DITCH THE SIPPY CUP!!!

Ditch the sippy cup! Well, at least the ones with a spout. Why? For good speech and language development. Have you ever noticed that babies really start to talk after they learn to walk? This is a typical developmental sequence. What we like to see is babies first supporting their own head, then pushing up off the floor while on their tummy, rolling over, sitting up, crawling and cruising, and then walking. After that, the body and brain 'take a deep breath'. This allows the brain to motor plan for speech production.

Speech is, essentially, a motor activity. Your brain has to tell all the parts of your mouth (tongue, teeth, cheeks, lips, jaw) what to do to make sounds. Babies who are sucking on a spout, don't have the oral motor skills for some speech sounds.The suck on a spout is not much different that the suck on a nipple. This suck is a 'primitive reflex', meaning it goes away once the baby is off the bottle. The sucking pattern needs to go away so that your toddler can learn to make certain speech sounds! INSTEAD, get a 360 cup, one sip and it drinks like a regular cup! You can find these at almost any store where you shop of feeding supplies for your child.