Need to Find a New Kind of Sippy Cup, and Ideas?

I would start only allowing drinks in the dining room. So he's not carrying it around all the time. When he's thirsty, he can come and get a drink, but the cup stays on the table when he's not drinking.

When he's spitting it out, he's done and doesn't get any more. When he's playing with the cup, chewing, shaking water out, he's done.

Stop letting him keep the cup all the time. Once you teach him that the cup is for drinking and not for playing, he won't tear them up anymore.

First Years make sippy cups that don't require a valve. We bought ours at Walmart or Target, but this is the cup (there are lots of designs):

http://www.amazon.com/The-First-Years-Insulated-Designs/d...

They really are spill-proof. So easy to use, because you really just have a cup and a top.

The spill-proofness does wear out faster than Playtex and Gerber, but we still love them.

Babies as young as 9 months old are capable of drinking out of small plastic cups without spilling.

It may be time to teach your son how to drink out of a regular old cup. I've never used sippy cups with my kids, and I've never had problems with them making giant messes. I do also require that they drink at the table or in the kitchen.

Julie and Christy Lee have the right idea, I think. My oldest loved to play with her sippy cups, and we ended up just getting small plastic cups and giving her maybe 1" of water at a time. She had to sit down in the kitchen to drink it. If she dumped it out, I took the cup away. Once it wasn't fun anymore, she stopped playing with it and just asked for water when she was thirsty.

Have you tried the Take & Toss straw cups? He'll be able to take the straw out, but won't be able to pour quite as much as he would with an open cup. At first the lids are really tight. And when they get looser (usually from kids opening them with their teeth) they are not very expensive to replace with a new tight lid. I would just let him be in wet clothes until you have to leave the house.

My son is 22.5 months. I give him fruit smoothie (no added sugar and made with either whole milk or unsweetened whole milk yogurt) in those Starbucks cold straw cup. He never tried to pour it out and he cannot pull out the straw because the straw is ridged at the end. I only give him half to 3/4 of a cup so even if he accidentally tips it over it won't spill. Once he sets it down, I take it away.

It's a bit tricky giving him water. He likes to drink out of my glass water bottle (just a clean recycled Snapple bottle) with a straw most of the time and pull out the straw. I have to watch him closely when he demands to hold it himself. When he would cooperate, I'd hold the bottle. If he EVER spits his water out then I immediately take away the bottle. No second chances and he won't get it the next time he wants it.

I also save certain reusable togo cups that he seems fond of from restaurants we go to and rotate through them too. The rotation seems to give him that sense of newness and he seems less inclined to play with them. Oddly. All of them have a lid. I particularly like the CPKids one because the lid is tighter. The biodegradeable ones break down easily.

You just have to be firm and strict to not encourage him to play with his water. Though letting him explore and discover things on his own is awesome, some things aren't toys and he has to learn. "Eventually" they do learn but if you don't want to keep cleaning/wiping, you have to discipline him.