By: Judith Dember-Paige RDH COM

Bottles, Pacifiers, sippy cups, Oh Why? 

What is wrong with sippy cups you may ask?  

                                                                                                                                                                       Bottles, pacifiers and sippy cups all have something in common, they hold the tongue down when in use.

Creating a tongue up posture is critical in the early years of a child’s development; this is when we learn to have a lip seal.  A lip seal is very important, it ensures tongue to palate contact which is needed for beautiful orofacial development.  Breast feeding is the beginning process of the oral facial muscles learning to have a lip seal.

The sippy cup, pacifier and bottles are made of a stiff plastic that interferes with the normal rest posture of the tongue.  They create an obstacle from the goal of the tongue reaching and resting snug in the palate.  Objects like these introduced various times through out the day, trains the tongue to remain down.  The brain realizes, this must be the proper position of the tongue, which has now becomes established in the floor of the mouth. With the tongue down in the floor of the mouth, the child (without intervention) is now more susceptible to a lifetime of mouth breathing.

A low resting tongue is a predisposing condition to mouth breathing, tongue thrust, malocclusion, underdeveloped narrow maxilla, crossbite, enlarged tonsils and adenoids, long face syndrome, sleep-disordered breathing, and more.    Bull. Tokyo dent.Coll., Vol. 44 No. 2, pp. 43-54, May, 2003

For more information on proper feeding from infant to toddler visit, www.babyledweaning.com.  This site is dedicated to parents who would like to know how to help their babies develop excellent eating habits.  Good eating habits stimulates  the muscles and bones of the face for the better facial development.

Critical Role of Myo Guileminault Sleep Medicine 2013.pdf

The Wow Cup                                  Teach them to drink from a cup

#sippy cups, #lip seal, #pacifiers, #low resting tongue, #sleep-disordered breathing, #breast feeding, #facial development, #drinking from a cup, #nasal breathing, #baby led weaning