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Infant Training Cup
By Julie Holder

Just when a new mother thinks she has mastered the art of breastfeeding, bottle-feeding, or even both, there comes a time for her to start weaning her child onto a cup. The common age to start weaning is around 6 months. Weaning a child fully onto a cup is a long process, which usually takes up to six months. This can be a wonderful and rewarding experience for both parent and child.

What is a Training Cup?
When a child enters this stage, a training cup is an exceptional asset in teaching the child to drink from his/her own cup. It’s regularly equipped with two handles to aid the child in holding his/her own cup. Some other main features are a narrow spout and either a snap on or screw on lid. The spout makes it easier for a baby to adjust from a nipple, while the lid makes it resistant to spills that inevitably happen as a baby experiments with either holding or throwing a cup.

Features and Benefits
As you will notice, the cup market is getting bigger and bigger. Cups now incorporate innovative ideas along with bright and fun colors. A typical training cup is 3 ½ inches long and 2 ¾ inches wide.

The training cup’s selling point is that it’s a “spill-proof” cup! Parents don’t like to pick up messes, especially sticky apple juice or milk. Spill-proof cups have either a screw-on lid or a lid that that snaps shut.

The production technique is all in the spout. The valve that is inserted into the cup is the key to non-spillage. The valve can either be made out of plastic or rubber. The majority of valves are plastic. The spouts are made out of hard plastic with or without a soft-covered molding.

Handles are pretty universal meaning they usually are all of the same shape and size.

Another point of a non-spill training cup is that most of them are travel friendly. Today’s parents are always busy, and having travel friendly accessories for their child is perfect. The cup being non-spill will allow a parent to transport it everywhere without the worry of it spilling in the diaper bag. These cups also have wide bases, which makes them more sturdy. The trainer cup is a great asset in the development of a child.

Fashion Aspects
As we are now into the millennium, bright colors are the hippest thing. We are talking about primary colors as well as bright purples and pinks. A smooth-surfaced cup is boring these days. Often, trainer cups come equipped with a rippled pattern or an easy-grip overlay. These cups are unisex in that they come in all bright colors and there isn’t just a pink cup and a blue cup.

By Julie Holder, Brand Associate at MAWS.