Hard to believe a whole year has gone by since my second daughter was born, but it has. She has been learning so many new things especially lately. So far our biggest hurdle with her has been getting her to give up the bottle. We are still working on it, but we are getting there.

At about six months old I decided to try my daughter on a sippy cup. I had many problems with my older daughter in getting her to learn to drink from a cup, but finally found the key in Gerber for her. So I bought my youngest a Gerber training cup. One of the ones with the handles on it. She was not at all interested and just threw that cup on the floor.

Well, she was only six months old so I figured she's got time I'll just keep trying from time to time. So I did with the same reaction. Well, her first birthday came and went and she still had no interest in the cup. She had no problem switching from formula to milk so I couldn't figure out what her problem was with this whole cup issue.

I watched what she would do with the cup and noticed she just kept chewing on the spout. Hmmmm, that's not going to work. So I thought well, it's hard she must think it's some sort of teether. So I thought maybe she needs a cup that has a soft spout or something. Something that felt a little more like a nipple. Did they make such a thing though?

I ended up buying a training nipple for her from Playtex since we were using the Playtex bottles. She had no problem with that whatsoever, but whenever I would give her the cup she would do the same thing, just chew on it.

I didn't know what to do. I was telling everyone I knew of my problem in getting her to understand what to do with the cup. I even had her big sister trying to teach her how to drink from the cup, but nothing was working. Until someone told me that they do make cups with soft spouts. So I went to the store and I looked and found that indeed they did. Avent had come up with a cup with a soft spout. So I bought it.

I brought that cup home and washed it out and gave it to my daughter with some juice in it. She took it and actually did not chew on it. She did however get very mad at me because she couldn't figure out how to get the juice out. I took the cup and tried it myself to see if it was hard to get juice out of and found that it wasn't. So I gave it back to my daughter and she just threw it.

Okay, so now you are probably wondering why is she writing a review in favor of these cups? Well, determined that I am I kept giving her the cup and you know what eventually she figured out that you do have to tip the cup up a little to get something out of it. She does forget from time to time and throws the cup on the floor, but I just pick it up and put it in her mouth and tip it up and she starts drinking. She will then take the cup from me and hold it up all by herself. Hmmmm, perhaps the end of bottles is in sight. I have given her the Gerber cup I have too since she has learned how to drink from this cup and she's doing better with that one now. Now if only I could get her to take milk from the cup. She drinks juice from it without a problem, but she refuses to take milk from the cup. She is only 13 months though and my oldest daughter didn't fully get the hang of the cup until she was 15 months. So I guess it's just going to take some time and persistence from me. I think we'll be able to do it though.

What does the cup look like?

The cup I have has an orange top and a yellow cup part. The cup itself has kind of an odd shape to it. The spout is white and seems longer than most spouts on sippy cups. The cup is made of a hard plastic except for the spout. The spout is kind of rubbery. There are three pieces to the spill proof part. Part of it is a clear hard plastic and then the valve is soft rubber.

How do you clean it?

This cup is dishwasher safe. So if you do have a dishwasher you just take it all apart and place it in the dishwasher. For those of us without one it's not too hard to handwash, but there are a lot of little pieces that are hard to get into to clean. I can not get inside of the spout at all to clean it out. So on occasion I end up bleaching the top. Just by taking it all apart and soaking it in water and bleach.

To take it apart you just pop the spout out of the outer ring and then pop the inside of that out. Pull the rubber valve off of the plastic piece. This isn't always easy to do though. Wash all the pieces and make sure they are dried thoroughly and then put it all back together.

It's a little more complicated than most sippy cups, but not overly difficult.

Other interesting features about this cup

When I was doing research on this cup to write my review I found out that this cup is interchangeable with all Avent products. The spout can be changed to suit your child as he/she grows. Not only that, but if you breastfeed and want to continue giving breastmilk you can express the milk directly into the cup as long as you have the Avent Isis breast pump. This might have come in handy if I could have gotten my breast pump to work for me and my daughter continued to nurse past four days old.

According to Avent this cup can also handle pulpy juice or thicker liquids. Honestly I have not tried this yet. I haven't given my daughter orange juice yet (don't think she's ready for the acid) and the thickest thing she's ever had in the cup was her whole milk. Didn't seem to be a problem with the milk.

This cup also comes with a clear snap on lid for you to take with you when traveling. Mine however has gotten lost. Perhaps it's in the bottom of the diaper bag. I don't know, one of these days I'll get around to cleaning that out and maybe I'll find it. I'm used to not having lids on sippy cups though so this wasn't really a big deal to me that this one had a lid. For some though I guess this could be a huge selling point.

Overall what's my reaction?

I would definitely recommend this cup for anyone who is having trouble teaching their child to drink from a sippy cup. I have tried many cups with both my girls during this phase and they have both taken to different things. I really like the versatility of this Avent cup though. I've never known any other cup to be like this. Once my daughter is ready to move onto a harder spout all I'll have to do is buy a new spout rather than a whole new cup to take up more space. And while my original plan was to just let the baby use her big sister's cups I don't think big sister will be too pleased with that idea. So this way they'll each have their own cup and there shouldn't be any fighting.

For more information about Avent and their products you can visit their website at http://www.avent.com.

Recommended: Yes