Learn how to teach baby to drink from a straw in minutes using one of three different tricks quickly and easily. Plus, discover the best straw sippy cup!
Any parent with a baby or toddler knows that there are a multitude of sippy cups available to choose from. It can be pretty overwhelming when you’re standing in front of a selection of 30+ cups. To make it more confusing, parents have the choice between the traditional spout shaped sippy cup or a no spill straw cup. My vote, as a therapist, is the straw cup. In fact, this is one of the first recommendations I make to families I am working with to improve feeding skills and even give sensory input. I know, you didn’t know the straw had so much power! To say this simply, straw drinking requires the use of different muscles and a more sophisticated motor plan, meaning it is a little more challenging.
Using a spout shaped sippy cup is the same sucking motion a child uses to drink from a bottle, so it isn’t progressing their skills much. You may be saying, “So what? What difference does it make?” Well, those straw drinking muscles they are using are the same muscles they need to manipulate food in their mouth better and say more speech sounds. Sure, a kid will still eventually get these skills, but by introducing a straw, you are laying a stronger foundation and they may master these skills sooner! In addition, straw drinking gives a lot of sensory feedback, the force it requires to suck can be very calming and organizing. Sounds great, right? By now, you are ready to run to the store and stock up! Before you hop in the car or click over to Amazon, there are a few things to consider first, like what kind of straw to use, what age you should introduce it, and how to actually teach a baby to drink from one (most of them need some help to get going).
When Can Babies Drink from a Straw?
Let’s talk about age first. Most babies are capable of being taught to drink from a straw at 9 months. Typically, toddlers will figure it out by age 2 on their own. I was able to teach my older son at 8 months and my younger son taught himself at 5 months! That was crazy, and I’m not trying to brag, he just kept watching his big brother do it and put it together on his own. I was pretty amazed when he reached for it one day and just took a drink like it was old hat. Although, that is pretty uncommon, potentially, it is possible.
One important word of caution, straw drinking can cause babies or toddlers to swallow quickly if they are sucking fast, which may make them cough and choke on the liquid. Swallowing is a very coordinated action that most of us take for granted, when something “goes down the wrong pipe”, liquid may actually enter our lungs and we begin coughing to get it out. It is okay if this happens occasionally, but if it happens often (and it could with babies), then you may need to lay off the straw for a little while or try putting thicker liquids into the cup (milk, milkshakes, or even applesauce) until they get the hang of it. Otherwise, they could end up with pneumonia. Also, make sure they are seated, it can get difficult for a toddler to manage walking and swallowing. If your child is greater than 15 months and still coughing frequently while using a straw, mention it to their doc.
How to Teach Baby to Drink from a Straw
Alright, so let’s get into the meat of this post… How to actually teach your child to drink from a straw. First of all, try and stick a regular straw in their mouth. It is important that it’s just a good old fashioned straw, because the no spill straw cups require you to suck really really hard. A baby may try to suck and when they don’t get anything instantly, just give up. Who knows, they may take to it right away, without any help from you. More likely, they will just hold their mouth open or put their mouth on it, but won’t suck. In this case, I would try the siphon technique:
1. Take the regular straw and stick it into a cup of water, so it is touching the bottom, and put your finger over the opening at the top. Keep your finger over the opening at the top so you are holding the liquid in the straw as you pull the straw out of the water, as I am doing in the picture above.
2. With your baby sitting firmly in a chair, hold the straw up over their open mouth and release the liquid so it falls into their mouth, being careful not to allow too much water to go in at a time.
3. Repeat this a few times, if your baby seems interested. If they aren’t up for participating, then try again on a different day. Hopefully your baby will start to close their mouth around the straw. If they aren’t, then stroke the sides of their cheeks and demonstrate so they can imitate you!
4. Once they are closing their mouth around the straw, keep your finger over the other end of the straw so they have to suck to get the liquid out. Keep putting more and more water into the straw so they are sucking more and more through the straw.
5. Now try putting the straw directly into the cup and letting them take a drink. Some will have figured it out at this point and won’t need any more help. If they go back to holding their mouth open, then start over and this time, when they start to suck the water out of the straw, flip the straw down into the open cup of water. This is a little tricky, you have to be fast. The idea is that you don’t break the sucking action and hopefully they start to make the connection that when they suck, they get a drink!
It may take several “practice sessions” before your babe masters this skill. If this approach isn’t working, I do have one more trick!
