How do you clean sippy cup lids? No-spill sippy cups, while wonderful for keeping the inside of your diaper bag and your carpeting clean, are diabolical to get all the scummy milk out of. Especially when found under the couch a few days after they were used.

All the nooks and crannies inside a sippy cup’s valve attract milk, and that milk residue is a perfect breeding ground for germs. And most sippy cups seem like they are designed to be as difficult to clean as possible.

Some types of sippy cups are harder to clean than others. How good the sippy cup is at resisting spills is usually inversely proportional to how easy it is to clean.

The kind that has a lid with a spout, and a separate valve that fits inside it, the ones that don’t dribble, are the some of hardest to clean. The ones with a straw and a neat little flip-top lid are nigh on impossible.  The ones with a spout that pops up and down are reservoirs of gunk.  Disposable sippy cups are a bit easier, but don’t resist leaks as well.

Various mom solutions have been proposed, and the most popular seems to be “put them in the dishwasher and pray”.  Washing on a high temperature will kill any germs in the sippy cups, but won’t necessarily remove all of the milk. Here’s a couple more tips for cleaning those pesky sippy cup lids. Microwave sterilizers and stovetop sterilizers, the same ones you might have had for baby bottles, can also be used to the same end.

If you can’t wash a sippy cup right after it was used, rinse out the lid and valve to remove most of the milk residue to make cleaning easier.

Soaking sippy cup lids before washing loosens most of the milky grime. Then to get it out, dental cleaning brushes are good for getting inside a sippy cup spout and valve. Q tips and pipecleaners work too, or a dishwashing sponge cut into a blunt point that you can wiggle in and wipe the milk out.

Denture cleaning tablets are often proposed as a good way to clean sippy cup lids. This works best if you have a couple of kids at the sippy cup stage, to use the tablets most efficiently you’ll want to clean a big batch of lids at once. Add a couple of tablets to a sinkful of water and sippy cup lids, and let the fizz do the work. Rinse well afterwards.

My favorite brand of sippy cup to wash was Nuby. The flexible spouts flip inside out for easy cleaning and genuinely don’t leak. They are not perfect – they are just a bit too similar to bottles for my liking though, and toddlers with teeth can chew through the spouts, so not the best for babies making the transition from bottle to sippy.

So right now I’m using and washing the disposable types of sippy cup, and being extra vigilant to keep them the right way up in the car and checking under the couch for any stray cups.

What is your favorite type of sippy cup, and have you got any cleaning tips to share?

Like many parents, I’ve been concerned about recent news stories that tell about chemicals like melamine in baby formula and chemicals like BPA, which leech from plastic in baby bottles.

I was extremely frustrated when I learned that some breast pumps actually have parts which contain BPA too.  For example, the cups, bottles and storage containers that come with the Nursing Necessity breast pump line  may contain BPA.  I say “may” because Playtex has committed to phase out BPA from it’s products by the end of 2008.

I’ve been researching the subject and I found out that Playtex is offering free samples of BPA free bottles.  The free offer is good only while supplies last, so hurry and get your sample!

Although Playtex has agreed to stop using BPA in their products by the end of this year,  many of their products were already BPA free.   Playtex products that are BPA free should have a green icon that appears on the product declaring that it’s BPA free.

I appreciate the fact that this company has taken steps to remove this chemical from their products and also that they make it easy for a mom to find safe products.  There is no guess work at all: simply look for the BPA free icon.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says that it plans to study the effects of BPA in depth in the future.  Currently, the FDA says that BPA’s are safe.  According to experts, the FDA bases this on the results of two studies done by other groups.  These studies, which were funded by chemical industries, claim that BPA’s are safe.

The National Toxicology Program has determined from it’s research that BPA’s, even in small amounts, can cause changes in brain development and behavior in infants and small children.  BPA’s are most easily ingested when chemicals from plastic containers seep into food and drink.

I became concerned about this when I saw an article that the bottles that I’d used for my son had a high concentration of BPA’s.  I began to try to find products without the chemical and was shocked at the lack of choices I found.  Many companies that made infant bottles weren’t even forthcoming with information it seemed.

Several months have passed and while strolling down the baby aisle last week, I noticed several products that actually announced that their product was BPA free.  I bought several BPA free products that day for my son.

Call me cynical, but I don’t buy the FDA’s position that this chemical is safe.  I’m grateful that I now have choices for safer products to purchase for my son.

