How To Teach Your Baby To Drink Through A Straw

I have been wanting to teach Doodlebug to drink through a straw for a while now. But when I asked friends how they taught their kids to do this, they all said they didn’t know. Hmm…that’s not so helpful.

So in case anyone else is wondering, this is how I taught Doodlebug to drink through a straw.

Remember when you were a kid and you would dip your straw in your drink and put your index finger over the top? When you pulled your straw up out of the drink the liquid would stay in the straw until you took your finger off the top. This is exactly what you do. I drew up only a small amount of liquid and offered it to Doodlebug. When he closed his lips around the straw I took my finger off the top of the straw and let the liquid go.

Then I repeated this about 100 times. We did this after every bite of food 3 meals a day and one snack a day for about 4 days. As he got used to this I let him suck on the straw a bit to help draw out the liquid before releasing it.

After he had that down, we graduated to a juice box. I placed the straw in Doodlebug’s mouth and squirted a small amount in. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Once he could seemed comfortable with that I just let him suck on the straw and he figured the rest out on his own. We just moved him up to a slightly wider straw and keep on practicing.

Ta da! The whole process took less than a week.