Born Free Twist'nPop Cup Review

Holly has always been a minx when it comes to drinking (ever since the first hours of her life!) and these days, now that she drinks independently from a cup, things are no different.  Holly demands independence but I simply can't trust her with any cup that has a free flow of liquid - this Twist'nPop cup from Born Free is perfect for her right now as it encourages independence but because it has a straw and a cover it reduces the chance of her pouring the contents all over my sofa.

The Born Free Twist 'n Pop is a large 14oz cup which can last a toddler quite some time.  It has a straw that reaches all the way down to the base of the cup and which has a flexible top to the straw which neatly folds away when you twist the lid closed; this means that when you quickly twist the lid, any chance of a dribble on your carpet or furniture is reduced and it means you can slip the cup into your changing bag to take with you.

Holly got on with the Twist'nPop instantly.  I find it a very good idea to give her a straw cup as it teaches the discipline of holding a cup upright (because the straw doesn't work when you aren't holding it in the water!) which I am sure will be a valuable lesson to learn on the way to drinking from an adult cup with no lid.

I found the Twist 'n Pop a very easy trainer cup to assemble and disassemble.  All of the pieces can go into the dishwasher on the top rack so I place the straw horizontally on the rack.

Holly does still occasionally tip her entire cup upside down and try to shake the water out but barely anything comes out.  I'm hoping that this Born Free trainer cup will be the way to turn her into a sensible drinker who I can trust with a cup of her own.

Anywayup Bird Cup Review

You probably know how much of a fan I was of the Cow Cup by Anywayup - well now I think I may have found a new favourite!  The Bird Cup.

The Bird Cup by Anywayup is a trainer cup with a screw-on lid (a welcome relief after having accidentally twanged pull-off lids across the kitchen on way too many occasions recently). The design of the cup looks reminiscent of a bird - to me it feels a bit penguiny! It is bold, fun and recognisable.

The Bird Cup features the same innovative no-leak valve in the spout as the Cow Cup and now that Holly is used to using a cup she finds it very easy to drink from it. Holly has always been a TOTAL minx when it comes to drinking from a cup (she has an annoying habit of filling her mouth full of drink and then spitting it out all over the place) but things have improved since we started using the Bird Cup.

The handles are a good size for Holly and they are easy for me to grab too when she is showing signs that she might throw it overboard.  The cup has a 210ml capacity so I can use it for her milk, as well as for a drink at mealtimes.  So far I have had no problem with leakage in my changing bag or at home and I think the screw-top lid really helps here.

The Bird Cup is available in blue, pink or green.

  

Anywayup Cow Cup Review

Yay - the Anywayup Cup is back. I can't tell you how much of a panic I got into when I was pregnant and found that I couldn't source an Anywayup cup anywhere and I was obviously not the only one. I even had emails through the blog and messages on facebook from people who were desperate to lay their hands on one and were looking to me in case I knew of anywhere that still sold them. But thankfully the Anywayup cup is now back and slightly improved and all is right with the world again.

The cow cup is an Anywayup Cup with a fresian black and white pattern. It is instantly recognisable but it is also just about the best trainer cup or beaker that we tried when Lara was learning to drink from a cup. I am so glad that Holly can have one too (we were sent one to review but I'm definitely buying more).

Other than the groovy design, here are the reasons why I rate this trainer cup so much.

• The handles are perfectly sized and a good distance from the cup which means that babies as young as Holly (7 months now) and as old as toddlers can hold it easily
• The lid clips on. No annoying twisting threads to get right. And once it is on, it stays on. For the first few uses it takes quite a lot of brute force from you to take the lid off again but after that it softens a little and for me, it is the best type of lid on a cup.
• The cup is fun, which means that your little one WANTS to drink from it. The cow cups were always Lara's favourite and she insisted that we send them to the childminder for her to drink her milk from during the day.
• The cup doesn't leak. The design has changed a little since Lara's day and now the spout contains a small seal at the top which your child has to suck through. Unless they are sucking, liquid cannot come out so it doesn't matter if they tip it up. It really is an anywayup cup!.
• The cup is really easy to wash - we put ours in the dishwasher. You can also put it in the microwave as long as you leave the lid off.

The new style of Cow Cup doesn't even have a removable valve inside so it is even easier to wash up than before. I have noticed though that the new type of valve inside the spout means that Holly has to suck VERY hard to get water out and she finds it a bit frustrating. I tried it myself and it was bliming hard to drink from so I am thinking of leaving it for a little while before I try her with it again.