Do you seek out products that advertise that they are BPA free? Do you agree with the FDA that this chemical is safe?

Just when you thought (maybe) BPA was safe, we find out that the FDA did not include important evidence in its report.

It turns out that the report’s thumbs-up for BPA was based on studies paid for by the plastics industry! It also conveniently ignored information from some independent studies.

The short story is that the FDA said BPA (a chemical used to harden plastic for products like baby bottles) was safe at the levels typically ingested by babies. However, the conclusion may be wrong on a few different levels. For one, they underestimated how much BPA babies take in, especially considering they may get it from several sources, not just bottles. But it also seems that BPA can be harmful at levels 10 times lower than they reported.

The National Toxicology Program, also a government group, said last month that there IS concern about how BPA alters brain and prostate development, as well as behavior in children and fetuses.

Not only that, but a new report just traced a link between exposure to BPA and resistance to chemotherapy treatment.

Currently, it is suggested that plastics #1,2,4, and 5 are safer choices than others (look in the recycling triangle for the number). I don’t like to join a hysteria bandwagon, and like “they” say–we survived despite our parents’ ignorance. But when it comes to things like this, I think it’s better to be safe than sorry. What will it hurt me to buy plastics that are BPA-free?

I’m sitting here at 9 o’clock at night, two days before my due date, trying to unpack some more of my baby shower gifts. I received some baby bottles that I was very if-fy about. Although they’re cute, they’re made from #7 plastic, the kind that may (or may not) contain BPA. They’re going back to the store first thing tomorrow.

I also noted a recommendation (albeit, from 2007) from the Baby Bargains authors to stay away from older Dr. Brown’s Natural Flow bottles. I just received four from Freecycle. Those, unfortunately, will get tossed.

I received as a gift some adorable melamine bowls with one of my favorite characters on them. But they are manufactured from melamine, and made in China. ‘Isn’t melamine the stuff in formula that was killing infants?’ I asked my husband.

Without a definitive answer regarding if this is the same melamine, he sent me to Google, where I found this blog talking about the potential hazards of melamine. The author’s points make sense, and the bowls will, sadly, go back to the store, as well. I haven’t even begun to check out all the new nipples and pacifiers to make sure they’re made of silicon.

Then I wonder if I’m taking ‘new mom paranoia’ too far? I grew up with melamine bowls and BPA-laden plastic bottles and managed to survive (as I’m sure many BOL readers did!) Pregnant women drank and smoked back then, too, not that I’m advocating it.

A few more experienced moms laughed at me when I called crib bumpers ‘baby killers,’ but there’s a warning printed right on the crib. It’s irresponsible, in my opinion, for stores to continue selling them. And it definitely leads to awkward moments while you plaster a smile on your face and thank someone for the gift;which you know was well-meant and extremely generous!

I don’t even want to think about baby formula and the challenges moms who use it face today. I’m holding out hope that I won’t need to supplement with formula. Originally, my decision to breast feed was financially-based, and, as I did more research, I realized it is also the right decision for my baby’s health. Now, it’s a matter of not wanting to drive myself crazy checking for recalls and staying up-to-date on all the news reports on more than a professional level.

Fortunately, there are several resources out there for moms to easily find information on bottle and formula safety. I recently came across this site and it’s helped me sort through a lot of the information. Of course, I never trust just one single source off the Internet; I always research in several places, follow links, and then try to make my own decision.

Which brings us back to my question: Where does a new mom draw the line? There’s got to be a happy medium between tossing all the plastic (and, while I’m at it, canned food my husband and I eat!) in the house because of the latest alarmist study, or raising an infant the same way people have been doing for decades, with disregard to the hidden dangers around us.

Experienced moms, how do you know when you’re overreacting to the latest study and when you’re making a sound decision that will hopefully positively impact your child’s future health?

Milk always came very easily from my breasts when the time came for my baby to latch on. There was more than one instance where the milk flowed out like a mini faucet and my husband stared transfixed while I giggled at the amazing things my body could do. On the other hand, my milk production seemed to come to a screeching halt once I brought out a pump.

I was lucky to be able to stay home with both of my babies so technically I didn’t need to pump. It would have been nice, though, to be able to leave for more than an hour at a time when the babies were young without my husband calling me on my cell phone and frantically telling me to come home because the baby was trying to nurse on anything she could get her mouth on.

