Dr. Sears Smoothie Sipper, Green, 18 Months

I bought this for my 14 month old son for smoothies.........a great way for him to feed him self & cheaper than the organic pouches.

He fell in love with this straight away! He would do a dance & a jig every time he saw it........He loved the smoothies/ fruit blend.

It is very easy to hold. it holds a good volume.it is what i expected. I knew that if it was turned upside down it would leak as it is not spill proof.

Two-three weeks on, after using it every day, The straw is broken from my son bitting on it. I have searched for replacement straws but not available.

So with the broken straw......it is now leaking more than every before. It is just the straw that is the big issue. I wish there could be some replacements.

So as a result I have gone & found an alternative that serves the same purpose less leaks. If Dr. Sears came out with replacement straws I would have it up & running again.

I bought this for my 17 month old son who will only drink through a straw. I thought that this would be good for a smoothie rather than milk as the straw is very wide to allow for a thicker liquid. The design of the bottle was perfectly shaped but my son worked out very quickly...like the first sip!! He figured out that the straw could be taken out of the bottle and then used as a toy. Thus rendering the bottle useless. I tried to tape it down to make it stay but he figured this out too. I couldn't make it permanent by gluing it as this would make it impossible to clean. I found others to be better.

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I like this cup, it's cute. Small, as everyone are saying, but just the right size for toddler. Convenient to hold.

I didn't like that my toddler chewed the straw right away, maybe if it was from some harder or softer material, would be better.

In any ways, this cup didn't encourage her to drink smoothie, so it's just another cup in our collection, nothing crazy about it.

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Amazon sent me an old version of this smoothie cup. I have ordered 5 or 6 of these and have always received the thick straw that has the end on it so it does not come out of the top of the cup. This last cup had a thin straw with no end to it. Crummy!

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I originally bought this item almost a year ago. One of the things I loved about this cup was that the straw had a lip on it to prevent my son from pulling it out of the cup. I recently re-ordered the cup because the straw was in bad shape my son had bitten on it enough times that it was ruined. There are no replacement straws available but I loved this cup so much for fruit shakes and smoothies that I considered it to be one of our essential items. I was so disappointed when it arrived because they changed the straw no lip anymore ... which I thought was the whole purpose of this being a great sippy cup for babies.

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Playtex Flip Top Snacker with Twist 'N Click, Color May Vary

After my disappointment with the Munchkin Snack Catcher, I searched the internet for alternatives. I found the Munchie Mug Top Rated Spill Resistant Snack Cup for Toddlers. Ages 1 to 4 years. Made in AMERICA. BPA and phthalate free. FDA compliant materials. Blue Top with the screw lid was what I was looking for and was really tempted to purchase one, but was deterred by the steep $17 price tag for ONE mug-and that doesn't even include shipping! Good thing I am frugal and delayed my gratification. I went to Babies R Us today to check out their buy 1 get one 50% sale on baby feeding items, and stumbled upon these Playtex Flip Top Snackers. MUCH cheaper alternative to the Munchie Mug with the same concept. Plus it also has a handle which the Munchie Mug does not have. With the sale at BRU, I paid around $6.50 (includes tax) for TWO Platex Flip Top Snackers-which is almost a 1/3 of ONE Munchie Mug (without tax and shipping). But even without the sale, one of these Playtex Flip Top Snackers is still only 1/4 the price of one Munchie Mug.

Pros:

1) Twist and lock lid: no more worries of my toddler pulling off the lid while taking his hand out of the mug or him pulling the lid off on his own and food spilling all over the floor or car seats as a result.

2) Stay fresh lid which you can hear "snap" when you put it on the top and you can twist it to keep on the base so you don't have to worry about losing the lid.

3) Affordable (1/4 the price of a Munchie Mug)-same price as other not so good snack catcher cups so you can buy multiple ones and not break the bank.

