When my daughter reached about a year of age she started trying to stack building blocks and other items, so I bought her these Stacking Cups from the Early Learning Centre to help her development in this area. The sales assistant recommended them to me and I picked them up for just over a fiver. They seemed like the exact toy for my daughter at the time.

I was a bit disappointed when I opened the box and found a very basic set of cups, made of what feels like cheap plastic. Each cup is a different bright colour and a slightly different size so that they slot together to make a large tower. This makes sense of course but unfortunately my daughter did not like the rigidity of having to stack them in a specific order. This meant that she kept trying to stack the cups incorrectly and they would easily topple over, which she found very frustrating. I have shown her how to use the cups and seen that she is able to stack them correctly, but she doesn't understand why she can't use them in different orders. Having thought about it, nor can I.

The cups are also numbered so although I don't encourage my daughter to stack them now, she does like to play with them by putting different objects in them etc, and pretending to sip from them as she now has her own little cup at mealtimes. The numbers are useful as I am teaching her to tell the difference between them and she does seem to understand this. So although this toy doesn't allow much creativity, any creative parent can certainly make use of them if not for the traditional purpose.

As she is 17 months now my daughter has had plenty of play with these cups and they are not particularly dented, and easy to clean. There are also holes in the cups so that they can be used with water, which is probably a fun game for an older child. My daughter does like to play with a few of them in the bath as she understands that some cups hold water while these Stacking Cups do not.

For little over £5 I think these are a good buy, but it you want to encourage your child's building skills I recommend building blocks, either wooden or cloth, rather than these rigid plastic cups. I also think it can encourage children to play with their drinking cups if they are given these Stacking Cups, though not all parents will find this - we started our daughter on a drinking cup at a young age as she really wanted to copy us whenever we ate at the table.

I do recommend these cups but only if you think your child will really enjoy playing with them, and if you are going to help him or her to play with them, as otherwise they are little more than bits of plastic that can be frustrating to little ones who want to do more than just stack them in order.