In Depth Baby Product Reviews Led by a Pediatrician
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We hate to be harsh on this little cup, as perhaps it wasn't fair to lump it into a sippy cup review. The idea of a training cup is a good one, and the colorful silicone sleeve is an attractive addition, but at the end of the day this is not a traditional leak-proof cup. This cup is really more of a regular cup with a spill resistant lid. The lid works much like lids used for hot beverages, in that it covers most of the cup, but leaves an opening to drink from. The plus side is toddlers learn applicable drinking skills for mastering regular cups, and the American Dental Association is happy, but the drawbacks are it leaks and spills like a regular cup. So when all is said and done, we cannot recommend this cup as a sippy cup, but we do like the idea of using it as a training or beginner cup.
REASONS TO BUY
Glass
Easy to use
REASONS TO AVOID
Leaks
Not a real sippy cup
Update — December 2016
The EIO Glass Kids Cup is now being manufactured by Cuppow. The product features the same BPA free plastic lid that screws on to a mason jar with a silicon sleeve, but all components of the cup are now manufactured in the USA, and the lid is composed of recycled materials.
Our Analysis and Test Results
The EIO training cup website calls this cup the only glass training cup that helps toddlers learn the skills necessary to drink out of a real cup. This cup is made out of traditional glass canning jars, a silicone sleeve for easy gripping, and a plastic cap that limits spills. The cup is sold as a combination, or the cap and sleeve can be purchased separately and applied to standard mason jars. This cup is dishwasher safe, BPA-free, comes in 4 colors, and is available primarily online.
Performance Comparison
A variety of Toddler Sippy Cups
Credit: Micah James
Likes
We liked this little glass cup for what it was, which was clearly not a traditional sippy cup. It is made primarily of glass, which we like for it's inert, and non-leaching properties. This cup scored well in eco-health by avoiding plastic in the body design, it would have been cool to see the cap made of something other than plastic as well, but at least the liquid contact time with the cap is limited and this was not a deal breaker in our book since most cups had plastic components of some kind.
EIO Training Cup with spill resistant lid
Credit: Micah James
If using a glass cup with toddlers gives you pause, this one comes with a silicone sleeve, which makes holding it much easier than a naked cup, and it offers some cushion should the cup be dropped. However, a word of caution would be that the cup can still break, so supervision is required, and the company website specifically calls for this cup to be primarily used at a table or during meal times; probably to avoid breaking as much as spills.
This cup earned the highest marks for ease of cleaning out of all the cups we tested. With its two piece construction, and short squat body design, it was possible to clean this cup with just a kitchen towel, and putting the body in the dishwasher was also a safe option. The pieces were easy to clean and assemble.
With practice and supervision, children can easily learn to use this cup
Credit: BabyGearLab Staff
We also liked how easy it was to drink from this cup. It scored well in the ease of sucking metric, given that the cup had no valve to limit drinking, and required no sucking in order to use. This might be a bit of a problem for toddlers new to regular cups in general, and the fact that sucking isn't required, but we felt with guidance and supervision that this issue is easily taught, and the cup is easy to use. The ADA would also like this cup because it does not have a valve and requires ordinary cup drinking skills in order to use it. They feel these two things are preferable over traditional, no-leak sippy cups, and could potentially lead to better oral hygiene.
Dislikes
We strongly dislike that this cup leaks. It scored the worst in this metric out of all the cups we tested. However, as previously stated, it almost wasn't a fair test for this little cup. It is neither designed as, nor marketed as, a sippy cup or leak-proof. Primarily it is listed as a "training" cup, and offers "less" spills as children learn to use a regular cup with assistance. So while it didn't perform well, and we'd like to see less leaking, it did perform as expected, and as advertised.
Conclusion
This cup did not do well in our tests because our tests were skewed toward sippy cups, with leakage results counting heavily to the overall score of the cups we reviewed. That being said, it surprisingly did not rank last in our tests which should give you an idea of how awesome this little cup really is. This cup is not a cup we would recommend as a sippy, leak-proof, or good travel cup, but it is a good little training cup that can limit spills, was easy to use, and had a great eco-health element.