Cons:

1) Sometimes if you try to put the stay fresh lid on or take it off too hastily it comes off, but you just snap it right back onto the handle if that happens.

2) If the stay fresh lid is not attached to the bottom of the base, then you don't have a full handle and would need to attach it to a stroller, carseat, highchair, etc with a leash like BooginHead SippiGrip, Blue/Green/White which can wrap around the cup instead of one like the Baby Buddy Secure-A-Toy, Navy/Blue which needs to loop through a handle.

3) Still not completely mess proof. If you have crumbs or small pieces and your child turns this cup over and shakes it, the crumbs will fall out as might the small pieces. But definitely much less messier than if the entire lid came off, and the shaking doesn't happen too often with my child.

Updated 9-30-12: A potential consumer asked me to test out these snack cups with smaller snacks such as Cheerios. What I've discovered is the following:

The slots on the lid where your child reaches in is graduated. It is larger towards the rim and narrows towards the center. If your child is a shaker (likes to shake the snack mugs upside down) then there is potential for the Cheerios to fall out from the large end of the slots. Cheerios are just small enough and the slot is just large enough at the rim that if you shake the cup like a salt shaker then smaller Cheerios can fall out from the larger end. This is not an issue with the Munchkins lids as the slots are consistently slim. Thanks for helping me find a flaw to these mugs! But my son is not a shaker (at least not upside down) so for me it would not really be an issue for me. But because I know that Cheerios is a popular snack (this is what I started out with with my son as well), this could be an issue for many. Therefore I have subtracted a star bring down my final rating to a 4 out 5. I've posted a photo with a Cheerio that is not large enough to fall through the slot on its own sitting in the large end of the slot to give an idea of how large the largest end of the slot is.

With my first child I used the Munchkin snack cups because that it all they had at the time but this Playtex Flip Top is a definite improvement. The Munchkin snack cup doesn't come with a lid so your snacks will go stale in your diaper bag and you have to remember to empty an refill. I love that this comes with a snap on lid and keeps everything fresh. The best feature of this cup is that it's a twist on lid so my child can no longer pull the top off and dump all of the snacks!

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We love these for our son! We started off with the Munchkin brand snack cups, but after repeated instances of snacks all over the floor and car seat, we found these. He could get the lid off of the Munchkin ones too easily. The tops of these screw on. I'm sure he'll figure that out soon, but for now, these work so great. AND they have a lid. I don't know how many times I dumped snacks out of the old snack cups because they'd gotten stale. The lid on these just pops up so you can rotate it and snaps securely on the bottom of the cup. It stays attached to the perforated screw top so you don't have to keep track of the lid. I will say that my son has figured out how to rip the lid off, but most of the time, it stays attached without him messing with it. I don't know why I don't see more kids with these. They are the best out there!

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I've a few different versions of this product and this one is by far the best. My 2 year old son loves to carry it around and feed his 1 year old brother goldfish crackers. He has to work to get the snacks out, which is a good thing or else he tends to grab hand fulls that just end up smashed on the carpet. The game changer for this product is the lid. The way it flips to snap onto the bottom and easily moves to the top. It does come disconnected a bit easily and if I leave it on while my kids have the cup I end up picking it up off the floor or digging it out of the couch. So if they are using the cup in the house I remove the lid and save it for when we leave home or for storage. Speaking of storage! The lid is also nice that I can store snacks in the cup without them getting stale. Overall great product. I sadly lost my first one and have since purchased two more, one for each of my little ones. I was disappointed on the colors. I received one blue/yellow and one pink/green. With girls any color goes, but with having boys I would have preferred not having a pink one.

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I like that this snack cup has a sealing lid. However, the lid is hard to seal and then it does not stay sealed. The grooves to hold the two pieces needs to be deeper.

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Mustachifier - The Cowboy Mustache Pacifier

I bought one for my nephew and wound up buying a few more for friends because they were so cute!

