I couldn’t believe that Miguel had already had a full month of occupational therapy. This is actually our longest in-person therapy duration in the last two years because of the changing community restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past, we’d only have a month of face-to-face therapy then we’d stop, do home therapy, then do some classroom sessions again, and so forth. Suffice it to say that I’m so happy with our progress.

In a previous post, I told how I’d listen to my fellow parents while we were at the waiting area. They were mostly moms that’s why they easily got along easily; I reckon. Anyway, through those moments, I was amazed to discover that children with Global Developmental Delay (GDD) are completely unique individuals in terms of the skills that they develop.

One child may learn how to speak by age three while another child of the same age may already acquire self-care skills but remain non-verbal. Some of my other surprising discoveries was that one little girl who was about five or six years old still doesn’t like to eat solid foods. And then one seven-year-old boy still doesn’t know how to sip through a straw and blow candles.

Miguel still doesn’t know how to blow candles but he eats solid food (already exclusively because he hated the new taste of Lactum milk) and he knows how to sip through a straw. I’m quite proud of myself for having introduced Miguel to the use of straws when he was a year old. With the help of his former yaya, we were able to teach him how to sip through a straw in just a few days.

The same goes for Rafa. He’s neurotypical but I used the technique for teaching him to sip through a straw when he also turned a year old.

Anyway, I used to think that sipping from a straw was no big deal. However, since learning that other parents find it challenging to teach that skill to their special needs kids, I suddenly viewed that skill in a different light now.

So how did I teach Miguel and Rafa to sip through a straw? Here’s how I did it:

• Since you are trying to teach your little ones, they should have an incentive for sipping from a straw. Give them something delicious like a milk chocolate drink (I started with Magnolia Chocolait) or a yogurt drink like Dutchmill.
• Your child won’t automatically sip through a straw when you put it in their mouth. They should realize that there is a delicious treat waiting for them, all they have to do is sip it. As such, press the container a little, just enough to squeeze out a little of the delicious drink so that they’d taste it. That would sort of tease their taste buds and entice them to sip the liquid.
• They’d attempt to sip it but they won’t succeed immediately. You may have to press the container a few times to release more liquid and encourage them to keep going.
• Do this exercise daily until your kids finally learn to sip on their own.

That’s how we did it. We had to do this exercise at least twice each day until our kids finally got the hang of it.

How about you, how did you teach your kids to sip through a straw? You might have other techniques that you may want to share in the comment section below.

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