How to Clean Your Child’s Disgusting Drinkers
Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert, advice columnist, and New York Times bestselling author of My Boyfriend Is Boiling In My Purse … And Other Things You Can’t Ask Martha About . Her flagship column, Ask a Pure Man, debuted in 2011. Here at Offspring, we’ve launched a new iteration of it, with a focus on parenting and all the mess it brings.
Finding drinking cups filled with old milk is pretty frustrating … so what’s the best way to clean your toddler drinking cups / straws?
Sounds pretty rude! But there are a few easy ways to clean your drinking cups that have had milk in them, or have a persistent odor that is not affected by regular washing, or have grown mold.
Bottle brushes
One of the hardest things to do with sippy cups is getting caught in straws, spouts and valves where milk, juice and backwash get stuck, creating a lovely home that mold can enter. If you find that you often find it difficult to completely clean the small parts of the drinking cup, then a dedicated bottle brush set is for you. OXO manufactures a brush with three types of brushes: a straw brush, a brush for covers and pump parts, and a nozzle cleaner. A similar product made by Munchkin has four brushes: straw brush, spout brush, lid and thread brush, and detail brush.
As a last resort, if you have pipe cleaners hanging around your home for arts and crafts projects, you can use them to clear straws from cups.
Denture inlays
Denture tablets have many great uses besides cleaning dentures: they can be used to wash vases that have tarnished after the flowers have been left for too long, they are great for lightening nails that have turned yellow due to excessive wear on the nail polish They are the right choice for keeping retainers, night guards and mouth guards clean. They’re also perfect for dipping into a sippy cup, pouring hot tap water, and leaving to soda and scrub. Leave the dissolved tablet in the cup for 15-30 minutes before draining the solution and rinsing the cup with hot soapy water or placing it in the dishwasher.
Denture tablets are especially useful in cups where a drink has been left in and a lingering odor; Dr. Bronner’s Castile Liquid Soap is also great at removing odors from plastic cups – just replace it with regular dish soap.
White vinegar
One reader recently wrote to me about his favorite uses for white vinegar:
Yes, yes, you can say this is old news, but this is a new white vinegar app.
Parents of young children are always losing the war against black mold growing inside all those silicone cups, CamelBak valves and reusable bottle straws.
Parents usually use hot soapy water and miniature bottle cleaners, which can fall apart and leave plastic bristles in the parts of their silicone cups. Any dirty shower can tell you that mold grows well in hot soapy water.
A year ago, I started soaking all these silicone parts of the drinking container in hot water with added white vinegar (one cup of white vinegar per pot of hot tap water). No soap, no tiny bottle brush, no fuss, no mold since I started.
Great advice!
Dishwasher baskets
Another common problem with drinking drinking cups is in the dishwasher: all those small parts that can fall out through the slots in the dishwasher racks. While using the pan holder that comes standard with your machine is an option, it is not ideal if it is an insert in the bottom rack because the bottom heating element can warp or melt the plastic. Enter the extra dishwasher basket! It can be used on the top shelf, away from the heating element, for storing small items such as straws and nipples, as well as items such as oral syringes and medicine cups.
Three top rated dishwasher baskets on Amazon:
OXO Tot Dishwasher Basket for Bottle Parts & Accessories , $ 7.99
Fast Loading Dishwasher Basket BPA Free , $ 9.22
Boon Clutch Dishwasher Basket , $ 9.99
Do you really like the dishwasher basket insert? Or a recommendation for a bottle cleaner? Let us know in the comments!