Oh sippy cups, how you have become a parent’s best friend. Who wants to clean up spills on the floor, in the car, and well….everywhere? As a parent, we totally understand that it’s easy to grab a sippy cup and get out the door.

Unfortunately, as convenient as sippy cups are, some sippy cups can actually be detrimental to your child’s speech and feeding development. GASP! I know some parents are having heart palpitations just thinking of getting rid of some of their beloved sippy cups, but let me explain why some cups can be damaging. Unfortunately, there’s a lack of information for parents regarding what kind of cups a child should transition to after the bottle but tons of marketing telling our parents they need get a sippy cup for children to learn cup drinking. What marketing doesn’t show is that SOME sippy cups are actually harmful, just ask any speech language pathologist (speech therapist). Don’t worry though, we can help you make a better choice for your child’s development.

Let’s start off by defining “sippy cup”. A sippy cup is defined as a “training cup-usually plastic-with a screw or snap on lid and a spout that lets your child drink without spilling.” Traditional sippy cups have a hard plastic spout that the child would suck on to retrieve liquid from the cup.

So what’s the big deal with traditional sippy cups? Let’s start with typical child development. When babies begin to feed, whether bottle or by breast, they do so using a suckling reflex. The suckling reflex consists of the tongue compressing the nipple and rolling back and forth to obtain milk. The tongue, jaw, lips and palate are all part of this process. Babies should transition from this suckling reflex to a more mature sucking pattern within the first year of life. If a child goes from the breast or bottle to a sippy cup, they tend to drink out of a traditional sippy cup as if it were bottle. In other words, they tend to continue the infantile sucking pattern by protruding and placing their tongue under the hard sippy spout and suckling vs. a more mature sucking pattern in which the tongue retracts (pulls back) in the mouth and the lips contract (tighten) to support a straw or cup without the use of the tongue. Children should be encouraged to transition to an open mouth cup (regular cup), cup with a flexible straw (so that the straw compresses vs. a firm plastic spout), or a cup with a recessed lid to promote lip pursing (puckering) and pulling the tongue back to a more normal resting position. Some great examples of Speech Language Pathologist (aka Speech Therapist) approved transitional cups from a bottle are:

Munchkin Miracle 360 sippy cup

EIO Kids Cup Glass

Recessed Lid Cup-Talk Tools

Sassy Grow up No Spill

Kid Basix Safe Sippy™ Stainless Steel Cup

Playtex Sipsters with Pop Up Flexible Straws

Why is choosing a better cup important?

The development of a more mature sucking pattern is vital in overall tongue positioning. Traditional (hard plastic) sippy cups can encourage the tongue to sit more forward in the mouth. See example picture below:

Similar to what happens with thumb suckers, the development of a more forward tongue positioning can affect dentition AND speech development, most commonly seen as a frontal or lateral lisp. For younger children, they may have issues with tongue tip elevation (lifting the tip of the tongue) due to constant posturing of the tongue tip being held down while suckling from a traditional sippy cup. Difficulty with tongue tip elevation affects the ability to make the /t,d,l,n/ sounds appropriately.  In addition, when the tongue tip can’t elevate (lift up by itself) it can also affect how your child properly swallows their food or saliva.  When toddlers continue to use the infant swallow pattern, it can affect their ability to chew and swallow effectively which could make trying new foods more challenging.

*For more information please refer to http://blog.asha.org/2017/02/28/sippy-cups-3-reasons-to-skip-them-and-what-to-offer-instead/ or  http://iaom.com/faq/

As Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs), we’re not the only ones trying to guide parents away from using traditional sippy cups. In case you still need persuading, pediatric dentists would also agree with our SLPs regarding the harmful effects of using traditional sippy cups.

From a dental perspective, according to Dr. Mark Burhenne

“Sippy cups prevent normal development of the mouth. Sucking from a sippy cup, bottle feeding and suckling a mother’s breast are not all equal. The motor activity of suckling a breast allows the child’s oral cavity to develop properly.

A nipple is soft and deforms when the child sucks on it — it takes a different shape inside the mouth of the child and helps promote proper development of all the oral structures, including jawbone, palate, teeth, and oral cavity. It has the child learn the proper motor function of the tongue.

Sucking on a rigid piece of plastic doesn’t allow for this and can actually misshape the oral cavity and result in problems later in life like speech, airway, sleep quality, and facial form and aesthetics.”

*Read more at Ask the Dentist: https://askthedentist.com/sippy-cup-dangers/

For more information on feeding and oral development OR If you are concerned with your child’s development, please contact our office to speak with one of our licensed therapists at (704) 821-0568 or email us your questions at info@pediatricboulevard.com.