Sippy Cups ~ Friend or Enemy? (Maybe Both)

A topic of interest to me came up on a forum last week.  Actually, now that I think about it, it didn't come up.  I brought it up.

So here it is:

The original post was about how long providers "let" children use bottles at their daycare.  Was there as certain age that providers cut kids off from them.  The replies from other providers varied a bit, but the general consensus was somewhere between 12 & 15 months was their limit.  

My original reply was:
"Once they're sitting at the table eating food for breakfast/lunch with the other kids, I give them a cup to drink from. If they still take bottles other times of day I will give them, but I discourage bottles at nap time anyway. I try to get them to fall asleep without a bottle when the start here, no matter what age. I don't do sippy cups here, so they just move straight to the cup. When they're 10months or so, I start holding a cup with formula in it, and when they're a little older I let them do it, putting JUST enough liquid in the cup to cover the bottom. If that. Maybe a few drops worth at first. They pretty quickly catch on."  

That actually encroaches on two topics I find very near and dear to my heart, but the one I'm focusing on at the moment is Sippy Cups.  Someone else replied and asked why it is I don't do Sippies.  

This was my answer to that:
"I worked for Early Head Start for a long time, and they discourage use of sippy cups. For a few reasons. I just kept it up when I started doing this at home. I did use them with my own kids, usually only for water. I definitely used them in the car! 
But the main ideas about it are:

• Too much use can be bad for teeth. Mostly because sugar sits on your teeth for up to 20 minutes after each time you eat (or drink), so if they're carrying around a sippy with juice or milk in it, and sipping on it all day long, their teeth never get a break from the sugars.
• Also, using a regular cup is good for speech development. It's not exactly that sippys are BAD for it, but more-so that regular cups are good for it. The muscles of the mouth used for a sippy are different than the muscles used for drinking from a cup.
• And kind of toward the childhood obesity thing... if they're carrying it around with juice or milk, they're taking in empty calories all day long. (Not that milk is empty calories... but that's a whole different issue... kids only need like 3 servings of dairy per day... between milk in their cereal, milk at meals, cheese, yogurt etc... most kids are getting WAY too many calories from dairy on a regular basis.)
• And on a side note, they have to learn to drink from a cup someday. They won't ever learn till they have experience. So if they don't use a cup till they're 4, they won't learn how till they're 4. But if they use it when they're 1, they can learn how when they're 1.

I give them milk at meals. And if they are thirsty otherwise, I give them water. So even if they're still new at it and spill it, it's just water! I've been lucky to not have too many young ones so far. So I haven't had to deal with it much. But when they're young enough, I do the cups with a tiny bit at mealtime, but still give a bottle after the meal, so I don't have to worry about intake."

Are sippy cups the devil?  I don't think so.  I know some people that do think so, but I really don't.  Used appropriately, they are a WONDERFUL resource!  In the car or on an outing where you don't want spills.  They're fabulous.  And I do let the kids keep one of WATER in their room at night, especially if they have a cold.  They can drink it half in their sleep and put it back without having to worry about spilling and changing sheets in the middle of the night.  

So... There you have it.  I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!  

The other topic that it brought up was putting babies to sleep with bottles (or nursing).  Not putting babies to BED with a bottle.  Two totally different topics.  I'll touch on that another time.  But for now, let me hear what your take is on the Sippies.