Anonymous wrote:I had a regular cup. Metal enamel. No silly cups when I was little.
They also didn't take water with them to places like park etc.
I also ate a lot of soup and was well hydrated. Oh and I got yelled at for spilling so I didn't do that.

We had metal enamel cups 30-35 years ago too One in each of the two bathrooms, with a step stool, and we drank then poured the rest out, so no spills. We each were given about 1 oz of milk at a time (refilled as needed) in the cup at the table until about 5yo? Then we got more, as long as it didn’t get spilled.

As soon as we were capable of walking, bottles were gone. One soured bottle, from what I’ve been told, was enough to finish that! And they wouldn’t have gone back to bottles for water...

We did take water to parks, but we were frequently picnicking, so taking a huge gallon jug for everyone to share with lunch made sense. And I remember doing curb picnics with my grandma and great-grandma.

My kids have been drinking out of open cups since they were one year old. A lot of kids go straight from bottles to cups. A lot of breastfed-only babies won't drink from sippy cups, so they go straight to open cups. It's funny that you worry about this OP - babies adapt to the situation they are in!!

Two handled weighted base open cup, plastic or metal.

- teen babysitter 1980-87

My mom says I went straight from boob to open cup. Probably some combination of drinking less often and mom at home full time.

In the early 80s we had Tupperware sippy cups. Colorful cups with white plastic lids.

I didn't have sippy cups as a kid and my kids (now 7 and 5) didn't either - I just didn't see the need. They drank from open plastic cups, and if we were out just a bottle of water with a straw. And if they spilled them we mopped them up, not a big deal.

Anonymous wrote:I had a regular cup. Metal enamel. No silly cups when I was little.
They also didn't take water with them to places like park etc.
I also ate a lot of soup and was well hydrated. Oh and I got yelled at for spilling so I didn't do that.

I'm loving this nostalgic response. If you remember getting yelled at, you probably weren't a toddler.

Toddlers spill all the time. All. The. Time. Even if they've been taught to be careful, or if they are limited to only drinking in the kitchen. They will spill because they are toddlers and they are learning to move their bodies, but haven't quite mastered it.

Anonymous wrote:Children were served food and drinks only at the table or in the kitchen. No wandering around the house and crawling on the couch with a drink in hand.

+1

In the 70s we used an earlier version of these in worse colors:

https://www.amazon.com/Tupperware-Tumblers-Domed-Sipper-Yellow/dp/B017AOPIXW/ref=asc_df_B017AOPIXW/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=167135973835&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9885227964865119383&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9007580&hvtargid=pla-305991903309&psc=1

Our mothers purchased them at Tupperware parties, not from Amazon, and I"m sure they didn't run $30 for a set of four. Generations of children chewed the spout out of shape, which means even if they were by some miracle leak proof when they started they weren't after a few uses.

Anonymous wrote:My kids have used open cups in preschool since ~18 months, seated at a table only.

We use straw cups so they can have water when not seated at the table until they are trustworthy to not spill.

This. My kid got practice with an open cup and water starting at 6 months, and was competent (not perfect!) at it after a year or so. Non-water I didn't want to risk in an open cup until at least 2 or 3, though, LOL.

Ah, found an article on it--so yes, they are counting 1981 as the invention of leakproof sippy cups. There were other sippy cups before then but they leaked when held upside down and shaken. So before there were leakproof sippy cups, kids drank from cups with lids that leaked. (And still probably open cups before plastic!)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Few people here were even alive "before sippy cups were invented".

They certainly had them in the 1950s and 1960s. They were just made of heavier plastic than today. But BPA-free, yay!

According to the intertubes, the modern sippy cup (the spout mechanism) was invented in 1981.

However, straws were invented in 1888. By the 1950s plastic straws were in wide use. My guess is many parents used them.

I question the internet on this one. We definitely had Tupperware tumblers with sippy lids in the late 70s. Maybe those didn't count as official sippy cups since they weren't spill-proof (though frankly not all of the ones sold today are, either!)--but it was still a plastic lid with a little spout.

But yes, I'd guess open cups were the go-to for most families. That's what my own kids use most of the time today, unless they're somewhere where they really need a sippy or straw cup to avoid spilling. We started open cups at the table around a year, and they picked it up pretty quickly.

Anonymous wrote:Few people here were even alive "before sippy cups were invented".

They certainly had them in the 1950s and 1960s. They were just made of heavier plastic than today. But BPA-free, yay!

According to the intertubes, the modern sippy cup (the spout mechanism) was invented in 1981.

However, straws were invented in 1888. By the 1950s plastic straws were in wide use. My guess is many parents used them.

Anonymous wrote:I'm old enough that we had a big set of colorful metal cups that we filled with equally colorful Koolaid. In my teens, it seemed every fast food place had collectible plastic cups that accumulated at a remarkable pace. I don't remember us ever having straws in the house.

As a parent we bought the requisite sippy cups that were never terribly popular with our boys. They transitioned pretty quickly to "big kid" regular plastic Ikea cups, which are handy for sipping wine at toddler birthday parties.

Anyone else old enough to remember McDonald's collectible glasses with all the characters (like Hamburglar) on them?

Few people here were even alive "before sippy cups were invented".

They certainly had them in the 1950s and 1960s. They were just made of heavier plastic than today. But BPA-free, yay!