Review on Munchkin Click Lock Weighted Straw Cup, 7 Ounce, Blue/Green, Pack Of 2 by Courtney Johnson

My 20-month-old triplets use different straw cups during the day, but for their milk before bed we use these. After 14 months of using them (in addition to a ton of other types of straw cups) and since we own 15 of the cups, I am an expert on these.First the good --The weight makes the straw stay in the liquid, even if the child is reclined. When babies are learning to drink from them and tip the cups sideways or even upside down, they still work.-They are fairly easy to drink from - there are many reviews saying people's kids (or even adults) have trouble drinking from them, but that has not been our experience. We've had many straw cups that are harder.-They have handles.-They have a lid to keep the straw clean and prevent spillage - I guess it's a nice touch, but in our house it was just another thing to clean, plus the kids would close the lid and freak out that they couldn't drink so we took all the lids off and shoved them in the back of a drawer, never to be seen again. Still, for some people it might be crucial to using this cup on the go.-The kids like them. For whatever reason, they drink more milk from these cups than they do from other cups, which is the only reason they're still around.Okay, the bad --Liquid bubbles out the straw, especially if the liquid is cold when you put it in. As it warms, the pressure builds in the cup and the liquid is forced out. This means that even a cup sitting upright will often develop a pool of liquid around it and if the cup is on its side, it will leak a lot. (They have tried to address this issue with an update to the cup which I'll discuss later in this review.)-Pressure builds up if your kid never takes his mouth off the straw, making it harder and harder to drink. It's easy to release the pressure by squeezing the straw, but you have to get it out of your kid's mouth first. (This is another issue they tried to resolve in the update discussed below.)-They are a pain in the butt to clean. Mainly this is because of the flexible straw. They include a tiny brush to push through the straw, which you have to do, a dishwasher will not properly clean these straws. In addition to being time consuming, if you're not careful you run the risk of poking the brush through the side of the straw and making a hole. There are also two small nubs just below the threading for the lid on top of the places where you can see that the cup flares. The purpose of these nubs is to click when the lid is on properly, letting you know it's on right. But why they didn't make these nubs solid is beyond me because milk/juice/etc can get into these nubs and get gross. I didn't notice at first that they weren't getting clean - you have to really pay attention when using a bottle brush because of the angle. It's just an added annoyance.-On some of the cups the straw is looser than others. This means that on some of them the kids can poke the straw down into the cup, creating a hold through which they gleefully pour their drink onto the floor. Only some of the cups are like this, which is odd.You might have noticed I wrote quite a bit more in the bad section than the good, so why do we still use them? Well, most straw cups we've tried are sadly worse. The kids like these, they're used to them, and we have a lot so we'd have to invest money into switching. We're basically just trying to stick it out until they're old enough to do better with a plain old cup with a straw in it.Okay, as promised, a word on the update to these cups. Recently they released this cup with a valve in the lid. It is achieved by making a hold in the lid and adding a valve to a flap on the straw, which pops over the hold inside the cup. This - in theory - should prevent the vacuum problem when a kid keeps his mouth on the straw and should allow pressure to equilibrate so the cups don't bubble liquid out the straw. I'm not sure why this didn't occur to them earlier, like when they first designed the cup, but it's out now. Even though we had 12 of the old style, we bought 3 more to try the new style out. And. they weren't the panacea I'd been hoping for. The milk still bubbled out the straw, though not as much. It adds an extra little step to cleaning. The kids, for some reason I can't put my finger on, seem to have more trouble drinking from the newer cups. And one time my son managed to poke on the straw enough that the valve came off the hole in the lid, leading to gleeful shaking of milk into his lap. So it might be an improved design, but it's certainly not a reason to replace all the cups we have and many of the negatives still apply.So in summary - There are a lot of little issues with this cup, but the bottom line is that the kids like them and use them well. We all know that keeping the kids happy is key so until they seem equally happy with a different cup, we'll keep using these, albeit grudgingly.