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Another Way to Teach Your Baby or Toddler Straw Drinking
You will need to get yourself a set of the Munchkin Take and Toss Straw Cup
(this is in the picture at the top, but the straw is different in my pic), they usually come in a four pack and are super cheap. For some reason, when the lids are placed on these cups, it creates a vacuum. Put the straw in the cup, with the lid tightly on and put the straw up to your kid’s mouth and squeeze the cup. The water will actually shoot right into their mouth! Do this gently, again, you don’t want them to get too much. Encourage the stroking on the face if they don’t close their mouth and of course, demonstrate! Therapy supply companies actually sell and market cups designed to help your child drink from a straw, if you are interested in those, click here
, they look like cute little honey bears and are a therapists favorite for sure.
Once they have mastered drinking from a regular straw, then it is probably a good idea to move to a no spill straw cup. Besides your own sanity, they have to suck harder to get the liquid out, which will decrease choking and coughing. As I mentioned earlier, there are a ton of cups to choose from. I don’t have any brand that I particularly love, and if they fall the right way, they all leak a little (so much for no-spill). Also, they are a total pain to disassemble and reassemble. In my house, we have one water cup a day and one milk cup a day that I keep in the fridge between meals. I do this just to minimize how often I have put these things together. I hope I’m not swaying you away from the straw though, they are worth it!
The Best Straw Sippy Cup to Get
I have a few that I like and have worked well, but follow the steps below to make sure you find a straw that works well for you and your baby or toddler.
1. Is it a skinny straw? Some have really wide straws which give too much liquid and don’t work the muscles as well. Definitely choose a skinny or thin straw.
2. Is it insulated? I prefer these for milk, but buy plastic ones for water. Although, it’s your preference.
3. Can you flip the straw inside? Meaning is their a lid that slide to cover the straw. This helps minimize germs while traveling, but obviously isn’t necessary.
I have tried and like Munchkin 
and Playtex 
varieties well enough, skinny straws are the most important feature. Most of these need replaced after 6-12 months though because the plastic straws start to wear down and tear. If you don’t want to deal with threading the straw through though after washing, this Playtex version is really easy.
Keep in mind straw drinking requires a lot of muscle control and coordination. If you are trying this with a child with low muscle tone, it will be much more challenging, and will probably take multiple attempts before they learn how to do it.
I would love to hear how it goes with your little babe, let me know!
And, if you’d like to grab a totally free printable with my top 9 Tips to Improve Feeding (this is perfect for establishing good eating habits from an early age) then click here.
More on Feeding Milestones
Mega List of Finger Foods for Babies and Toddlers
The Complete Guide to Feeding Milestones
How to Wean Your Baby from the Bottle
Why You Should Let Your Baby Get Messy
How to Keep Your Child Seated for Meals
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Alisha Grogan is a licensed occupational therapist and founder of Your Kid’s Table. She has over 19 years experience with expertise in sensory processing and feeding development in babies, toddlers, and children. Alisha also has 3 boys of her own at home. Learn more about her here.
My daughter (11 months old) had open heart surgery @ 11 weeks old, and was intubated 3 times. During recovery she developed a feeding aversion, and came home with an NG tube. She has been NG free for 4 months, but her volumes are about 1/2 what a normal baby would eat (we are using a calorie supplement). We have been seeing speech and things are improving. However, our SLP strongly recommends against the straw cups and wants us to use sippy cups without the valve. My LO loves to drink out of glasses/cups as long as it isn’t formula. We are willing to try anything, but I’ve been wondering why we shouldn’t use the straw cups.
Found Your Kid’s Table today and love it. Thank you so much for the resource!
Fara- it sounds like your daughter is making nice progress. That’s great, you have all really been through a lot! I’m assuming she wants you to avoid straws for the time being because it requires a more coordinated swallow pattern and if she doesn’t have that under her belt right now it could lead to choking and/or liquid getting into her lungs. She is really young so there is plenty of time for straws, but I would ask her. So glad you found Your Kid’s Table:)
Thanks, this post has really encouraged me go for the straw cup option! I have a 7.5 month-old and I breastfeed her for the most part and supplement her with formula in a bottle. Recently, I’ve been trying to wean her off of the bottle. Today, I tried your method with the straw and also tried using the Playtex straw cups (the one where I can squeeze the bottle to shoot up a bit of liquid). It went pretty well, I think, since she started to suck on the straw occasionally. The only issue right now is that she almost always spits the formula back out if she drinks this way, as opposed to from a bottle. She doesn’t seem to choke, but just doesn’t want to swallow anything. Would you have any insight to this? Is it a phase that will eventually go away if I continue to let her drink from a straw? Thanks!!!
It sounds like it went really well! It is a slow process, especially when they are that young. She may be spitting out the formula because she is used to it in a bottle. Try some water as well, just so she get the hang of it. On the other hand, babies love to spit and she might just be exploring. Give lots of praise if she keeps some in her mouth. It is a phase- she is really young- keep trying and modeling for her!!! You are on the right track!!!
