5 reasons to teach your baby to drink out of a shot glass

If your small human has started to progress beyond bottles, welcome to a mysterious world:

where cups cost $12+ each,
and you’ll probably need multiple,
because there are only so many times they can get thrown on the floor
– or licked by the dog – 
before you admit that you really just have to wash them
(yes, right now, during this meal),
and that number of times is likely to greatly decrease during a meal,
when you just want to eat
but instead you’re washing a $12 cup four times.
And those $12 cups nearly always come with lids,
lids that will break or get lost or are really hard to fit in the dishwasher,
all while your little one absolutely hates the lids anyway,
and so she rips them off
and this time just throws them straight to the dog,
who eats them,
(not that that’s ever happened in our household before).

Here’s a hack that I learned out of desperation and necessity after losing our second or third cup lid to our omnivorous dog:

When starting your little one on cups, teach them to drink out of a shot glass.

Here are my top five reasons why you should teach your baby to drink out of a shot glass:

1. Shot glasses are the perfect size for small hands. Lots of things children interact with aren’t sized to fit their hands, which can be frustrating for everyone. But a one-ounce cup is perfect for a beginning drinker (of water, to be clear!).
   
2. Shot glasses are weighted at the bottom. As a result, they are harder to tip over, which is exactly what you want for someone who is just learning how to pick cups up and set them down. This results in less spillage.
   
3. Shot glasses – at least, standard shot glasses – are really hard to break. They’re made to withstand frat parties; they can easily survive a tumble from a high chair or an angry throw across the room.
   
4. Shot glasses are easy to find. They’re available at every big box store, and you can easily find ones with fun sayings or classy patterns, whatever floats your boat. There’s even a pretty good chance you have one lying around, right? And if not…
   
5. Shot glasses are WAY CHEAPER than baby cups. You can find them at garage sales for $.50 or in Buy Nothing groups for free. In an age when anything made for children costs far more than the equivalent thing made for adults, small cups shouldn’t cost you $12 a pop. And they don’t have to, if you just turn to shot glasses.

Do you have a great parenting hack for helping kids use tools to eat or drink? Comment below!