10 Best Sippy Cups of 2023

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Before they're ready to drink from an open cup, most kids use a sippy cup or a straw cup for mess-free enjoyment of their milk or water.

The current generation of parents is the first to grow up with sippy cups, since the technology was invented in the late 1980s. Before that, babies and toddlers were on bottles until they switched to open-top cups. Now sippies designed not to spill are pretty much taken for granted, much the way we can't imagine getting through parenthood without the help of ready-to-serve organic baby food pouches that we can grab each time we get a new pack of disposable diapers.

In the Good Housekeeping Institute Parenting Lab we've reviewed 30 sippy cups in the last 10 years, with our own kids as the testers. In addition, we have mailed a dozen sippy cups to consumers nationwide for their feedback (and will be sending out more soon), many as part of our Parenting Award program. All told, we've logged thousands of hours filling, serving and cleaning sippy cups (not to mention packing them for daycare and preschool and picking them up from the floor after they've been flung across the room).

Children use sippy cups from about 6 months old through preschool, at which point they might move on to juice or milk boxes along with kid water bottles that go with their lunch boxes. We have choices for babies, toddlers and preschoolers below, and at the end, we list features to look for so you can find the right sippy cup for your child, as well as important information about how to clean your sippy cups and keep them mold- and germ-free.

Parents rave about this Munchkin spoutless sippy cup, popular with both babies and toddlers. "It really, truly, honestly hasn't leaked for me, and it's been held upside down for minutes at a time and tossed across the room," one mom-in-the-trenches said. "My daycare also said that they love these cups for that same reason. My son is now 4 and still uses it. It's durable, doesn't look too babyish and it's easy to clean."

A child can drink from any side of this cup, hence the name, and it seals as soon as they stop sipping, which helps prevent spills. The only complaint we have heard from our parent testers is that young babies used to a bottle may not immediately understand how to get liquid out of this. "It takes time for them to get it, but once they do, it's very easy," said a mom of two whose kids under 5 both use the Miracle 360. "My oldest still takes it to bed at night because it won't spill."

The idea behind a weighted straw is that your child can sip liquid up the straw from any angle, so even if they're not tipping it "right," it will work through the magic of gravity — and they'll never have to tilt their head way back to get to the last drops.

As for the Click Lock lid, "You hear an audible click once it passes a certain point so you know it is on tight and will stay in place," says Rachel Rothman, the Good Housekeeping Institute's chief technologist and a mom of three kids under 6 who likes and uses this straw sippy cup. It's also a nice bargain! But keep in mind: any cup with a straw is tougher to clean. Munchkin sells this set of Bottle and Cup Cleaning Brushes to help with the detail work.

The Learner Cup is a GH Parenting Award winner, due to being a nice tool when you're ready to transition your baby from their bottle to their first sippy cup. We love its smart features, including a soft spout that’s gentle on gums, a vent to reduce the swallowing of air and removable handles that are comfortable for little hands to grip.

Our testers had highchair-age kids who were able to easily wield this cup by themselves. Because of that, the kids predictably tossed it at times, but it didn't show any signs of breakage in our testing. It is fairly baby-looking, however, and only holds 5 ounces, so a tot older than a 1-year-old might not think it's cool enough or big enough.

Some parents are drawn to silicone, which is what this EZPZ cup is made from. We're tickled by its tiny, right-size design for little hands to hold independently, without handles, so your baby can feel more like a big kid. It's age-graded for 9 months and up and we feel kids are best ready for it as 1-year-olds.

Eventually you can pull off the top and help your child learn to drink from an open cup, like a little adult. Because this only holds 4 ounces, you can trust that even if only half the liquid makes it into your kid and half ends up on the highchair tray, it won't be too much to clean up. (They have to learn somehow!)

Even with the straw, this cup is the least leakproof on our list. We don't recommend that you take this on outings and do recommend that you keep it in your kitchen to use while your baby is in the highchair. By the time your baby turns preschool age, this will be too small, but by then, it will hopefully have had a good run.

Your preschool kid is ready to drink more than 10 ounces and wants to look cool, which might mean no handles. This CamelBak looks like a big-kid water bottle but the spout is made for young kids who still bite down, while the lid is leakproof for when they inevitably pack it in their own backpack upside-down. It's a straw cup that Rothman has also used and liked with her three kids.

The eddy+ gets bonus points for using some recycled materials. On a super-practical note, this fits standard cup holders on most convertible car seats. It can go in the dishwasher, but the straw and the spout require some extra attention occasionally to get them sanitized.

Older babies and toddlers who are still regularly drinking milk might prefer this system that holds the same 8 ounces as their beloved bottle. The silicone handles are easy to grip and are removable; you can use them on most any narrow baby bottle, not just Dr. Brown's.

The silicone spout, however, is made to fit on any Dr. Brown’s Options+ Narrow bottle, and that's a reason Good Housekeeping Institute Nutrition Lab Director Stefani Sassos used this with her daughter: She was already a Dr. Brown's glass bottle user and transitioning to this handle and spout was a way to seamlessly move to a sippy. Note that the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests weaning your baby off the bottle and onto a sippy cup by 18 months of age to ensure they're getting more calories from food than from milk.

Double-walled insulation helps keep your toddler's water or milk cool for a couple of hours, especially if you add ice. And with the handy carry handles, this is a great sippy cup for playground playdates or Pee Wee soccer. Testers also praise this as a durable, fairly leakproof option that can survive the rough handling of active toddlers.

