Darius started drinking water and milk from Pigeon’s MagMag (sippy) cup since last November (see Water & Training Cup) and March this year (see Development: 8th month Dar) respectively, using the cup’s Step 2 spout.

The MagMag cup consists of three different tops: Step 1 (Nipple), Step 2 (Spout) and finally, Step 3 (Straw). This allows the baby to grow with the cup to finally learn how to drink from a cup directly.

On and off, Catherine and I have been teaching him how to drink from a straw since two months back but have not been successful.

We started off by filling an empty drink packet (e.g. Yeo’s Chrysanthemum drink) with drinking water and put the straw in his mouth. His reaction would be to bite onto the straw, just like with any other thing that comes into his mouth. In order to let him know what’s the straw was for, I squeezed the packet so that water would flow up into his mouth via the straw. He would respond with a shocked look, wondering what had just happened.

We have read that this would help him gradually grasp the understanding that he needed to suck onto the straw in order for water to flow into his mouth. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to apprehend that concept and after several tries over a period of few days, we gave up, thinking that he wasn’t ready for it yet.

On Thursday, Catherine decided to give it a try again, this time filling the MagMag cup to the brim and using the straw top. While Darius was biting the straw, she squeezed the body of the MagMag to force water up the straw. After he felt water flowing into his mouth, he suddenly started performing a sucking action and began to drink from the straw!

When I returned home and heard of his progress, I was of course very happy for him. This means he’s closer to drinking from a cup independently, and being able to drink from a straw could mean quite a big change to how he drinks his milk. For instance, instead of having to place him lying down, he would be able to adopt a sitting or even standing position while drinking.

When it came to his night milk feed, we tried letting him drink from the straw. He would still start with biting before he would gradually remember to suck. He appeared to be very focused in his endeavour and appearing slightly confused with this new method of milk drinking.

Some milk flowed out of his mouth or down the sides of the straw and we made it a point to quickly wipe them away. He would also rest intermittently as he looked quite exhausted in his position. Though we had seated him straight up on either of our laps, he would still bend his head downwards while drinking. That certainly didn’t look like a very comfortable posture. ^^|

After around 15 minutes later, he had only managed to drink up around 90ml of milk. Wasn’t too bad a progress given his first try.

Wanting to see if putting him in other positions would make it easier and more comfortable for him, we placed him lying him down. He did manage to drink from the straw in this position too but he got a slight choking sensation, maybe due to the milk flowing too fast into his mouth. Seeing this, we promptly lifted him up back to a sitting position again.

However, after his choking incident, he started to reject the bottle and refused to put the straw into his mouth again. He probably needed time to recover from his trauma. Therefore, we switched back to the spout top again so that he could finish up the remainder of the milk.

Despite some hiccups, we are confident that Darius will gradually become more comfortable drinking from the straw, another sign that he’s transiting from a baby to a toddler.

Related posts:

1. Tips to Prevent MagMag’s Spout from Moulding Early last month, we shared our problem with the MagMag...
2. Trying to change the milk bottle Darius had been drinking his milk from the MagMag Level...
3. Drinking Milk from the Straw Since a month back, we started introducing Darius to drink...