recmdns for plates, cups, etc,,..

[fayth2012]

Hi, my baby is 11 months old. I have a few questions: does anyone have any recommendations for all natural, bpa free, inexpensive, but good quality brand for utensils, plates, cups, and bowls for her to use? Preferably non plastic for cups, plates, and  bowls. Also, has anyone tried the Brita sippy cup? Lastly, how can I get her on a schedule? Right now, I work around her sleep times, and it's more "go with the flow." How can I make more of a routine?Thanks:)

[willfulmama]

We found a set of wooden salad bowls at a garage sale that we used for our son. They've worked perfectly for us - I like that they're not plastic but still pretty strong. For cups, we tried stainless steel Kleen Kanteens but my son never really liked them so much. Instead, we found strong glass cups at For Small Hands that we really like and because my son felt like he was drinking out of the same type of glasses as we were, he liked them, too.. They are about the size of a shot glass but the glass is much thicker. We've dropped them a bunch and have yet to break one. :)

I'm not sure if those recommendations help, but that's what's worked best for us. Good luck in your search!

[fayth2012]

Sounds good! Thanks for your help!

[skycheattraffic]

I very quickly gave up on "kid" utensils and bowl/plates. DD just uses what we use and in 8 months she's broken one plate. The baby forks are completely useless and she just gets a dessert fork or a teaspoon. The BPA free plastic bowls/plates were treated as toys and she usually made a big mess with them. For cups around the house she uses glass or my BPA free water bottle. Hth

[chel]

I agree with others, shot glasses and dessert utensils. Baby forks are more like sporks and very hard to stab food. Also look at Demitasse spoons and cups.

Unless you have a major thrower or have tile floor in your eating area, you will probably have minimal breakage. If you have either of those situation look for wood or metal.

[P.J.]

We love Duralex brand tempered glass dishware for our boy. Since it's tempered glass, it doesn't break as easily (ours has been dropped on the wood floor and it didn't break....not sure if the same would be true dropped on tile floor though!), and if it did break it would not break into shards but rather big chunks (like auto glass). I think they even make a line called Kidishes specifically for kids, but we just use their dessert plates and smaller (200 ml) glasses. They also use these glasses at his (Waldorf) preschool. For bowls we use Duralex ramekins (they are small bowls usually used in food preparation). They also make Duralex small bowls that have a plastic lid for storing leftovers. FYI another popular brand of tempered glass products is Leonardo. But any tempered glass will do. Very durable.

The other thing we recently discovered and love is bamboo plates. The ones we have are these: http://www.bambus-geschirr.com/ ,which may not be available in the States...but any bamboo, washable, reusable dishware would work. Totally unbreakable and that brand goes in the dishwasher too!

[grethel]

We have concrete floors (even in the kitchen and under our dining table), so while we do occasionally use strong or tempered glass, for most toddler things I prefer something unbreakable. I looked around a lot, and after 2.5 years of use, the things that have worked best for us are wooden salad bowls and plates (found them in sets at kitchen stores and used at consignment and garage sales), and steel camping mugs and cups for drinks. We also have some stainless steel plates, bowls and cups that I bought from one of the eco-kids sites that were a little more spendy but have held up wonderfully. I love that I can put those in the dishwasher, unlike our wooden ones. They get more use because they're easier to clean.

Most of her utensils are just our smaller teaspoons and dessert forks, although we do have one bamboo set that's ok.

[cloudbutterfly]

Things that have worked well for us:

http://www.silikids.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=7

https://www.navanfoods.com/other/green-living/onyx-stainless-steel-tumbler

Instead of a sippy cup (his pediatrician recommended drinking through straw over getting hooked on sippy cups...we've mostly used it for smoothies):  http://www.amazon.com/Thermos-Phases-Stainless-Bottle-Yellow/dp/B00318CO6G/

and now that he's bigger: http://www.amazon.com/Kinderville-Bigger-Bites-Divided-Plates/dp/B003YZUZOE/

There's lots of stainless steel flatware made for kids.