You can buy the cow cup and other anywayup cups from www.anywayup.com.

mOMma No Spill Cup Review

Clearly it is going to be many months before baby Button starts weaning but I can tell you that having had a play with the mOMma trainer cup, I'm really looking forward to trying out some of the bits and bobs in the mOMma range of feeding equipment.

Lara still uses a beaker occasionally - usually when she is on the move or when I know she is too tired or too distracted to be trusted with a plain old cup. We've tried several trainer cups along the way and I like to think I've built up a mental image of all the things I will be looking for when buying trainer cups for baby II. Number one on my list is a cup that is near-impossible for your child to tip the contents out of. Two, the spout area needs to be easily replaceable and failing that, the cup has to be affordable enough to replace the whole cup... teething toddlers and babies chew through spouts at some rate. Three, the handles have to be small enough for a baby but big enough for a toddler (and for me to grab if I need to).

We have been trying out the mOMma no-spill cup with dual handles. I can't find any reference to replacement spouts on the internet, but the cup only costs around £5.99 so would be easily replaceable if needed. Other than that, it DEFINITELY fulfills my other mummy-criteria.

The mOMma no-spill cup has a rounded and weighted, gently-rocking base so that if your child knocks it, it will just roll and then pop back up to an upright position... a bit like a rocking doll. Originally I worried that the base was too rounded and that Lara would struggle to place it upright on a table but the flat spot on the bottom is surprisingly effective. The inside of the cup is slightly rounded and raised which is probably really important for the next stage up - mOMma sell the same cup with a lid that has an integral straw and a rounded base makes it easier to get to the contents at the very bottom of the cup.

The handles are slightly bendy, which means they can be easily grabbed by me if I need to. The spout is a very bendy soft material with quite a large area of the liquid to be sucked from. The screw-top lid with handles can be replaced with some of mOMma's other lids in the range including a teat or a lid with straw. The bottle itself is a 250ml bottle made from BPA-free plastic.

One of the features I liked most about the mOMma cup was the lid that covered the spout. I gave up with the lids on many of Lara's cups as they were either too difficult to take off (and ended up spraying liquid everywhere) or else they were too loose. The coloured spout cover on the mOMma cup is easy to take on and off and doesn't come off in my bag.

The cup is striking, but perhaps not the most iconic product of the mOMma range. mOMma is currently distributed by Lansinoh in the UK.

 

You can view the complete mOmma feeding range on Amazon.

Our Weaning Story - 12 Months On

This time 12 months ago, Lara started her amazing adventure into the world of solid foods. We started weaning Lara at about 18 weeks old, at the point when she would quite gladly have bitten off my hand for the chance to try something other than milk. I thought it would be fun to look back on all of the blog posts that I have written over the past year about our weaning adventure.

Weaning is a very personal thing and if there is one thing I believe, it is that there is no right or wrong way to do it. I know people who have struggled (and still struggle several years on), I know others who opted for ready made purees right up until 1 year old but now have perfectly healthy children who eat a varied diet, and I know some parents who took a strict baby-led-weaning approach with no solids at all until around 8 or 9 months. I also know that the way we weaned Lara has worked incredibly well for us, and one year on, I have a little girl of whom I am proud. She has an appetite for sweet and savoury foods of all types and is never afraid to try something new – sometimes, when sitting in a restaurant with my 17 month old girl devouring a plate full of real, grown-up food, I get an enormous sense of achievement. Weaning can be great fun.

12 months ago, Mr. B. and myself approached weaning onto solid foods with trepidation. All of the government advice tells you over and over again that you shouldn’t introduce solids until 6 months and yet our parents were both egging us on, saying that 4 months was the time to start. Lara was clearly ready for food and already had teeth coming through so we gave it a try. We started with baby porridges ( more than just a refined, bland baby rice) and fruit purees made by yours truly. We found the Annabel Karmel website a great place for finding recipes. We bought some little freezer pots so that I could make batches of baby food and put them in the freezer so that we could rotate meals and ensure that Lara had a good variety of flavours and textures. I used some printed quidelines that I got in my NCT lessons for how much of what type of food I should be offering Lara each day but quickly learned that the pots I had bought were too small and that my quidelines were totally useless! Lara went from the 1-or-2-teaspoons to the enormous-bowlful stage within a fortnight! So, here’s a top tip: don’t bother with tiny freezer pots, just buy bigger ones straight away.