Can't stop laughing. Such a cute idea. Great gift. My 15 month hasn't taken it out since I put it in an hour ago. So adorable. Lots of laughs on the afternoon walk today :)

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We got this Stachifier after seeing my little one's cousin with one. We couldn't resist. Not only do we get a kick out of seeing him in it, but he loves seeing himself in the mirror with it. He just cracks up! I will be purchasing the other styles for sure!

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Great quality! Super cute & we got a ton of compliments on it! I would highly recommend one of these to be unique & have a little fun with your baby!!

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I'm 64 in a few months, and sometimes a BAD habit is GOOD to break.

Soon as I SAW this, I just knew that my thumb-suckin' days were OVER!

Thank GOD... and Amazon!

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Earth's Best Organic Teething Biscuits, 4.6 Ounce Boxes (Pack of 12)

We're pretty avid Whole Foods shoppers now, and have felt pretty good about purchasing organic baby food for our now 9.5 month old son. Earth's Best brand has been popular with him, so we bought these teething biscuits recently. Today, he could have died eating one.

Although I'm an anesthesiologist, and half of my job is to "protect people's airways", one needn't be a medical professional to realize why these biscuits are dangerous. Most babies get their front teeth (upper and lower incisors) first, long before molars arrive. So, they're limited to biting with their front teeth, and only mashing with their gums (where their molars will someday erupt). These biscuits are great for the first 5 minutes, baby happily chomping away on the hard surface. Then, they soften. Pretty soon, baby bites clean through the biscuit with their front teeth (size of chunk depending on how far they had inserted it into their mouth at the time), and the chunk that remains in their mouth is WAY too hard to mash with gums. Baby has nothing to do but try to spit it out (difficult at this age), or swallow it whole (if lucky enough for it to be a small piece), or have it completely occlude their airway. We were able to quickly fish one large chunk out with our fingers, but our poor soon started gagging, tearing, and wretched once before something resolved (still don't know if he swallowed a large piece or if it ended up on ground), but not before we scooped him up and tried to knock it loose with some back blows.

In any case, although the kids may love these, all it would take would be one infant death from choking to prompt a recall or something. Why risk your own kid?

I gave my son one of these and it broke into small pieces in his mouth, within about 1 min. and he began choking. I had to assist him in order to remove it and it was very frightening for all involved. These are just way to easy for babies to break down.

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be very careful with this product. I gave it to my 11.5 month old and she choked instantly! 3 pieces broke off in her mouth right away and I had to sweep them out of her mouth. Unfortunately, she still choked and threw up. :(

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I was going to write about how much my son LOVES Earth's Best Teething Biscuits, but I thought he could just show you how much he LOVES them in this video. The biscuits do get soft after some time, but we just break of the soft piece and give him back the rest of the biscuit. I would advise not to give these biscuits to a child until they've learned to chew puffs with their gums, so even if they were able to break of a piece themselves, they know to chew on it before swallowing. My son is 7 months old in this video by the way.

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I love how they come in individual packages. They taste good. I know because I tried one. They're about as sweet as a graham cracker but as hard as a ginger snap. Like everyone else said, they do get goopy, but babies are messy and the sooner you come to terms with that, the better you'll be as a mom! Most importantly, they're not made of horrifying bleached flour or high-fructose corn syrup (still don't know what that is...). These are the best, so stop wasting your time looking!

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Lunch Skins Snack Size Bag, 4 x 6.5.

I use these in my children's lunches instead of hundreds of ziplock baggies each year. They're pretty simple, and could be easily made yourself, but when would you ever sit to do that. They go through the dishwasher well, the velcro closure holds, designs are nice. They sometimes hold colors, like orange from cheetos, but wash out well with a good gentle scrub. I would buy these again, and just might. I haven't had them long enough to attest to longevity, but they look & seem like they will hold up well worth the price, and Im doing a little part for the Earth, while saving a little on those plastic bags.

