Plastic Things I Cannot Wait for my Kids to Outgrow

Feeding your child as an infant is easy in that breastfeeding requires no bottles, mixing, warming, or clean up. Sooner or later your child wants more than breastmilk including liquids such as (but not limited to) water, juice, non-human milk, formula, and of course, solid foods. This means the introduction of all the food and drink related plastic baby/kid accessories: sippy cups, straw cups, net feeders, plastic bowls and plates, spoons and forks. All these items can be purchased at an ordinary grocery store.

As cute as they can be when brand new, all these products quickly become digusting and potentially hazardous when they are being used around the clock and every day of the week.

Sippy cups and straw cups are nice because they are generally spill-proof. The problem is they always have ridiculous, unreachable crevices which quickly become a haven for mold. Did your toddler leave a sippy cup of juice or milk into the corner of the room and you found it a day or two later? The cup has become a petri dish of mold and ick that often needs to be thrown out due to those uncleanable crevices. I think it's a conspiracy by the baby cup companies to make us buy more and more plastic cups. My son is (mostly) beyond sippy cups, thank goodness. My daughter loves real cups but is not good at using them yet. Hopefully she will outgrow sippy and straw cups sooner than her brother did. Three years of desperately searching my cabinets for a suitable spill-proof cup after having just thrown out a bunch of gross ones, is a long time.




Netfeeders are actually pretty great in a way. You can give your 6 month old some chunks of fruit or other soft-ish foods without fear of them choking, and your baby gets the satisfaction of sinking their gums (or perhaps teeth) into something with substance. The problem is the nets themselves because just like sippy cups they are hard to wash so get moldy and yucky pretty easily. Companies do sell net refills, but that still requires buying more product just to keep the product usable.




Plastic Bowls and Plates are handy because they don't break when your child knocks it off the table. Still, they are plastic so they start breaking down and looking cloudy after frequent washings. The plastic doesn't wash well in the dishwasher (at least not in my dishwasher), and if you ever cut your child's meat or other large food on the plastic plate with a real knife the knife cuts the plate as well as the food. This then leaves cracks that can collect stains and other residue. Once again, the solution is to simply buy replacement plates. Did I mention I don't like being required to always buy more plastic stuff?



Plastic Forks and Spoons are made to fit well into little mouths and are gentler than metal utensils. Once again the plastic breaks down and starts looking cloudy and in generally poor shape. They also have a knack for getting into my garbage disposal and then coming out a chewed up mess. Once again the solution is to simply buy more. Not to mention that plastic forks can be frustrating for kids once they start feeding themselves with utensils. Ever try stabbing a slippery noodle with a plastic baby fork?



There are plenty of aspects of life with babies and toddlers that I will miss once both my kids have grown out of this stage, but I cannot wait to be done with all the plastic feeding items. The highchair/booster seat is another one that I will be happy to get rid of. It requires constant cleaning between mealtimes and snacks and like child dishes, has plenty of places for food to get into and hide. At least it doesn't get moldy and hazardous. Pepper will miss the highchair though!

Pepper helps clean up