I guess there is no way to extract the cup, without tears and fuss. I saw on tv that show "supernanny" and she uses this technique of getting rid of the dummy. They tie it to a lovely floating balloon and watch it float away into the sky. So the child sees it going, and knows it cant come back. Perhaps you could dream up some sort of happy way of getting rid of the cup. And then replace the cup with something else, like a new bear to cuddle instead. It will only take a few nights to get it all working properly. Your child has to learn to put himself to sleep, without a crutch. Of course I am sure you know about making bedtime a routine, with stories, and kisses, and cuddles, and at the same time every night. Why do you want to take the cup away ? And start how you mean to go on, dont relent and give in, this will make further challenges more difficult. All the best.

I've got 4 soon to be 5 kids so we have lots of plastics around here. I can't imagine not having the heated dry function on my dw. I run it twice a day a lot of times so I would find it annoying if I had to wait for everything to dry. That being said some of the plastic stuff does still need to air dry a bit and I just stack it on the counter for a while. Is it an elegant solution? No, but my life with young kids isn't very elegant right now so I'm not too concerned. I do have a cabinet to put water bottles in to dry with their lids off though and in my new kitchen there is a deep drawer dedicated to tupperware type stuff and another for water bottles. As far as the heated dry function warping plastics, ours doesn't seem to hurt the plastic stuff if I put it on the top shelf. The ziploc throwaway type food containers I do wash by hand though because they do warp in the wash but that's the only thing I wash by hand.

Thanks everyone! Maybe they need to start marketing their DWs a bit differently! Lol. I'm so glad that I'm not totally crazy for thinking about using the top 3rd rack for kid supplies. It seems like the small plastic stuff is neverending, and the baby is still only on bottles and refusing solids; adding another kid to sippy cups and snack traps will be crazy. A little spin off from my original question, but I'll try posting in here before I start a whole new thread. Does anyone know about how much a custom panel costs? My builder is on vacation for the next week and a half so I can't ask him. I'm wondering if it would even be an option for us to get a panel ready DW. I can get an idea about the price of the DW, but what about the actual panel from the cabinet company?

threejs, I was able to email the seller and he is going to put it back up! DH was putting something in the cupboard and one of my Fiesta ware cups fell, he saved it, but his cup fell and broke. I would have rather had Fiesta break, I can easily replace that. I got him the "Gout cup" one year when he first had gout. It was his favorite. Hope this works out. I'll have to go back on eBay and see if it is relisted. Thanks!