We’ve been a bit lazy in the Hopscotch household and have had Miss H using the same OXO straw cup for probably the past year. As she’s now 2 1/2 years old and has been drinking out of an open, regular cup since she started daycare in April, we’re a bit behind on ditching the straw cup! We know that she has no problem drinking out of a regular cup, but…toddlers tend to knock things over (on accident and on purpose) and throw things in the midst of a tantrum. At least, my toddler does! With so much going on, we weren’t interested in dealing with the extra spills around the house.
However, the time has come for us to finally ditch the straws. We have a handful of different cups that lend themselves well to toddlers – all are Miss H approved!
1. Spuds Cup: We’ve had this cup for a long time and finally have started using it. We love that it has a nice wide base, making it hard to (accidentally!) tip it over. It’s also awesome because it’s made out of potatoes instead of plastic (we have a whole Spuds set and especially love their sectioned plate).
2. OXO Training Cup: I bought this cup when Miss H was around 15 months old because I got motivated to start teaching her to drink out of a cup. This training cup is great because it’s not completely open at the top – plastic covers the opening and along the edges are smaller openings for liquid to come through. Unfortunately Miss H was a little young for it when we started (i.e. she would just turn it over and dump all the water everywhere) and so we gave up rather quickly and put it away. Now, however, it’s great! Especially for meal times where Miss H is being a bit of a stinker – unlike an open cup, she can’t sit there and stick her hand in this cup over and over again (yes, this often happens when she’s playing around at the table), but this still mimics drinking from an open cup.
3. Wow Cup: We just got this cup and LOVE it! The top is completely closed, meaning it can be tipped or turned upside down without losing a single drop. There was a bit of a learning curve for Miss H to figure out how to drink from it; I tried it first and then explain to her what to do. It’s pretty simple after you do it once – just put your mouth on the cup like you normally drink with the cup tipped back and suck (this description sounds terrible but I can’t think of any other way to describe it!). The only downside is that the top can be a little difficult to screw on, so I always tip it a little before I give it to Miss H to ensure there aren’t any leaks. Oh, and it WILL leak if it gets thrown across a room (yes, I know this from personal experience!).
4. Kleen Kanteen: This isn’t a traditional cup, but in an effort to transition from straw cups, and cut down on some plastic, we’ve loved out Kleen Kanteen for Miss H when we’re on the go! It doesn’t leak and is stainless steel, and it’s super cute!
What type of cups did you use once you went past the straw/sippy stage?
blogger / nectarine / 2043 posts
Oh, this is so timely. My 18 month old is trying to drink out of an open cup herself, but she loves to toss them around too, so I’m trying to find something that will give her that open cup feeling without water all over my floor.
blogger / pomegranate / 3491 posts
My toddler also is a big fan of sticking his fist in his cup at the table. Drives me nuts!! We just have small Ikea plastic kids cups, but some of these look great!
blogger / pomegranate / 3201 posts
I really want to get some stainless steel tumblers for him, though he can also use our glasses (we’ve had them since our wedding 5.5 years ago and not one has a chip – they’re sturdy). I reeeeeally want to throw away all of our take n toss sippies.
kiwi / 511 posts
My 2.5 year old is stubborn epically so, which made the transition from sippy cup to something else a herculean effort, just it was to make the transition from bottle to sippy cup (even his EI therapist and daycare providers commented on how stubborn he was and they hadn’t seen anything like it). He uses a Frogo straw thermos at school because he can walk around with it and doesn’t need to ask for a drink. We typically have him use it at home too because it is easier for us to monitor his liquid intake, which we need to do (not everyone does).
He can use an open cup (small Ikea ones that are no longer on their site), he does it for water at the table but he refused quite some time to drink milk from his cup only water. But we have sadly had a lot of experience out stubborn-ing him and he will drink milk out of a cup too if presented to him.
pomegranate / 3272 posts
We used the OXO cup briefly. A lesson I learned from reading the reviews was that someone said to buy two of the cups and use both of the plastic parts that click in on the top to further limit the amount of water that flows through. It definitely worked. Just sucks that you have to buy two of them.
blogger / grapefruit / 4836 posts
Wait, you mean we can’t just use straw cups forever??? Sigh… These are great suggestions
thanks!
kiwi / 511 posts
Hopping back in with a tip from one of LO’s therapists, which was don’t buy a special cup but use those little cups that the snack apple sauces or fruit cups come in. It is a nice wide mouth for them to learn with and wide for little hands and it there won’t be too much liquid to spill, nor will they have to tip it far to get the motion down.
We didn’t go that route because quite frankly we got that tip when LO was in an eating clinic and he wasn’t ready nor old enough to consider an open cup, plus we had other challenges than worrying about what method he was using to get liquids. I didn’t remember it until after he got open cup drinking so I share now and maybe it will help someone else.
olive / 55 posts
My daughter started drinking out of open cups right when she turned 2, because it happened to coincide with a move up to the next room at daycare. We just use a set of plastic cups from Ikea. She accidentally knocks it over a couple times a month, but other than that she does great. I also think that seeing it spill (“uh oh Mommy, uh oh!!”) has helped her realize that she needs to be more careful.
guest
We’ve bought my son all types of cups, but my favorite is the munchkin miracle 360 degree cup. Its similar to Wow cup.
honeydew / 7504 posts
We have that Oxo cup and we love it! If he tips too quickly, it’ll spill some, but it won’t dump the whole thing all over him, so it keeps the mess to a minimum. More and more he’s using a truly open cup (like when he grabs one of our cups) and he’s very careful with it.
guest
Lol, my little guy does the whole, stick your hand in the cup thing too. (and the throwing the drink thing too)
blogger / persimmon / 1398 posts
Pint-Sized *constanlty* uses his cup as a weapon to get what he wants at the table… and I’m so tired of the constant clean-up (and frustration for me) that it causes. I’m going to have to pull out our OXO cups again (the hand in the cup drives me *bonkers*), and maybe add a Wow cup to the mix. Thanks for the recommendation!