My 18 month cannot drink from a sippy cup or a straw cup….he refuses it all the time .. Is it a good idea to introduce a water bottle with a narrow mouth so that he can drink from it n no sucking? Pl reply
Yes, that is totally fine. Watch out for choking or coughing and only give it to him when he is in a seated position. Also, give him as much help as he needs pulling back as he masters it. You can also use a small regular cup with just a little bit of liquid in it. However, keep trying the straw cup– especially the method I described above with a regular straw! Hope that helps! Let me know if you need more help!
Love this post! I am a mom of 2 young boys as well as a pediatric SLP. I too often urge families to switch from sippys to straws for the same benefits that you outlined. I also love “swirly” straws which I often find in bulk in party sections at Target/Wal-Mart. Pottery Barn Kids also has a swirly straw included cup that my son loves. These straws can be more challenging as the kids need to suck longer. Kids typically work hard though for these because they love to watch the liquid’s path. Its a good sometimes straw for sure. I am pretty diligent about cleaning these as soon as my son uses them and typically only serve water in them for cleaning ease…although to increase the straws’ benefits, using a more challenging texture (milkshake consistency) can be great.
Love this post! Just wanted to add that we love our Playtex brand flip-cap straw cups! We started using a straw one day around 6 months when I accidentally left the only sippy cup I had at my mom’s house. I used the method you describe above and my daughter caught on that day! We’ve never used a sippy cup since then. I love the Playtex cups because they aren’t complicated to assemble/disassemble. You just insert the straw through the lid til it sort of clicks, then screw the lid on (it has a click/notch in it so you know it’s closed). They don’t leak, except for the few drops that may still be in the straw when dropped on the ground. We’ve been using them for going on 6 months (I only own 2 of them, but aren’t doing milk yet, so I’ll get more soon) and haven’t had any problems keeping them clean. I run them in the dishwasher each night before we go to bed, and should any food from backwash (ew! my least favorite part of straw cups!) gets inside the straw, I just use my little brush cleaner that came with my Dr. Brown’s bottles to clean it out.
Ditto on the use of the pouches–we started those around the same time as the straw and they offer great practice (though, I still can’t hand it to my daughter and let her just suck, cause she squirts all of the contents out when she grabs the bag part LOL) 🙂
Just discovered your blog this evening, and am loving the content! I’ll definitely be back for more! Thanks!
Mrs. Butler- yes I prefer those playtex ones as well. We have a large variety and those are the easiest to put together. Thanks for the nice comment, glad you found Your Kid’s Table!
I loved this post. Before I read this, it never occurred to me to offer my daughter a straw. She is 15 months and has been very resistant to switching from the bottle to a sippy cup. I picked up one of the Munchkin straw cups and she LOVES it. Thanks for all the great tips!
That’s great! And thank you! By the way you aren’t alone- most people don’t think to give their young toddlers straws!
This is such a great post! Thanks for sharing your tips and ideas.
Your blog is amazing! I swear I just diagnosed my 11 month old who will not eat anything that is not a cracker/cheerio/puff as have sensory issues because he will eat anything via babyfood mushed up and level three, but will not touch anything that is wet or squishy so table foods have been a nightmare–no issues at all with our first child. However, I am wondering about the straw cup/sippy cup. Do I put just water in it? Formula, or cow’s milk? He is still taking a bottle after each meal so should I transistion him to cup rather than bottle since he is nearing the year? This second baby of ours is making me feel like a very clueless first time mommy! Thanks for any help you can offer.
Thanks Julie! Water is great to start with. Your doctor probably wants you to wait to 12 months for cow’s milk, but you could surely put formula in it and eventually milk. Start with one meal by trying to give him some formula in the cup if you want. He may associate it with the bottle though, so don’t be discouraged if he doesn’t go for it. It is amazing how much you forget by the time the next baby comes around! Keep me posted!
I am a mom and an SLP. I love straw cups for the same reasons as mentioned above, but found them a nightmare to clean. My favorite cups are from Tupperware. They are similar to the munchkin cups but are spill proof. The tumblers come with lids that have a silicone circle with an x cut in it. Once the lid is on, it doesn’t spill. whenyou are ready to drink just put a regular straw in the hole! Voila! 🙂 the cups are a little prices, but highly durable!
Brooke- yes, you are so right, about those straws being a pain to clean! Such, a great tip!