I bought this and now love it! I had never used these types of things before but find it so easy to keep around and pack stuff for my lunch at work. I use waayy less disposable bags and infact need to buy more reusable bags soon! I love the bright red cheery color. They're easy to hand wash or put in the dishwasher!

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I have four boys, and when I consider how many snack & sandwich sized baggies we go through...well, these turn out to be a great value. Use it for more than one school year, and you SAVE money.

Not to mention, they are easily washable -I've never put them in the dishwasher -usually, I just rinse or use a sudsy cloth to quickly wash them out. They hang out in the dish drain to dry.

Trust me, these are easy to use & worth it.

Velcro works nicely.

Fabric is great...NO initial stink or anything.

I sew (costumes, upholstery, draperies, etc), and it is not easy to find food-grade fabric to make these yourself.

This fabric is like the cloth piping bags, and the designs are fun.

Save the Earth & some dough (in the long run, anyway)...buy 'em!

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The idea of a reusable bag is great but these are really only useful for things like pretzels or Goldfish. There's not a lot of room in there so you can't pack it in like you can a regular plastic bag. I would say if you are only looking for something for a dry and small snack, these will work.

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I bought this to use for my 5 year olds snack bag for school. There is no way this will fit anything but a few small carrot sticks. It is barely insulated. It was very cute but in no way worth $8.00. This is the quality of something you would use as a give-away or get for free.

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Earth's Best Organic 2nd Bananas, 4 Ounce Jars (Pack of 12)

I usually don't care about organic etc...but these are priced competitively with non-organic baby foods, so I picked them up. Compared to other brands, these bananas are ever so slightly pinkish, I think it's the fact that they're all natural. Regardless, my 4 month old son loves them mixed with a little baby cereal.

We have been giving our daughter organic from the beginning and I can see how healthy and well she is growing. We always get a great report from the doctor about how great she is growing and how she looks. It makes me happy to know that we made a good choice in going organic.

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Beechnut is better than Earth's Best due to the added ingredients E.B. has in it. I like NATURAL AND NON-added ingredients.

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What's not to love about this product? From their website, the ingredients are :Organic bananas, water, citric acid, ascorbic acid (vitamin C). The ease of purchasing on line, together with free shipping and a discounted price through Subscribe and Save, makes this a wonderful option. No more spilling tiny jars of baby food all over the place from a grocery cart to home. And I saved money over the single jar price.

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Eco-Friendly Simple Wishes Honeysuckle Breastmilk Storage Bags (25, 50, 75, 100 or 300 Pack)

Being that breastmilk bags are storing liquid gold, I wanted to use the best and I thought Lansinoh was the best, especially since it seemed as though so many mothers were using them. So I used the Lansinoh breastmilk bags for months and had over 500 frozen in storage and didn't have any issues until I started to thaw them. 1 out of 5 were leaking from the bottom corner seam line! I decided to try Nuk and Honeysuckle bags because they had a much thicker seam line. They also seemed to have a much thicker, better quality plastic. If I had to rate them I would say that Lansinoh would have a "poor" rating, Nuk "better" and Honeysuckle "best".

Why is Honeysuckle the best?

-Thicker, more durable plastic

-Heavy-duty double seals (these seals will not leak or burst open)

-Side seam allowance was the thickest, I would say about 10mm compared to Nuk's 8mm and Lansinoh's paltry 2mm.

-Bottom seam is ribbed and reinforced

-Tamper-resistant top

-Writing area is in white so you can easily see what is written unlike Nuk's which is clear

-I also like that they print some very useful tips on the outer bag like the milk storage guidelines and reminders to be gentle with your frozen milk since they are more fragile once they are solid.

I've also posted some detailed photos with notes.

None of the bags leaked before I froze them, while the milk was still in liquid form. I haven't thawed any of the frozen Nuk or Honeysuckle bags yet so I can't say if they leak. However, just by comparing the quality of the plastics and the thickness and reinforcements of the seams, I don't anticipate any leaky bags from the Honeysuckle brand. I will update my review once I start thawing them.

