What on earth is that, I hear you cry. Well it’s a Doidy cup. I do wish Ciao could have chosen a picture of a nicer coloured one for the display!

It’s a cup that has been especially designed in the UK on a slant to encourage babies to drink from the rim of a cup. I was recommended to try it from my health visitor who thinks they are great as in the early days of weaning my son just wouldn’t drink. Okay, so I was rather optimistic and naive thinking that the first cup I purchased my son would drink out of it no problem at all. As I was using the Avent bottles, I just got the 3-month feeder cup attachments to use the bottle. My son had other ideas. Looking back now, I was really silly thinking that he would drink from a valved mouthpiece at 4 months even though he’d hardly even used a teat with him being breastfed.

Well, firstly the cups are made of plastic and are dishwasher proof on the top shelf and microwavable although they do not recommend that you use this form to heat drinks. They are for children from 6 months but they recommend they can be used from birth with the help of an adult. They are designed at a slant so firstly your baby can see what is in the cup and that they don’t have to lean forward and lower their head to get to the contents. They’ve also got a better chance of putting the cups down without knocking it over. They’ve got two tiddly handles (about the length of a matchstick but a little wider) for those tiny hands. They also claim that many health authorities now promote the cup in their aim to get babies from bottles to cups easily to avoid tooth decay (It is recommended that babies are weaned off teats between 8 and 12 months).

Cups are generally available at £3.50 each. They come in most colours: white, red, orange, purple, blue, green, pink, yellow, turquoise and lilac.

It is highly likely that you will get soaked initially! My son gets so excited with water and his hands go up and down and so does the water! It’s great for at home but unless you take a bottle of water out with you, not really idea for being out and about. Now my son is a bit older, I hardly use mine as he will use a valve cup now and find it far too messy to even consider giving him milk in his Doidy.

I purchased my red and purple ones from www.bickiepegs.co.uk which means they come direct from the company. They charge £1 p&p for orders under £10 and you normally receive your package within 14 days. I have also seen them in a recent mail order catalogue although I’ve not seen them in any shops to date.