I’m also a pediatric OT/mom, and my little guy was never able to take a bottle (he only wanted to chew on the nipple) and would choke while breastfeeding all the way through about 8 months of age (no pneumonia though, thank goodness). Around that time, we discovered all the great varieties of organic baby food pouches that are now super popular in grocery stores. They have a straw-like tip and you can squeeze the pouch to assist with getting the stage 1/stage 2 puree out, much like you mentioned with the vacuum cups. After only a few weeks of giving him pouches (where he sucked directly out of the pouch and we decreased the amount of assistance we provided with squeezing the pouch), he was completely able to drink from a regular grown-up straw! By 9 months old he was drinking from a straw and we were totally ecstatic (especially my husband, who was the one that had to try and feed him while I was at work 3 days a week). Sooo, that’s our story about teaching our baby to drink from a straw. 🙂 Have you had any experience with these pouches in feeding therapy?
-Christie (MamaOT.com)
I haven’t actually had a need to use them, but it is a great idea! Thanks for sharing it!
My soon had a sippy cup with a straw once. Within a month, the straw was completely mildewed. How do I prevent that?
Yes, you do have to be careful of this. It is best to take them completely apart and put them in the dishwasher. Somebody also recently recommended Foogo straw cups, they are stainless steel and suppose to be antibacterial (see the comment above.) I know they can be a pain to deal with but I think the benefits are worth it.
I wanted to share this suggestion from the blogger and speech therapist at Little Stories:
“My favorite cup, and I think for all my mommy friends too, is the Thermos Foogo with the straw (Level 3) or also sometimes called the Funtainer. It really doesn’t leak, lasts and lasts, and keeps drinks cold. I know for sure you can find them in the lunchbox/water bottle section at Target, Babies R Us, or amazon.”
I will be giving it a try!
Agreed this is a great post! My 18 month old can get liquid from the straw, but she cannot get the concept that she doesn’t need to tip the cup up (like her non straw sippy cups). Of course when she does this, the water tips away from the end of the straw, making it impossible to drink. She gets frustrated and annoyed and I end up caving and going back to the other kind. Any suggestions?
Yes, I should have mentioned this in the post because it is a common problem. The only way to get around this is to keep practicing and helping her to keep it down. Also, make sure the straw cup is really full so if she is tipping it a little she will be likely to get some. Once she starts to get the hang of it, I would start to think about doing away with spout shaped sippy cups all together. Hope that helps!
Thank you Alisha for this reply to Heather! My 20m son has the same issue! When he was younger, it was all we could do to finally get him to drink from a bottle by himself by encouraging him to hold the bottle “up!” After quite some time (weeks??) he finally figured it out and has been fine ever since…until now that I’m trying to train him to drink from a straw properly by holding the cup down by his chest. This is only day #2 of training him to hold it down by his chest, so I suppose it will take several days for him to learn (and hopefully not weeks!) This is encouraging to know I’m not the only one ‘struggling’ with this issue. Kids are all so different and learn at such different paces! Never a dull moment! 🙂
thank you, i will try this!
Oh toddlers can be so stubborn! You aren’t alone, I have worked with other kiddos that are very particular. Sometimes the unknown is pretty overwhelming. First I would try both methods I described in the post. He may get a kick out of having you drop water into his mouth. If he doesn’t go for that than try the take and toss cups. He may not try to take a sip right away, but start sitting it out while he is playing. Maybe his other sippy cup won’t be around and while he’s busy playing he won’t think of it too much and go for a sip You could also try giving some of his stuffed animals a drink from his new cup to peak some interest.
Try having a peer drink from the same cup at a playdate and make a big deal about it. This may take many attempts, don’t get discouraged (I know easier said than done) and keep trying.
As for the water, I wouldn’t be too concerned unless he isn’t drinking milk? Is that the case?
Hello, This is a great post. My son is 13 months and I am trying to teach him how to drink from a sippy since he was 7 months old. Now, I am trying to take his bottle away but he refuse to drink any other liquids. He gets the idea of the cup, but he spits out everything that gets in his mouth. Do you suggest to quit the bottle cold turkey, and if yes, how long I have to keep him without liquids. He is very stubborn and I am afraid that he will dehydrate.
This is a great post! I have a few questions though- what if your child has no interest in drinking from a straw? My 24 month old is very stubborn and has a really difficult time with anything new. He was 10 weeks premature, which may be some of the reason why. We struggled to get him to drink from a sippy cup at all. At 12 months (adjusted) we took the bottle away and got him to drink from a Gerber water bottle – we had at least 10 different sippy cups we tried from age 6 months on. He refused all of them. It took until 18 months before we got him to drink from a sippy cup – and it was one that was shaped like a glass (he would drink out of a glass). Now we’ve been trying to get him to be interested in a straw, and he refuses it. Also, he refuses all liquid drinks except water. Help?
Hi I was looking to order the munchkin straw cups on line I can’t find them I wanted to try those are the first year brand take and toss the the same as those ? Will it create the same vacuum effect ?
Thanks