I tried to pump. When my breasts were engorged the pumping came pretty naturally and helped me to feel a little less like my breasts were going to explode. Once that was over I still tried to pump once a night just to build up a little stockpile in the freezer just in case we ever needed some extra or if my baby ever took to a bottle.

Then my husband got orders to Iraq. I was home with a five month old all by myself and was scared out of my mind. Every time I tried to pump there was barely a trickle, and never enough to put into the freezer. I know that nursing moms are supposed to relax and think about their babies when trying to pump breastmilk, but I guess I was having relaxation issues.

I gave up on pumping. I never liked it anyhow, and I guess I was just one of those moms who never got the hang of it. If I could have pumped like a champ then I’m sure I would have had more time to myself because the babies could have enjoyed some feedings from other people via bottle, but it just never happened for me.

Let me clarify one thing: I’m not against the use of bottles to feed babies. I know that some women have no choice but to feed their babies with formula, and I know that other women pump their breastmilk and use bottles for when they’re away from their babies. I’m not here to judge anyone for the decisions they make when feeding their babies as long as their decision was made in an informative and loving fashion.

No, I’m not against bottles. Do you want to know who is against bottles? Both my babies, that’s who.

I nursed my daughter exclusively for two weeks and then introduced a bottle of my milk. We waited two weeks because that’s what the books told us to do. We did everything the books instructed; I left the room while my husband calmly tried to feed her from the bottle. As I sat in the living room listening, first I heard her fussing. Then I heard her crying. Pretty soon, she was the maddest two-week old you’d ever heard.

We tried several more times, and each time it was no dice. We tried different bottles with varying nipple sizes and textures. We tinkered with the temperature of the milk. No matter what we tried, it didn’t work. She wasn’t buying the concept that my milk could come out of a bottle. After many frustrating tries we decided the effort wasn’t worth it, and I would just be the Amazingly Available Lactator until she eventually weaned.

When my son was born, we didn’t even bother to try bottles. I already knew that I could get away without them, so why go through all the stress? Yes, it was a huge hassle sometimes to not be able to get away for more than a few hours at a time, but I just considered myself lucky to not have to work outside the home because that would have been a nightmare. I know some women who have nannies bring their kids in to their work every few hours for a nursing session, but that can’t be easy.

Besides, I never liked pumping anyhow.

Recent studies have found that the chemical BPA, also founds in other plastics, has some retailers pulling products from shelves. Many eco-conscious Americans actively use hard plastic refillable containers to carry water and other liquids in in order to help keep the number of disposable water bottles out of landfills. These types of containers have seen a sharp spike in consumer purchase, especially seen in stores on the west coast. Earlier this year the mayor of San Francisco put an order into effect that banned plastic water bottles inside the city limits to help cut down on the environmental impact being felt all over the world by this type of un-biodegradable waste accumulation.

While this has been a good step for the environment, residents of San Fransisco complain that the tap water and public water supply contains added fluoride supposed to help slow tooth decay but has been shown scientifically to be mostly ineffective and harmful to health, arguing that this added chemical is a waste of tax payer’s dollars. Because of many residents not wanting to consume water straight from the tap many have turned to in-home water supplies such as deep rock and Sparkletts machine and have turned to the refillable plastic containers put out by a variety of companies, most notably including those at Nalgene. The recent findings of the hormone copying chemical BPA has retailers and consumers concerned and many stores have pulled these and other related products from shelves. While there has not been a national or full state ban on these type of materials, many individually owned businesses have already pulled products. California is currently discussing a state-wide ban on these affected products and if passed would be the first ban on a chemical in the world.

In response to the findings of this chemical in other products such as baby bottles and children’s drinking cups, green companies are encouraging parents to pay attention and check online sources before buying such products. While green alternatives can be a little bit pricier and harder to find, sources say that plastic companies are working hard to remove this chemical and are turning towards developing their own green products for mass production in the upcoming year. For now, moms concerned about plastic baby bottles should do their research and a good option to help reduce this risk is the drop in disposable liner products that are found in mostly all retail stores and are put out by Playtex, Evenflo, and other store-brand generic alternatives.

For more information and sourcing material please visit: http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/1198311904271120.xml&coll=7

and please visit this site for information on this issue ad many others: http://www.organicconsumers.org/school/bpa041505.cfm