As we approached Christmas last year, Lara was eating three homemade meals a day. Porridge in the morning, fruit mixes for lunch and a savoury meal in the evenings. At this point, I introduced Lara to a beaker of water with her meals. It took her quite a while to get used to the sucking motion but she soon got the hang of it. We also had a play with a few different types of bibs.

When Lara started going to the childminders in the new year, this introduced me to a whole new world of lunchbox food! I was very good and continued making Lara home-made baby food that the childminders would warm up for her. Into the new year, Lara started showing an interest in finger foods. By 8 months old, Lara was eating most of her foods by hand and in general, would refuse anything that I offered her on a spoon – opting to try it herself instead. At this point, we began to take the Baby-Led-Weaning approach more and more. By this I mean that we offered Lara a little bit of everything that we ate ourselves. This approach helps us a lot because it means we don’t have to cook a separate meal for Lara – we all share our family meals. Lara is one of few babies I know who was weaned in quite such an adventurous manner. We have an adventurous repertoire of meals (largely involving curry, I might add) and Lara seems to enjoy them all. We’ve had our wobbles – Lara went through a period of turning her nose up at beef, and then at anything involving tomato. At present, she will start screaming if she just hears the word yoghurt.

Just because we took the BLW approach, doesn’t mean that I DIDN’T offer Lara pre-packaged baby foods. No. As someone who loves to cook, I also enjoy a good takeaway, or a lovely meal out – I use convenience foods for myself, and I also use them for Lara. We did try one or two products from free samples that I wasn’t wowed by. Jars were never my thing, much sloppier and blander than anything I made myself. We did try Organix baby foods which were fine for back-up foods but our favourite were Plum Baby which just seemed most similar to my home-made foods in texture and ingredients. As Lara became more proficient in finger foods, we also discovered a great range of toddler snacks on the market that she still enjoys.



At around 10 months old, I started to offer Lara cutlery for her to learn to use. At 17 months she still hasn’t quite mastered the art but is very proficient with a spoon, and a fork when she chooses to be. One of our best investments has been our Boots crockery sets. We have several of them now! Simple BPA-free bowls and plates which are sturdy and well-shaped to allow Lara to move the food around with her spoon and fork without getting it everywhere. You don’t need anything more fancy than this. We also love our Brother Max bowl as I can fill it full of food, snap the lid on and put it into Lara’s lunchbox.

At 1 year we introduced cow's milk. These days Lara eats the same meals as us. Despite my recent porridge rant, I'm not someone who monitors every single little thing that my child eats. I know that she gets a generally healthy diet made from fresh foods so I'm very relaxed when it comes to offering snacks or treats. I do have one or two rules that I try to stick to when making my own food - no added salt or sugar. I tend to add seasoning to a meal immediately before I serve it these days so that I can make sure Lara has her portion first - this also allows me to add more chilli powder to mummy and daddy's food at the last minute too.

Over the past few weeks and months we have had lots of opportunity to try our different toddler drinking cups and highchairs. Our weaning journey is nearly over. In the coming weeks we hope to move Lara out of the highchair and into a booster seat at our brand new dining room table. Within a couple of months I expect her to have mastered the art of cutlery and then after that… well, who knows? Maybe my job will be done? Or maybe Lara is saving her fussy-eater stage for when she is a bit older!



I’m certain that her adventurous and unlimited diet has contributed to Lara’s social skills. I know that I can take her to friends, family and restaurants and not have to worry about finding something for her to eat. Holidays and travel are so much easier now that I don’t have to take anything special for her to eat and drink. Lara enjoys mealtimes – they are a big part of our day that we love to share with her.

If you would like to learn a little more about weaning, take a look at all of the information available at Boots Parenting Club

Toddler Trainer Cups On Trial

Some time ago Lara reviewed a series of toddler beakers when she first transitioned away from a bottle. We also tried out the Born Free trainer cup and the Tommee Tippee Easy Drink Cup which, given its resillience to biting teeth, has become our favourite in recent weeks. Now Lara is ready for the next move - to try and learn to drink from a real cup without pouring the contents all over the place!

Lara has been trying out a number of different cups. We're still a long way off a full transition but we have found that there is a cup to suit every occasion. Here are the pros and cons of each of the different cups we have tried.

