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Dad’s Desperate Plea to Find a Sippy Cup for His Autistic Son Has a Happy Ending

Ben Carter
Marc Carter's son Ben.Courtesy Marc Carter/Twitter

Marc Carter was desperate for a light blue Tommee Tippee sippy cup. The reason: His son Ben, 14, who has autism and has previously been hospitalized for dehydration, refuses to drink out of anything else. So the 42-year-old dad took to Twitter to ask for help tracking down the discontinued model, which Ben has used since he was 2, in a plea that went viral.

“These cups are not made anymore, the replacements are all new and fancy, we’ve tried, Ben throws them at us,” the North Devon, England–based dad of three special needs children wrote on Twitter November 14, alongside a photo of the cup. “Maybe you have one stuck at the back of a cupboard? It can be used, that’s fine, the one he has doesn’t have long left. In all honestly we are really worried what will happen if it falls apart completely.”

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Carter’s emotional appeal was retweeted nearly 20,000 times, and on November 29, Tommee Tippee announced that it will produce 500 of the cups after searching its factories around the world and tracking down the original mold. “We are delighted to confirm that we are able to start production on a run of the original cup,” a company spokesperson told the BBC. “This will ensure that Ben has a lifetime supply and that his family won’t ever have to worry about finding another cup for Ben.”

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As for Carter? “I would not be happier if I won the lottery,” he told the BBC. “This tiny blue cup dictates our life.”

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