Learning to Use a Straw - Honey Bear Cup vs Juice Box
One of the things that interested me the most about becoming an Occupational Therapist was that we could look outside the box when it came to figuring out how to help the people we worked with. I loved how OT's are considered to be creative and innoventive when it comes to getting our goals accomplished. I've wanted to find a way to have this blog helpful for other pediatric OT's/Cota's and thought once a week I would start showcasing items that I've found to be useful. Today I wanted to share with you a juice box I stumbled upon that is wonderful to use when working on straw drinking.
Recently I was working with a young child whose goal was to learn to drink from a straw. We tried the usual methods of holding our finger over the top of the straw to keep the liquid in it and then place the bottom of the straw in the little girl's mouth to allow her to taste the liquid in the straw. She weren't interested - didn't want that dang straw any where near her mouth. We tried straws filled with frozen juice. After a couple of "bites" the straws were promptly dropped on the floor. We tried your typical juice box and if we held it she wanted nothing to do with it (did I mention she was going through the independant stage and wanting to do everything herself?) but if we allowed her to hold it - one squeeze and **wahhoooo* juice every where!
Mom purchased a honey bear from the store, cleaned out the honey and tried to put a straw in it like she saw in the catelogs. Only problem is that when it is not the honey bear purchased from a therapy place the straw does not fit securely in the top and there is no suction for the straw to work. We tried several different things but just could not get a good enough seal. A couple days after the visit I was in a local Walmart looking for a water bottle for my son and found a smaller one that claimed to be "spill proof" and "squeezable". Hmmmmm.. would this work in place of the Honey bear?
I purchased one and brought it with me on the next visit. At first the little girl wanted nothing to do with it but after coaxing her to place her hands on it and then placed my hands over hers we were able to get her to bring it to her mouth at which point I gently squeezed the box casuing the juice to go up the straw. She was a bit surprised at first but after a couple more times to the mouth and a couple more gentle squeezes she began to get the idea and by the end of the session was actually taking a few sips herself. The juice box worked wonderfully! It doesn't spill easily but will spill if left in the hands of a typical curious what-if-I-shake-this-up-and-down-really-hard toddler. It is easy enough to squeeze gently and have the liquid go nicely up the straw but the child can also hold them securely without the juice going everywhere. The nice thing is that the juice box is actually several dollars cheaper and you can buy them in most department/grocery straws.
Here are a few links for the Honey bear and the squeezable juice boxes:
Honey Bear cups: Talking Child, Talk Tools, Therapy Resources (ranging in price from $5.99 to $20.00)
Squeezable Juice boxes: Amazon, The Container Store,
Give it a try and let me know what you thought. Do you have any other ways that have been successful when it comes to teaching a child how to drink from a straw?
Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see you again next time.
~Wendy~