Thank you for the question. It has been my experience that you can begin the straw cup as early as 10 and 12 months. I also recommend begining to wean from the pacifier around that same time. I skip sippy cups all together because I don’t believe they do anything to transition our little ones from suckling to nice tongue retraction and stabilization.

Doing this has been very successful with my own children as well as the clients I work with in reducing drooling, improving muscle tone, increasing the amount of speech sounds the child makes as well as an increase in expressive vocabulary. I wish you the same success.

Thanks for your input!
Jennifer

I just wanted to put in my two cents! My daughter has been in speech therapy since she was 2 (she’s 3 now) and her speech therapist told me that sippy cups were the worst things in the world for kids who had speech problems. Actually she said sippy cups are just bad in general. She suggested a straw cup instead if my daughter wasn’t ready for an open cup. A friend of mine got me hooked on these really neat straw cups called Lil’ Chillers. They used to be at Target but they quit selling them. I found them online at http://www.lilchillers.com . I like them because they are easy for my daughter told hold and the straw won’t come out.

It’s nice to get some positive feedback. Your website is really helpful, full of great advice and your speedy reply has calmed me down ! We’ll start speech therapy as soon as possible. A couple of SLPs have told me to wait until she’s older, but my instinct was very strong that she needed early intervention. You’ve given me the confidence to push a little harder.

Keep up the good work.

Miriam.

What a fantastic mom you are! You are doing all the right things to set your daughter up for success. The straws and bubbles will be a great help to her. Getting her into therapy young will allow her to make the change more quickly before it becomes a tough habit to break.

Don’t worry about her getting teased either, with a little therapy I’m sure she will make the change long before kids ever notice.

My 3 year old daughter’s teeth were definitely affected by her pacifier and sippy cup. She was a heavy pacifier user and has developed a lateral lisp. We went ‘cold turkey’ from both items in October ‘07 and already we can see a major difference in the position of her teeth. The ‘open bite’ seems to have corrected itself. She was upset for two or three days when we weaned her, but not half as upset as we thought she would be. Lots of extra attention and affection got her through. Now she proudly shows her ‘new teeth’ to anyone who’ll look.

We’re planning to start speech therapy as soon as we find a private SLP to take her. Waiting lists for state funded therapy in Ireland are very long, as we want to help her as early as possible.

We’re using the straw & bubbles to help her learn the correct tongue position, and through games we have tried to gently introduce the idea of holding the tongue back when making the ’s’ and ‘z’ sounds. She seems recpetive enough, so hopefully she’ll be able concentrate for long enough to be a suitable candidate for speech therapy, even though she is very young. We’re also very aware that we don’t want to make her selfconscious when she speaks, as that could be so detrimental to her confidence.

I’d be very grateful of any advice you could give me as I’m really worried that she’ll be teased as she gets older, if we can’t eliminate the lisp. What are the chances of her losing it completely through therapy?

Miriam.

Now is the time to start transitioning him to the straw cup. A good goal would be to have him completely off the bottle by twelve months. I know it’s hard, especially when they throw their fits, but trust me, it’s worth it.

A few ideas for transitioning to the straw cup that have worked for other parents include letting your child help pick out cool new cups, put delicious drinks in the straw cup like strawberry milk or lemonade, try to limit the bottle to bedtime only, or simply throw the bottles out so you’re not tempted to use them when he throws a tantrum. Hopefully you will find something here that will help.

You can do it,
Heidi

It sounds like you are on the right road to tongue retraction already. What you want to do now is try to move him from the bear cup to a straw cup. Once he is on the straw cup you will be able to work toward tongue retraction by cutting the straw down little by little. In the beginning he will still wrap his tongue around the straw and that is o.k.. As you cut the straw down he will be using less and less of his tongue until eventually the straw is so short, he can only use his lips and his tongue will be retracted.

The important thing to remember is that this is a process and he needs to build up his tongue strength in between intervals of cutting the straw. If you cut the straw too short too soon he will reject the straw cup, so it is always better to move a little slower rather than faster.

Best of luck,
Heidi

Our two-year old has Down Syndreom and uses a bear cup with a straw. He has been drinking from this straw cup for a long time. He is usually pretty about keeping his tongue in his mouth, but does not retract his tongue when he drinks and the straw sits between his tongue and upper lip. Should I worry about this? If so, how can I encourage him to retract his tongue?