Do you have a drinking problem?

Bubby D has reached that exciting stage where every day heralds a new experience – a word, an action, or activity that might have seemed impossible just days before. Now she can move around she’s interested in exploring everything (especially cupboards) and if there is one thing I can be sure she’ll make a bee-line for, it’s other children’s sippy cups.

No longer content with her own free flow beakers, she seems to be able to zero in with uncanny sippy-cup radar to any drinking implement within a 50 metre radius.

This, along with the fact that she grabbed the Wee Man’s drink the other day and proved to me that she is perfectly able to utilise a straw (when did that happen?) is why I decided it might be time to upgrade her free flow cups to the next baby drinking stage – the flip top straw cup. Or to be more specific: the Munchkin Click Lock™ Flip Straw Cup and it’s closely related cousin, the Munchkin Click Lock™ Insulated Flip Straw Cup.

Inevitably – although she has tried both – of course the Wee Man insisted that one of these new cups of amazement was his, and so I’ve also been able to see how well they stand up to being viciously bitten by a preschooler. (He doesn’t viciously bite everything he comes into contact with, just in case you were wondering; but he does seem to always bite straws to pieces). With the insulated cup having a larger diameter and an interesting picture of an owl, the Wee Man seemed naturally more drawn to that one than the bright pink alternative, which Bubby D finds easier to use as it has a contoured shape with a nipped-in middle – making it much easier for her little hands to grasp and lift.

Being larger than Bubby D’s previous drinking cups – the cup holds 10oz – there is the added advantage that a full cup lasts a lot longer – meaning I don’t have to worry about sourcing more water while we are out and about.

Since their first outing was on a day trip to the London Aquarium via tube, then home on the river boat and Emirates Airline cable cars, followed by a DLR ride and a trip on the tube again, they certainly needed to last a while. I was really hoping that the leak proof guarantee stood up to the test in this respect – because being stored in the bottom of the pushchair as it was bumped up and down stairs and escalators on the tube and wheeled all around the multi-level Aquarium, before being swayed up and down on the choppy waters of the Thames and waved around alarmingly (well that’s how it felt, anyway) in the cable cars across the river they certainly weren’t going to stay upright. And that’s without the antics of Bubby D, whose current favourite game is ‘drop something on the floor, watch adult pick it up for you, then drop it again and giggle, repeat several times’.

I’m happy to say that the liquid contained within the cups did manage to stay within them in general, unless required by Bubby D or the Wee Man at which point they were able to flip the tops and use the straws easily and independently whenever they were thirsty – and it was a hot day so they were thirsty quite a lot. I was amazed that Bubby D was able to open the flip part of the lid herself (again, when did she learn this?) but it made things a whole lot easier for me as she is not able to open the spout of her free flow cups on her own.

I did note however that there was a little bit of leakage from the straw, and the bottom of the pushchair had a marked damp patch from this. From what I could see, this resulted from anything that was left in the actual straw draining out of the cup whilst it was lying on its side or upside down – once this was out then the rest of the drink stayed in with no problems. Not a huge issue, and definitely not the leakage you’d get from a free flow cup – but I’d be interested to see whether the non flip-top straw variety worked any better.

The nice bright colours of the cups is a bonus as they were easy to see and grab in the pushchair shopping basket, and also easy to track down the numerous times that Bubby D chucked hers out of the pushchair. Equally, the weighting of the cup is a bonus as it never seemed to land straw down meaning the straw stayed clean to drink from, and despite some pretty heavy abuse of the ‘lob it across the Thames Clipper boat’ variety, the cup remained intact.

So, much to the Other Half’s delight I concluded that the vast majority of our free flow cups can be disposed of,  and we’ll be stocking up on a couple more cups of the Munchkin straw variety – both kids love them and being easy to use, clean and carry around they get a big thumbs up from all of us.