Parents love sippy cups. It’s not hard to see why. It’s great to have your toddler drink independently without the worry of spills. However, sippy cups can often be harmful to oral health and speech development. The hard top of the sippy cup that goes in a child’s mouth misplaces the tongue and pushes the teeth outward. When drinking from a sippy cup, the position of the tongue is forward in the mouth to help cradle the spout on the cup rather than retracting as when you drink from a regular cup or with a straw. Tongue retraction when swallowing is considered a ‘mature’ swallow and puts your tongue in the correct position for producing accurate speech sounds. Sippy cups can also lead to tooth decay if toddlers have beverages such as juice and are holding that juice-filled sippy spout in their mouths for long periods of time.
Straws are a great alternative to sippy cups. Fortunately there are many “no-spill’ cups with straws now available. Some fantastic options are: Kid Basic Safe Sippy Cup, Zoli Baby Bot Cup, Munchkin Click Lock Insulated Sippy Cup, Nuby No Spill Flip n’ Sip Cup, OXO Tot Straw Cup, Lansinoh mOmma Straw Cup, Thinkbaby Thinkster Straw Bottle. Although many of these products contain the name ‘sippy’, they all have straws and are spill-proof. Now it’s easy to help your child develop correct dentition and speech sound production without any messy spills.