Clean sippy cup straws with pipe cleaners

Pipe cleaners have showed up in so many craft projects in my life that I forget they actually can ...clean pipes. Hence Vicki's hack:

My 2 year-old likes to use these drink bottles designed for babies that have a pop-up straw at the top and a straw that goes to the bottom of the cup. After some milk got left in one a bit too long, (gross!) I couldn't clean out the straw well enough to let my son use it again. So I left it on the counter a few days until my sleep deprived mind thought of an answer. I got a pipe cleaner out of the craft drawer and put a little dish detergent on it. Tada! Clean straw.

Haven't we all had at least one disgusting sippy cup fermentation disaster? I've had decent luck throwing small parts into my dishwasher's cutlery basket.

Anyone else with tips for keeping those pesky sippy cup parts clean?

Related: "Scrub" toothbrushes and toys with denture cleanser tablets

Comments

[Liza]

And on a related note? Does anyone have a hack for cleaning the upper interior part of Sigg bottles?

I LOVE the bottles, except that all of ours are out of commission because I can't seem to clean the fermented-moldy apple juice residue from the curved upper part of the bottle.

[Matt]

I have a quick tip about the sippy lid shown in the picture with this post (with a straw).

It may be common knowledge to most, but neither my wife or I noticed it until I stumbled upon it accidentally.

The piece of plastic that is used to bend the straw down to both hide it and help keep the drink in is easily removable by pulling up gently on one side, then rocking it to the other.

By removing this piece, you have a nice clear shot for getting the straw back into the lid.

Before I realized that, we had been using a toothpick to help guide it up and through the slot.

[Jass]

YES! I discovered this one about a year ago. I actually found terry cloth pipe cleaners at a craft store. Just like a washcloth and works like a charm.

[mel]

My kids love to drink with straws and I was very pleased to find some hard plastic reusable straws. I also use pipe cleaners to clean those.

[Simple Mom]

What a great idea! Thanks for sharing this tip. I never thought of it.

[Elana]

For some of the bottles, regular drink straws can be used as replacements, trimmed down to size. We grab a couple when we're at fast food restaurants and use those.

We've also run those original straws and bits through the dishwasher...

[angie]

I use a q-tip to reach the icky gunk in sippy cup spouts.

[Julie]

Q-tips work great for cleaning sippy cup parts!

[Lorien]

I bought a cup from Albertsons that was a straw cup. My son always pulls the sraws out, but on this cup he couldnt. The bottom of the straw was fanned out so it was too wide to go through the hole on the top of the cup. Its a great solution for him always pulling them out and losing the straw!

[Jim]

This is a great tip. We use one of the utensils that came with our Dr. Browns bottles (that we no longer use).

[Dane's Mama]

And here I was all proud of myself thinking how original I was with the pipe cleaners :)
I just used it for the first time tonight and it worked like a charm.

[Crissy]

I just use small paint brushes from our craft kit to clean out the sippy cups without straws. This is the only thing that will get into all the cracks of the playtex cups. I use two different sizes for the different areas on the lid.