Too Many Dirty Cups!

I was at a house with a lot of kids. The mom put tape(or anything you like) with the kids names on the counter. The kids then put there cups on the tape and that way they knew which cup was theirs and they only used one a day.

You need to mark their cups. Pick the one they like the best and then for the older ones write their names on them. Even if they can't read, they can recognize that is their cup.

Use a permanent marker to write them and then they each get one cup each day and that is all. They have to go find it if you let them take them out of the kitchen.

Try it, I might work. mb

Hi,
I love all the advice!! I have a cabinet with cubby holes in it. They all have there own special cubby with there name on it. I put out a new water bottle every day and wash them or throw them out that night. I know they are clean and everything is put away and able to be found. I also put snacks, vitamins, pictures of there chores, and other fun things in there. They love there own special place and take great pride in there personal space.

Good Luck!!

I would try to get them each a different colored cup. Then write their name on each of their cups OR put a sticker of their favorite character on their cup. They can then identify it by color and name/picture. You could even make stickers with your kids photos on them and put those on the cups...that would be cute!

Hey C.:

you are SO awesome! i can barely keep up with my son & niece let alone five of them at once! :)

anyway, i'll have to go with AMY I. on this one. my kidz use the same cup all day.

the kids think it's fun to choose their cup for the day... you might consider initials w/marker...'marks-a-lot' works well & doesn't rub off on their little hands.

kids love to see their names on things & it might be just another tool to help the little ones learn his or her initials.

i know how the little stuff like that can drive a parent nutty if we let it go for too long! :)

good luck on finding your solution.

I am a mother of 4 and we color code our cups per child...they get their favorite color cup and only one per day. I found a set of 5 cups in various colors for 88 cents at Wal-mart and this has been a solution for our busy kitchen.

my girls use the same cup all day unless they have milk in it then they get a new one >they are responabile for where they put it and do good a keeping track

Write the name of each child on each cup if they can read or write a symbol or color on each cup for those who can't read and tell them they will have the same symbol or color each time every day. Tell each child they have to use the same cup/glass all day long for that particular day. We had to do something like this with our granddaughters when they lived with us for 10 1/2 years because of the same problem and we would always run out of glasses. So my husband came up with this idea. It worked well with us. They could get a clean one at the beginning of each day.

L. Cory, Zeeland, MI

C.,
5 kids, wow! Your hands are full! As far as too many cups, I would say that I think you need to lay down some guidelines for your children... the first of which should be 1 cup per day per child. The second of which should be when they are not actively drinking out of their cup, it needs to go back in the fridge so as to keep it cold. (I'm assuming they get new cups because their current drink is luke warm due to being out of the fridge for a couple of hours.) In order to keep this operation running smoothly, I would say each cup should be labeled for each child and there should also be a certain place in the fridge for everyone's daily cup. We keep our children's cups in the fridge in a shallow rectangular tupperware container. Hope this helps!

K. :)

have you considered the disposable dixie bathroom size cups? its more costly, but it wodl save you on dishes. that or you could tell them if they are only drinking water they may use one cup all day long!!!

Hey C.,
I've put our 2 and 4 year old sons' names on their cups with a permanent marker. It helps cut down on the dishwashing and also helps them learn letters. You could also do Dixie Cups. At least, they don't need to be washed and they're recyclable. Good luck!

I have four children and a daycare. We have found that having the children making a coaster with their name on it from fun foam works great. Each child gets one cup a day and when they are done drinking it goes on the coaster on the table. If I am using a sipper cup for a child I put the coaster in the fridge under the sipper to keep them straight in the fridge.

Hope you find something that works for you... one dish weary mom to another.

I think its a great idea to keep the cups at their level to encourage water intake! Kudos to you! You could, though, use dixie cups, perhaps? Disposable, though not taking up too much space.

Just a thought.
~L.

Throw those out. It sounds like they are clutter in your brain and you'll feel better getting rid of them (or most of them). We use water bottles and write our names on them. We put our initials on the lids so they don't get mixed up. My kids love feeling adult-like with a water bottle of their own. They've learned to read and write their own names on them and they can spell everyone else's name too. I refill the water bottles as need (which is considerably less often than with cups) and we get completely new water bottles every other week (making for less garbage than the paper cups). Cups only come out for the occasional juice drink and I wash them then. It works very well for us. Good luck.

Hi! I also have 5 small children, 7,6,6,5,5 when they
were smaller I had designated sippy cups, They all knew
which one was there's. Now they all get small cups and
they each picked out there color cup. If you cant do
that, then put there intial on the bottom of the cup.
Then all the cups go in the dishwasher at the end of the
day. It works great here~~ I hope this helps
J.

We have a lot in common. I too have 5 children, the oldest is also 6 1/2 :)

As for the cups, we also have the restaurant plastic ones. What we did, and this worked really well for us, is to actually take a perm. marker and write their names on some of the cups. Each morning, they pick one of the cups that has their name on it. That is their cup for the day. The are really good about it now. I just rinse it out really quick and wipe it if they've had milk in it. If they want water, they have learned to just take their cup with their name (color coded for the younger ones) and they help themselves.

This solved our filled top shelf in the dishwasher problem and they love that they have their "own" cups.

(You can also get a pack of 4 or 6 cheap plastic cups in different colors from Wal-Mart. I bought a couple packs of those for my younger girls to use so they each have their own color)

K.