Tired of cups accumulating on my counter tops all day, tired of counting at least a dozen children's cups in my dishwasher at night, tired of children saying they can't remember which color cup they've been using so they must get a new one . . .
. . . I am trying an idea given to me by more than one mother! I have made name tags for the children and taped them down with clear packing tape onto the counter. The children will keep their cups at their special spots and then we'll all know what color so-and-so is using today. We're only a few days into the experiment, but have been having productive moments of my calling out to a child heading for the cupboard to get a fresh cup, "Wait! Check your spot! I see you have a cup there already."
For mothers wondering, other ideas given to me were:
Each child has a unique bottle--one and only one that does not change--that lives in the door of the refrigerator. It gets washed daily.
Each child gets a fresh cup out at the three meal times, and dishes are washed after each mealtime. Each child goes through three cups per day and there is no drinking in between meals, but there are no cups floating around the kitchen.
Each child has a set spot at the kitchen table and his or her cup stays at that spot all day.
All kids share a cup.
Cups get labeled each day starting in the morning with ink that is washed off at the end of each day.
Feel free to share your cup-management techniques in the comments section!
We do the sharing thing. One cup by the water filter. If it gets greasy I replace it.
ReplyDeleteVery similar to yours, but ours all go in a rectangular tupperwear container so we can move it easily. And they only get one cup per day.
ReplyDeleteI'm not into the sharing thing---one too many a stomach bug has resulted for us from that. What we began to do: A while back my husband bought child sized Tervis tumblers for each of them with their initial and lid. So far so good.
ReplyDeleteJessica: Oooo, your idea of putting cups into a square Tupperware for easy movement has a lot of appeal!
ReplyDeleteThe sharing thing has me recoiling in horror.... Do these people have large families and do their kids ever get stomach bugs?
ReplyDeleteAs for us, we have cups out at each meal. We generate a dishwasher's load of dishes every meal or meal and a half anyway, so no biggie. If things are getting behind.... The horrors.... I break out the paper cups :-) which I buy in bulk at Costco for playdates, parties, etc.
The cup thing can get way out of hand...I picked up a set of cups for my kids...similar design but each one having a different animal on it. One child has sheep, another pig etc. and I just grab and wash them once a day when I get a chance. They know which cup is always their cup. They always sit on the edge of the counter, tucked out of sight near our microwave. Much easier than constant cups!
ReplyDeleteno cup input here, but just wanted to say how excited I am to see the age ticker for the new little pea in the pod. I'd been waiting for that to show up :-)
ReplyDeleteBackground: each of our boys has a color assigned to him. Backpacks are their color, sock bags, towels, etc. They have color coded Klean Kanteens for outings, and for home we use color-coded Drink Bands on their glass cups. They have one glass allotted per day. The Drink Bands come in a set of eight, so my husband and I each use one, (he was just as guilty as the little ones of using a new cup for every drink!) and we have enough for guests too. Even the 1 year old has been able to recognize his color for months, so this works very well for us.
ReplyDeleteThe kids rinse and hang their cups on the side of the dish drainer. They hang them oldest to youngest. I have also written their names on fat rubber bands and put them on their cup for the day.
ReplyDeleteThis post has been so fruitful for me! I love the idea of fat rubber bands or color-coded Drink Bands.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.drinkbands.com/
I use two different sized glass glasses for the 5 and 3 yr olds. The 5 yr old gets the skinny one and the 3yr old gets the fat one. We then leave them in their spot at the kitchen table. The 20 month old gets her straw cup and has that with her all day. I also keep my and my husbands glasses in our spots as well. At the end of the day I'm only putting the 4 glasses in the dishwasher. I like to hand wash sippies.
ReplyDeleteThe cups around here are getting out of control! It seems to me though, that I never had this problem until I put the cups in a drawer that was accessible to the children. I think I will try moving them out of their reach again, and then they won't be able to get a cup unless I give it to them. They usually have different colors and they keep track of whose is whose.
ReplyDelete