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No Sippy Cup? No Milk.

May 7, 2008

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we were getting ready to ditch the last of our sippy cups. At two and half years old, G. has no problem with the mechanics of drinking from a regular cup, he just really liked using a sippy cup for his milk. I was right on one count: he barely protested when I told him we were done using those cups, and he doesn’t ask for them. But he had an ace up his sleeve. He stopped drinking milk altogether.

Initially, I thought he might need a few days to miss his milk and then he’d embrace drinking it from a regular cup like his brother. That never happened. We tried switching to a straw cup that was similar in appearance to the sippy cups he had used, but he wouldn’t even try it. Crazy straws didn’t tempt him. Drinkable yogurt held no allure. He just calmly refused and has continued to refuse plain milk since April 19th. That’s going on nearly four weeks now.

I’m torn because on one hand, I know he likes plain milk — he has been guzzling it in a sippy cup for 18 months. I am reluctant to replace those milk servings with flavored milk because I know it’s not a problem with the taste, just the delivery method. On the other hand, he does not get enough calcium from his very self-limited diet without those milk servings.

I’ve been loosely keeping track of how many milligrams of calcium he averages a day over the course of a week, and it’s falling short by about 300 mg — the equivalent of a cup of milk — most days. That’s even with 8 oz. of chocolate or vanilla milk a few times a week when we’re out. (I’m not worrying about the vitamin D right now, because we’re outdoors a lot.) So it’s not enough calcium and I need to make a change.

I feel like I have a few options:
1. Offer flavored milk.
2. Increase other calcium sources.
3. Add a vitamin with calcium.
4. Give back the sippy cups.

There’s a ton of research that says flavored milk is better than soda or fruit drinks. That makes sense, but at home their other option is water, not soda, aside from an occasional 4 oz. juice box (which offers about 100 mg of calcium towards the 800 mg daily goal for kids under the age of 4). Also, A. is a terrific plain milk drinker but would definitely only drink chocolate-flavored if that’s what his brother was having. I’m very reluctant to add an additional sugar source (even if the sugar is minimal and paired with milk) to their daily diet. The real sticking point is that I know G. likes the taste of plain milk!

Other calcium sources are hard because he is such a picky eater. He barely eats any cheese, already eats 6 oz. of yogurt a day, and does not consume any vegetables or fish that would help boost his calcium levels. He is very reluctant to try anything new that is not in the shape of a cookie or a slice of cake.

I would be OK with a vitamin, which generally adds about 200 mg of calcium, but I don’t think he’d take one. He won’t even try the gummy fruit snacks that A. adores.

And finally, I suppose we could bring back the sippy cups. To be honest and a bit petty, I just can’t do this because I feel like it’s giving in. Is that the wrong attitude? I think if he was still talking about the sippy cups and missing them terribly, I might feel otherwise — like I had taken them away before he was ready. But he doesn’t seem to care that they are gone.

I’m trying to look at the big picture — for instance, calcium intake over a month rather than each day — and not obsess about one particular mineral. And I also understand it’s just a guideline. But as a mom, it’s upsetting to me to see him go from 16-24 oz. of milk a day to nothing, and not make up that loss somewhere else. I think the next step is to try to find a vitamin he will accept. And then, if that fails, we may wind up with chocolate milk in the house after all as a once-a-day treat.

Update: I did speak to his pediatrician, and she suggested we give it another month, continuing to offer plain milk whenever we used to (actually put it in front of him, and not make a big deal about it). She also thought he’d do fine with double the yogurt for now, and that alone gets him close to his daily requirement. So that’s the tactic I’m going to start with. I need to go buy a pallet of yogurt, or perhaps stock in Stonyfield Farm.

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Filed under: Thinking Out Loud

Tags: chocolate, OK, Stonyfield Farm