I am an exclusively pumping mom, so I got to know my way around BM storage very quickly. I have tried all kinds of different brands of bottle and bags. THESE ARE THE BEST BY FAR. I tried Lansinoh--their bags are flimsy and fragile. Medela is not much better, and they only have one zipper that is so hard to close if you get a tiny bit of milk in there. It's only saving grace is that I can pump right into them. But they only hold 5 oz. Simple Wishes holds 6 oz, and is STURDY. The bag is thicker and stronger, and once you get some milk in there, it will stand up by itself so you can measure and not over fill. Double zipper means double protection against leaks. I freeze them flat and then I can move them around and position them wherever in the freezer. No leaks.

Love these bags and so glad I got another box free with purchase of pumping bra!

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I've tried a few different storage bags (Lanisoh, Medela, Nuk) and so far, this one is the best. I have found a few leaks once in a while, so it's NOT leak-proof, but which bags are? I typically freeze between 6-7 oz each time and lay it flat, which makes storing it easier. Although it's a little annoying that I have to tear off the tops before opening, I'm reassured that each bag is sterile.

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Not only are these storage bags cheaper than most of the other options, but they are extremely well made. I haven't had any complaints yet.

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I started out with the Medela bags. They were ok, and my husband bought me two more packs of Medela storage bags, but then I typed "best breast milk storage bags" into Yahoo and found rave reviews about these Simple Wishes Honysuckle bags. I returned the second still-unopened pack of Medela bags and got these instead. I haven't been disappointed. They're high quality and more flexible/pliable than the Medela bags. They're pre-sterilized, and they store 6 ounces instead of 5 ounces like the Medela bags. And the best part? They cost 1/2 as much. I get 100 of these bags for $20 instead of paying $25 for only 50 Medela bags. So it's win-win. You get a better bag, in my opinion, for less than half the price.

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Klean Kanteen 12 oz Stainless Steel Water Bottle (Kid Kanteen Sippy Cap in Bright Green) - All Colo

My 1 year old is glad to have his own kanteen just like everyone else in our family.

I really like these things. We are using the green spout it came with. It works; I encourage him to use the ring side down near his chin because it is a little strangely designed. It gets in your noses way if you drink through spout ring side up. Hope that makes sense. In the past we have used the attachment neck piece that adapts the aventi spouts. I prefer these; just haven't gotten around to replacing a lost one.

My wife and I love these kanteens for our little guy. He throws them on the ground and they hold up no problem. A few dents here and there, and maybe some paint chipped on the bottom. But it adds character. We have them in many different colors. We even use them for our selfs for a quick drink of water or whatever. With the changeable tops, these kanteens will see many, many miles.

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i love klean kanteen's lightweight stainless water bottles, so i was quick to buy a replacement for my son's 12 ounce sippy when we lost it. but the lid on the new one has a loop that mashes my little boy's nose in while he tries to get his mouth around the sippy spout. i'm going to buy a replacement lid without the loop so we can still use the bottle.

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I have a 40oz black klean kanteen and sure it looks beat up but I have had it for 5 or so years and have saved many plastic bottles. My 2 year old son always wants to drink out of dads water bottle so I got him a miniature version of mine. He loves it. He drank 2 full bottles right away. The valve inside of the lid works well and has not leaked during a violent shaking from my son. If you can get over the fact that the black coating will chip off or get scratched if you drop it (adds character) then this bottle is for you.

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Gerber Baby Cereal

I use this to thicken my baby's formula for her reflux. It mixes quickly and easily. She loves it! Never had any problems with nipples getting clogged and she digests it with zero issues. Highly recommended!

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Sprout Organic Baby Food, Roasted Apples & Blueberries, Stage 2, 3.5-Ounce Pouch

You never know with some of the pouch foods what type of consistency you are going to get. This is nice and thick stuff! I think it tastes good and so does my baby.

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