Sippy cups are a staple item in most homes with toddlers. Available with or without handles, they are designed to teach children how to drink from a cup without spilling any of the liquid. As any parent or caregiver knows all too well, these cups can get thrown or misplaced very easily. That’s where the problem with odor comes in. It doesn’t take long for milk, juice and other drinks to start turning into to funky mess. You would have to be a brave soul to take the lid off some of these science experiments but it’s all in a day’s work when you have little ones around.
It may be tempting to simply toss the cup out in the trash when you discover a stank issue, but that solution is not the most practical one. A young child may balk at drinking from a cup that smell funky, too. The goal is to get Junior to want to drink from the cup, after all. Before tossing the cups to the curb, take the top off, remove the plastic piece that sits under the lid, and do your best try to remove the smell. If the reek really can’t be resolved despite your best efforts, then you may need to dispose of the cup. In many cases, you can deal with it using one of these methods.
How to Get Smell Out of Sippy Cup
1 Baking Soda and Lemon Paste
Make a paste with lemon juice and baking soda. Scrub the sippy cup all over. You could also apply the paste and let it sit overnight. Rinse with hot water to dissolve the paste.
2 Dawn Dish Soap Solution
Give any funky zippy cups the Dawn dish soap treatment. Fill up your sink with hot water and squirt a small amount into each cup. The Orange antibacterial version should get rid of the problem and it won’t leave an aftertaste in the plastic cup. For some extra cleaning power, go over the inside of the cup with a baby bottle brush. The small end is just the thing to get into the nooks and crannies under the lid.
3 Denture Cleaning Tablet Throw Down
Put the stanky sippy cups into a sink full of warm water. Add a couple of denture cleaning tablets. You can pick up this product at a pharmacy. The tablets should fizz up and take care of any grime that is causing the problem. This solution works really well if the funkiness is due to odor trapped in the white plastic piece in the lid.
4 Run Them Through a Dishwasher Cycle
The cups should be safe on the top rack of the dishwasher. Run them through a cycle in the dishwasher on very hot water. The dishwasher soap and the jets from the machine may help to get the smell out. Try taking the inserts out and putting them in the cutlery rack if you can get them out easily.
5 Vinegar and Water Wash
Give your zippy cups a wash with white vinegar and water. You can try boiling them on the stove first to sterilize them. Then soak them in the vinegar. Follow up the vinegar soak by washing them with soap and water. Rinse thoroughly before using the cups again.
6 Baking Soda and Boiling Water
Baking soda is a safe household product that will get the smell out of your cups. Start by measuring out two or three Tablespoons into the bottom of each cup. Fill to the top with boiling water. Let the cup soak overnight. Wash with soap and hot water.
7 Bleach and Water Cleanup
Add one cup of bleach to a sink of hot water. Soak your sippy cups for 15 minutes. If you only need to clean up one cup, fill a small saucepan with water and add two or three Tablespoons of bleach instead of using your sink for this purpose.
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