My daughter is starting to outgrow the soft-lidded Nuby cups that we got her to train her on–they’re great in that the spout and lid are soft, like bottles, but once they learn to manipulate them, they can spray liquids all over the place. She’s taken to milking it like a cow, which makes a colossal mess, so I guess it’s time to graduate her to a normal sippy.
She’s also done well with the Born Free trainer cup (which is nice, but expensive and has a lot of parts), but I’m really looking for something similar to the Nuby but less able to be manipulated by little 14-month-old fingers–something with a harder spout, that won’t leak, with few parts and a spout that aligns with the handles without being dependent upon how hard you screw the lid on.
We gave up on handled cups because they never aligned properly with the lid. We’ve just been using some simple ones from Toys-R-Us, with a snap-on lid, and either Pooh or Sesame street characters on the cups. They’re cheap and seem to work well; the PiperCub (just under 2 years old) hasn’t figured out (yet) how to take the lid off. He does occasionally shake it upside down to make some of it come out, but it’s usually only a few drops.
My son’s favorite for a while was the Gerber sippy cups. He can get the water to spill out, but he has to work on it. It has very few pieces unless the Born Frees which have way too many pieces for my taste.
I also got away from the handled cups pretty early. I’ve tried just about every different kind, and the best ones for me seemed to be Playtex. They have hard spouts and have only three pieces - the lid, the cup, and a soft plastic valve. I used the ones without handles, but I think they have a handled cup as well. I never had an issue with them leaking.
Now I tend to use the “disposable” Dora and Diego cups from Wal-Mart. They’re cheap, the lid screws on, and they can be reused.
It’s not exactly the same, but we used sippy cups like this one for my great-grandmother (late stage Alzheimer’s) after she threw a tantrum and accidentally spilled hot tea in her lap causing burns bad enough to need a skin graft. Very little comes out of the spout even upside down. And I figure wee little fingers probably can’t get the top off either if someone with arthritis who knew how to get the top off couldn’t.
These are the two I’ve had the best luck with. Both of them will leak if you leave them on their side for too long, but other then that they work pretty well. My daughter did have a phase where she learned that she could flick the straw and kinda make milk spray around a little, but that didn’t last to long. I have both around the house because the straw ones are a little nicer but if she wants to take some water to bed she needs the other kind so that she can use it while she’s laying down.
Oh, and for some reason the straw ones will sometimes start dripping out the top of the straw even while upright. My theory is that as the liquid warms up and expands it rises up through the straw, simply loosening the top and re-tightening it will fix it.
Seconded, loudly. They’re great, and all the Playtex lids work on all their cups, so you can mix and match (or, so you don’t have to find the one *&^@# lid to the one %*(@(!& cup that your toddler will deign to drink from today).
Also, they’re BPA-free, and around here I can get them at the supermarket - I love not having to traipse to Babies R Us for them.