Images courtesy of The Lenny Agency

OXO Training CupThe Good Bits: The grill at the top has (after time) taught Lara how to sip from the side of a cup. The grips on the side mean Lara holds the cup firmly.
The Bad Bits: It took a long time for Lara to learn not to just tip water over herself through the holes at the top. I've tried drinking from it and my nose rubs against the grill.
Price: £6
Buy From: John Lewis or Amazon
Rating: 6/10

Image courtesy of Hello Baby

The Doidy Cup (by Bickiepegs)

The Good Bits: The clever slanted shape means that it is hard (but not impossible) for Lara to throw water all over herself. This is as close as it gets to a real cup!
The Bad Bits: The handles are really small. If Lara chooses to drink from the wrong side of the cup (which she does regularly) it is a recipe for disaster.
Price: £3.75
Buy From: Online nursery retailers such as Hello Baby or Amazon
Rating: 4/10

Image courtesy of The Red Consultancy

Tommee Tippee Active Sporty
The Good Bits: The straw-like spout is firm and resistant to chomping teeth. The cup has a good capacity and is easy to undo and refill. It is one of Lara's favourites.
The Bad Bits: I'm still not 100% convinced that a straw-typed spout can help a child transition to a real cup. The cup has a valve that needs cleaning.
Price: £6
Buy From: Widely available, including Amazon

Rating: 8/10

Image courtesy of Need To Know PR

Bibi Straw Bottle
The Good Bits: The straw is flexible and folds neatly under the lid (this is the only cup we tried with a lid) so I can carry it without worry in my bag. There is no doubt that using the straw has taught Lara to hold the cup more upright than she used to.
The Bad Bits: The straw has to be removed for cleaning and I worry about having to buy a replacement if Lara bites through it or chews it to pieces.
Price: £9.50 (350ml version)
Buy From: Bibi's online shop, or Amazon

Rating: 7/10

Image courtesy of hroc

Nuby Convert-a-CupThe Good Bits: The cup is suitable right from the very first transition from a bottle through to the complete transition to a normal cup. The cup is easy to assemble and clean.
The Bad Bits: Lara drinks from it like an animal so the spout caves in. I think it will be a long time before she is capable of using 3rd and 4th stage as there is nothing to stop the drink being thrown everywhere.
Price: £4.99
Buy From: Nuby
Rating: 6/10

Image courtesy of Clareville Communications

BabyBjorn First CupThe Good Bits: The wide base means it stays upright when some of the other cups would have tipped over. The shape encourages Lara to lift it up to her mouth rather than walk around with it. Once she gets the hang of this, she really will be pretty much transitioned!
The Bad Bits: Lara still finds it hard to control the cup without waving it all over the place. I find I can only fill it with a tiny amount of liquid.
Price: £8.99 approx.
Buy From: Amazon, BumpTo3.com and other online retailers

Rating: 6/10

The Sunday Review – Tommee Tippee Feeding & Drinking

I'll be very honest, I've never quite understood why 90% of my Mummy friends went out and bought Tommee Tippee training cups, and Tommee Tippee bibs. I have always put it down to the fact that they're available in the supermarkets and so they're an easy option for Mums who don't like to explore and experiment with different brands, like me.

I tried a Tommee Tippee pelican bib (The Comfi-Neck bib) when Lara first started weaning. It was firm plastic and I struggled to keep it attached to Lara's neck. I recently had the opportunity to try their more flexible version – The Roll n Go bib. The Roll n Go is a soft, wibbly plastic bib with a good-sized pelican area for catching food. I found it great at preventing spillages from soaking through to Lara's clothes and, compared to my current brand of choice, it is a lot easier to clean as I don't need to put it through the washing machine. It is pretty handy for me to roll up and put into my changing bag, or Lara's day bag for the childminder.



However, I did find that the plastic stained easily the first time that I fed Lara spaghetti bolognaise in the bib and I still really struggle with the fastening mechanism. Tommee Tippee bibs close with a push-through button mechanism. The Roll n Go bib stays closed more easily because the bib isn't as rigid as the Comfi-Neck bib but I have found that now Lara's hair is growing, it is tricky to fasten the button without getting her hair caught in it.

We have also been trying a Tommee Tippee explora Easy Drink cup. This is the very first trainer cup I have offered Lara to which she has taken to immediately. Usually there is at least a little struggle to work out how to get the liquid out, but not with this one. I put this down to the fact that the non-spill valve is gentle enough that when I try and drink from it, I find it easy to suck the liquid out (something I find near-on impossible with most of Lara's valve-based cups).



The Easy Drink cup has a semi-soft spout and a pair of handles that Lara seems very comfortable gripping. My biggest plus point about this cup is that the lid screws on rather than pushes on; this means that there is an almost-zero chance of it falling off, or of me having not put it on properly. It also means that I don't have to wrench it off to clean it (which, with my other cups, often results in milk all over me, the sink, the walls and the floor).

