Breastfeeding, Bottles and Sippy Cups! Oh my!

When Miranda turned a year old, I threw away all her bottles and we went straight to sippy cups without much of a hiccup. She really liked the Nuby brand, soft spouted cups and used them just fine without any leaking or anything. So I, naturally, decided we'd go through the same plan of attack for Elliott. Well, the day that he turned a year old came and I threw away all the bottles. Now we've been on sippy cups for over a week now and he still is making a gigantic mess with them!! It's horrible!! I've been trying to find a sippy cup that he likes and uses properly since he was about six months old without much success. He can 'drink' out of them just fine. And by drink I mean he can suck and get the liquid out of them. However, I think that it comes out to fast for him because after all that, it dribbles down his chin. Not just a little dribble either, it's like the Niagara Falls of dribbling! It's awful, I hate it, it makes a mess and he needs an outfit change like four hundred times a day! You would think that after a week or so, he'd get used to the flow and not dribble anymore, or at the very least, dribble less!

No, that is not the case here at all and it's really starting to get on my nerves. We have *one* sippy cup that we use that he does not dribble with. It's made by Nuk and it might as well be a bottle. However, it is technically a sippy cup and for now it is saving my tail! Especially in the laundry department. So, that's my crutch at the moment. The one five ounce cup that gets washed over and over again while I try to get him to drink out of any other cup without making a mess.

It really gets me thinking about breastfeeding and bottles and what age is the right age for all of those things. If I was still breastfeeding him, would I be so stressed about the whole bottle/cup dilemma? If he was still nursing would he be able to do straw cups? If I wasn't so hard on his bottle deadline, would he develop teeth issues? It makes me feel like there is no right answer to any of this. It's so different for every child and every mother. The same mother can make such different decisions for each of her kids and I think that is perfectly okay.

Anyway, I'm rambling ... the moral of the story is that I'm floundering here when it comes to sippy cups. I have bought and received so many different kinds and I don't know what to do anymore. One thing I am not doing, is I'm not buying any bottles. I will buy different cups, but I will not re-buy bottles.

I feel like this is a whole new battle since Miranda transitioned so easily, I've never had to deal with this before. Do any of my readers have any tips? Advice? Anything? Please, pass this on amongst all your mom friends. I need all the help I can get.