A special thank you to my friends at Philips Avent for providing me with the toddler cups pictured below.
My house has been baby bottle-free for nearly 3 full months. Even I can’t believe it. Better yet, the transition to sippy cups was nearly seamless. Like, not one single issue. No incessant crying for the bottle. No refusing the sippy cup out of sheer spite. Not even a tantrum. Seamless. And oh-so-different than when I transitioned the girls…that wasn’t pretty.
Want to know how I did it? Philip’s Avent’s new range of toddler cups!
If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you know that I’m a Philips Avent mom. This time around I used Avent bottles, pacifiers, and the Comfort Double Electric Breast Pump, and in the past I’ve used Avent baby monitors and soothers. I find Avent products to be simple to use, easy clean, and I stand by my assertion that my Comfort Double Electric Breast Pump helped me more milk than with any other breast pump I’ve ever used. So as I began to think about transitioning Everett from bottles to sippy cups, it seemed only natural to reach out to my friends at Philips Avent and see what they might have that could help. And as luck would have it, they have a brand new line of toddler cups, each designed to foster a new level of drinking independence.
The Philips Avent Toddler Cup range is a staged process, which can start as early as 4 months and go until 2 or 3 years old when your child can handle a traditional cup. There’s a cup for every stage and each cup builds new skills, while addressing issues that tend to arise during specific stages of development. You can move as quickly as you’d like through the stages, or a bit slower if you have a baby that takes a little longer to get the hang of it.
The Stage 1 My Trainer Cups combine the bottle and sippy cup into one…this is sheer genius if you ask me. Ideal for babies 4 months and up, this cup comes with a Classic or Natural silicone nipple and a soft spout. It’s a bottle when the nipple is on and a sippy when the spout is used, so you can get twice the use out of it. And the detachable handles make it easy for babies to hold their own sippy cup when they’re ready. This cup allows you to introduce the sippy cup early, but it’s an easy first step. No initial shock of just handing a child sippy cup and assuming they’ll figure it out the way so many parents (including myself) do with their babies when they turn 4-6 months. Instead you hand them a shape and nipple that they’re used to, and then gradually add handles and the spout when they demonstrate readiness.
Once your baby has mastered the Philips Avent My Trainer Cup, they’re ready to move on to Stage 2 and the the My Easy Sippy Spout Cups and My Penguin Sippy Cups. For kids that are ready to graduate from My Trainer Cup, but aren’t quite ready to move to a hard spout cup just yet, The My Easy Sippy Spout Cups offer a soft spout solution, while the Penguin Sippy Cup line offers both hard and soft spout solutions. Regardless which you select, they’re BPA free and offer 100% leak-free drinking, thanks to the built in valve. And the spout is angled, ensuring that your baby learns to drink the right way – without leaning back too much – right from the start.
Did I mention that the penguins and other cute patterns make this stage a little more than adorable? ‘Cause they do. They really do.
Stage 3 offers your toddler the opportunity to start drinking from a straw with the Philips Avent My Twist n’ Sip Straw Cup. The valve integrated in the soft silicone straw, ensures a spill-free and leak-free drinking experience, while the unique twist top design ensures that the straw stays clean while on-the-go or not in use. And because this can be the stage where kids start filling up on liquids instead of eating food, there’s a measurement guide on the side of the cup so you can make sure that your little one is getting the right amount of fluid each day.
Right now, we go back and forth between Stages 2 and 3, but once Everett’s ready, we’ll transition to the Stage 4 Philips Avent My Natural Drinking Cup and Grown Up Cup (you might remember me reviewing the Natural Drinking Cup a while back with Hazeline). Everett’s not quite there yet, but this cup allows toddlers to sip from the rim, like a traditional cup, but reduces the possibility of spills with the help of an internal leak-proof valve. It will give him the feeling of being “big” – just like his sisters – without me having the feeling that my floors are going to be covered in his drink at any minute.
So while a little part of me wants to cry that my baby – my last baby – is off of bottles, I love that it was an easy transition. And that’s mostly thanks to the Philips Avent Toddler Cup range!
If you’re currently transitioning to the sippy cup, my advice to you would be to start early and try Philips Avent Toddler Cups in each of the stages. You can find them on the Philips Avent website, Amazon.com, and a few of them in Walmart stores!