I also like the fact that the spout cover is attached to the cup. All of the rest of our cups have separate lids that I very quickly gave up using because they fell off in my bag. My one complaint with the spout cover is that the cover (and the little dimple that it rests in) fills up with the skanky bits of salty dishwasher gack if I don't clean it by hand.

I have been very impressed by the explorer Easy Drink cup, and less so with the Roll n Go bib.
Images courtesy of Red Consultancy

The Sunday Review – Born Free Training Cup

Following on from my recent post about the training cups that Lara had been trying out, I was given the opportunity to review the Born Free Training Cup for Mums Like You. Born Free were pioneers in the campaign for BPA-free feeding bottles and they do great things in terms of educating new mums about feeding problems such as colic; for these reasons I jumped at the opportunity.



The Born Free training cup is BPA-free (Bisephenol-A Free) and has an anti-colic vent. It has a semi-soft spout to aid in transition from teat to cup. Initially, I was actually quite surprised at how firm the spout is. Lara loves the spout – she will quite happily sit and chomp on the spout for minutes between sips... it is obviously a good relief for her sore teeth. Thankfully, you can buy spare spouts if your little one chomps through them!



The bottle is easily shaped so that I can hold it for Lara if she is that way inclined. It also has an extremely well-shaped set of handles that Lara has no problem gripping on to. The handles can be used with any of Born Free's bottles which would definitely help with the transition from bottle to cup. The vaccum effect valve in the cup is great for ensuring that water doesn't spill everywhere but it is a very low vacuum so that the flow of water is not restricted, and so that your child's drinking action is easy and shouldn't cause ear infections from a harsh sucking motion.




I found the Born Free training cup to be easy to clean and to put together/take apart (something that puts me off lots of other bottles and cups). I'm generally happy with this cup but I have noticed that Lara doesn't drink as quickly from this one as her other cups and I suspect that this is because she is soooooo busy using that funky spout as a teether that she forgets to drink up!

The Sunday Review - Trainer Cups On Trial

In much the same vein as my review of pelican bibs a fortnight ago, here's my take on a few of the trainer cups and beakers that Lara has been trying out.



When I first started weaning Lara, I began offering water with her meals; I gave her a MAM transition trainer. We use (and love) the MAM feeding bottles so it seemed like a natural progression. At first Lara used the cup with a traditional MAM teat fitted so that she could get used to holding the cup without changing her drinking technique. After about a week I fitted the soft teet-like spout and she took to it straight away. The soft spout is more robust than a teet. It has a small plastic insert which holds the spout rigid and prevents spillage. For about three weeks I switched between the teet and the spout depending on Lara's mood. I found the transition trainer to be the perfect way to introduce a cup to my daughter.

Lara has now moved on to a trainer cup with a traditional rigid spout. We have tried both the Lindam Annabel Karmel Cup (because we loved their weaning spoons) and the Anywayup Cow Cup (because it looks groovy).

The Lindam Annabel Karmel Cup is a non-spill cup with flexible handles. It is sturdy, has a soft rubbery feel (which is easy to grip), it easy to open and has an effective non-spill valve which can be removed once your child gets used to NOT throwing their cups around (do they ever?) The cup comes with a matching cover to prevent leaks and to keep the spout clean – the colour matches so well that family members and childminders have been totally thrown by it and haven't realised that it is a lid! Ehehehe – then they seem surprised when Lara throws a wobbly because she can't get any liquid out. When I first moved Lara onto this cup, she found the sucking motion against the valve to be hard work. It took a few weeks of getting used to. I am extremely pleased with the Lindam cup and would have bought more of them if I weren't the type of Mummy who likes to try a little bit of everything!



The most recent cup that we have tried is the Cow Cup by Anywayup. It is very similar to the Lindam cup in shape and purpose but has a small lip at the base of the cup to prevent it from falling over (it can't however, prevent Lara from picking it up and tipping it over). The non-spill valve on the Cow Cup is slightly different and allows Lara to drink more easily – however, the valve often seems to fall out and I find it floating in the dregs of the water when I open it up. The spout cover on the Cow Cup is very tight-fitting to ensure it keeps the contents in. I have no worries leaving the cup rattling around inside the changing bag but I do have worries trying to open the blimming thing to wash it! I often end up pulling so hard that when the lid finally does come free, it catapults me across the kitchen. The lid on the cow cup is useless – it doesn't have any means of staying put so I just go without. My feeling is that the Cow Cup looks pretty, but isn't quite up to the job.