Before You Buy Lamaze Pile Play Cups, Check the Bottom Holes

The store-brand stacking cups on the next shelf cost half as much and look identical from three feet away. Your eight-month-old knocks down a tower with either set. Then bath night comes, she turns a cup over, and nothing comes out, because the bottom is solid. Two weeks of fun, and then the toy bin.

The Lamaze Pile Play Cups set is the answer to that exact problem: eight cups, no BPA, dishwasher safe, labeled 6 months and up, and every cup has a differently shaped hole cut through its bottom. That hole is what keeps the set alive after stacking gets boring, and the only real reason to pick it over a cheaper lookalike.

What You Actually Get in the Box

What is actually in the box, and what age does the manufacturer put on the label? Open the lid and count them: there are eight colorful cups built to stack and nest, and the useful facts are printed right on the front of the package. The SKU is L27870TG, the UPC is 796714278704, and the age grade reads 6 months and up. The cups run from small enough to close a fist around to wide enough to hold a whole orange, and the whole set nests into a single stack about as wide as a snack container, which matters in a kitchen that already has too much in it. If you want to double-check before buying, the same specs sit at us.tomy.com/lamaze-pile-play-cups.

Why Every Cup Has a Different Hole

Stacking is the obvious play, so why is there a differently shaped hole in the bottom of every single cup instead of one clean round opening? Because stacking is not the play that lasts. Each cup features a different shaped hole on the bottom, and those shapes turn a ten-second pour into a small experiment. A wide star drains in a fat, fast sheet; a narrow slot dribbles; a triangle comes out in a shape a baby can watch change as she tilts the cup. She pours once, gets one result, tilts differently, gets another. That is cause and effect, learned with a wrist. The same cups help babies develop both gross and fine motor skills: the gross part is the reaching, stacking, and knocking, the fine part is the grip and wrist control needed to stop a cup mid-tilt when the water is going where she wants it.

Watch three babies and the same hole does three different jobs. A six-month-old grabs the smallest cup, bangs it on the tray, and learns that one hand can produce a loud result; the hole is irrelevant to her yet. A ten-month-old at a water table tips a cup, sees the stream, and tips it again to make the stream come back, the first repeatable cause she has ever controlled. A one-year-old kneels in the tub and tries to pour through the tiny hole without losing the water, a grip-strength problem a solid-bottom cup never asks her to solve.

How These Differ From Plain Stacking Cups

How does that differ from the nesting cups already in the toy bin, or from a shape sorter? Two comparisons settle it. A plain nest-and-stack set has a solid bottom, so it does exactly two things, stack and nest, and it holds water like a cup; that is fine until the child is around a year old, and then the set runs out of ideas. A shape sorter goes the other way: the puzzle is real, but the child has to line a block up with a matching cutout and push, which most six- to nine-month hands cannot manage, so the toy waits on the shelf for months. This set splits the difference. Its holes need no alignment at all, tip the cup and the water leaves, so it lands inside the skill window of a baby who can sit up and grab but cannot yet match a square to a square.

The Window Where These Cups Earn Their Place

So how long does it stay in use, and what do you lose by treating it as a one-month novelty? Longer than the box suggests, if you move it along with the child. From six to nine months the play is grab, bang, and mouth, and the cup is simply a shape that fits a hand. From nine to twelve months it becomes nesting, small inside medium inside large, plus the first deliberate pours, and the different holes start paying off because the feedback changes from cup to cup. After the first birthday the whole set moves to the tub or the sandbox, and attention shifts to which hole the water comes out of and how fast. That is three or four stages from one purchase, which is the honest answer to whether it earns its shelf space.

BPA-Free and Dishwasher-Safe in Real Life

And what about the two claims every parent checks first, do they hold up under a baby who chews everything? Both are printed on the product, and both are narrow, honest claims. No BPA means the plastic was not formulated with bisphenol A, so the daily mouthing between six and eighteen months does not add a concern you have to track. Dishwasher safe means you never hand-wash this set, and that is the real reason it survives a busy household, because a toy that needs hand-washing gets washed once and then quietly stops being offered. Toss the cups in with the dinner plates, run the cycle, let them air-dry in the rack, and nest them back into a stack. One caution is worth repeating: the listing says dishwasher safe and stops there. It names no maximum water temperature and no rack restriction, so follow whatever printed insert came in your box rather than borrowing rules from another brand.

Your First Week, Step by Step

So what does the first week actually look like, from unboxing to the nightly wash? Day zero, before the baby sees them: unbox, count eight, and check the label for 6 months and up and the SKU L27870TG. Run the whole set through the dishwasher once to clear any packing residue, a one-step job instead of a hand-wash chore. Day one, on the floor mat: hand over the cups and let the baby bang, roll, and grab. Do not build a tower for her yet; the point of the first session is fit and grip, not height, and if she nests a small cup into a big one on her own, let it happen without applause. Day three or four, first water: once she starts flipping a cup over on dry land, move two or three cups to the tub or a shallow basin. Give only two or three at a time, because eight cups with eight different holes at once is too much to look at and she will swipe them all off the edge. Day five onward, the routine: cups go into the dishwasher with the plates after bath, dry in the rack overnight, and nest back into one stack the next morning. When you are ready to decide, do the sink test tonight: turn all eight upside down and pour. If the water leaves through eight different shapes, keep them. If it just sits there, you paid a premium for a plain stack of cups.