can become familiar with the texture in the mouth, the shape, the handling, without having to wait for food to be taken
- For baby, it is important to sometimes make micro changes, we do not propose a new tool, a new taste or a new way of swallowing at the same time. At the beginning, let baby discover the new texture of the tool, and make the other changes a few days later.
A short article to give you some tips on choosing alternative tools for giving your baby liquid.
Occupational therapist in paediatrics and eating disorders