Geoff,
        Just for clarity's sake... I read your line "cup feeding > 4mos." as
'cup feeding greater than 4 months' -- however from the tone of your post I
think you intended to write about 'cup feeding at *less* than four months.'
Forgive the math teacher in me, but the symbol *>* means "greater than" as
in 8>4 (eight is greater than four), whereas the symbol *<* means "less
than" as in 4<8 (four is less than eight)...

        Also I'd like to ask if you are most concerned about cup feeding
premature babies who may have other health risks going on or any baby less
than four months? and is four months a rigid line or is it as flexible as
all the other developmental milestones in which there are huge variances in
normal onset of skills to perform behavior?
        I'm also curious about the research behind this -- as there are many
many many of us who can provide anecdotal evidence for successful cup
feeding that resulted in successful breastfeeding when nipple confusion was
threatening a hasty retreat to "that other stuff that other way," are there
any studies that show conclusively that cup fed babies have suffered harm bc
of the cup feeding? The jist of my question is that perhaps instead of
insisiting on rigid studies that "prove it's safe and a viable skill" why
not look at the practice currently used for problems?
        Relatedly, in the cup feeding studies you've cited (forgive me for
not having read any personally) that claim it's not a skill an infant can
have until four months... how many tries did they give the infants to
"learn" this skill -- cup feeding the first time(s) may not be coordinated,
but what is the learning time line, one feed, two ? or does an infant need
four months of regular practice X number of times a day to "get it" --

Respectfully curious,
Anne E. Robb, MAT, LLLL
Off on a Tanget, Oregon, USA
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