We like that though this is a cool-looking cup, it's got a soft spout that's easy on a toddler's mouth. When you have to clean it, the brand does not recommend steam sterilizing as it can negatively affect the insulation; you'll want to just give them a good scrub.

For parents of babies who are used to counting every ounce they drink, the transition to a sippy cup can be weird because there's often no measurement lines on the side. This sippy has ounce marks so that if you're serving breastmilk or formula, you can still accurately gauge how much your baby drinks, and it also makes it easy to mix formula right inside the cup.

This cup has the youngest age-grading at our list — it's labeled appropriate for 4 months and up, though we have not tested it on a baby that young. It takes some babies a little time to learn how to suck on this cup's straw because they must bite down a bit to get the tube to open up. The lid can be snapped shut to keep it sanitary when you're on the go.

These aren't for longterm use, but they're useful as inexpensive sippy cups for a kids' party, playdates, restaurant meals or travel. "I used to take these on camping trips because if one got filthy or lost, we didn't have to mourn it," said one mom. "And if you have a bunch of little friends or cousins over, these make it easy to give everyone a drink."

You can mix and match the lids and cups and write on them with a Sharpie to mark kids' names. They can be hand-washed or put in the dishwasher and reused but because they're not as durable as a regular sippy cup, you will eventually want to recycle them (if your town recycles plastic #5) or toss them (not eco-friendly, which is why we wouldn't use them as an everyday solution). We would not put these in a steam sterilizer either.

A tradeoff for the convenience factor is that these are not as leakproof as the other sippy cups on our list. We don't recommend putting them in your diaper bag with liquid inside; it's safer to travel with them empty, then fill them up when you're ready to serve. Also, if they fall from a height, the lid can detach.

This Korean baby cup is gaining a following. A mom recently told us, "All of my friends are now using this cup," which can transition through stages starting with a spout, then a beginner straw, then a weighted straw and finally the brand's Stage-2 straw (purchased separately).

The Grosmimi packaging and videos do a great job explaining to parents why the various parts appeal to babies of different ages. This is the priciest single sippy cup on our list, and you might end up buying replacement accessories for it — online reviewers sometimes say their baby bit a hole the straw or spout. But fans say it is worth the money because it's made of a hard polypropylene plastic that's long-lasting, so you won't have to replace the cup itself as often, just the smaller parts. That can make this a less wasteful choice as well.

At the Good Housekeeping Institute Parenting Lab in New York City, we closely review children's feeding products, many of which appear in our annual Parenting Awards.

Over the past decade, we've taken notes on 30 sippy cups, both in the Lab and through surveys with consumer testers. Between our Lab pros and parents, we've logged thousands of hours with sippy cups, each of which need to be considered over the course of at least six months.

When evaluating what makes a good sippy cup, we first look at how easy they are for a child to drink out of without frustration. Then we check how easy they are to fill and close tightly, how leakproof they are, how easy they are to clean and how long they last with regular (which means fairly hardcore) family use.

The amount of options on the wall of sippy cups at your local mass-market store or even the one at the supermarket can be overwhelming. Zero in on the main things you need:

✔️ An age-appropriate cup: Companies consider their age grading carefully. If a bottle is marketed for 12 months and up, it's probably too difficult for a 6-month-old to hold. And if it's for 3 years and up, the straw might be a little hard on the mouth of a toddler who is 1 or 2 years old. This means you might keep switching out sippy cups as your baby grows, and that's all good.

✔️ Something your little one can drink out of: This, unfortunately, requires some trial and error. A baby who has only been breastfed or has had some combination of breast and bottle might be a little thrown by a spout or straw. Eventually, though, they really do get it.

✔️ A sippy you can easily clean: Not to freak you out, but straws and spouts and seals and valves can all get a little gross. The fewer the pieces, the easier a sippy cup may be to scrub. See our box below on cleaning your sippy cups.

✔️ Kid appeal: There's a reason why so many sippy cups have the Paw Patrol characters or Disney princesses; kids have strong opinions! The cups on our list are based on performance rather than character popularity, but many do come in great colors or fun designs, such as these animal versions of our top Munchkin choice. Once your child is heading to Kindergarten, cede more of the control to them so they can feel good about breaking out their stainless steel Moana water bottle or Peppa Pig straw bottle.

Just like adult tumblers and travel mugs, sippy cup lids and crevices can begin to harbor mold if they are not carefully cleaned and thoroughly dried. Your first line of defense is taking them completely apart and running your sippy cups through the dishwasher, and usually it's recommended you keep them on the top rack. A dishwasher basket can keep straws and spouts from falling to the bottom of your dishwasher.

Regularly scrubbing the areas that the dishwasher can't reach is highly recommended, says Carolyn Forte, director of the Home Care & Cleaning Lab at the Good Housekeeping Institute. "Totally disassemble the sippy-cup parts and scrub all the pieces by hand in hot, soapy water," she says. Special bottle and straw brushes help. You can sometimes use a steam sterilizer to blast the cup parts with heat and get them sanitized, but check the fine print; not all plastic sippy cups can take that kind of heat.

Whichever method of cleaning you choose, make sure all parts are completely dry before reassembling the cup — that's the final mold-busting step.

For more than 100 years, the pros and PhDs of the Good Housekeeping Institute have been guiding consumers to quality products they can safely use with their families. We rank appliances such as the best blenders, home goods such as the best kids' mattresses and personal care items like the best women's deodorants plus much, much more.

This list of sippy cups was compiled by Contributing Writer Jessica Hartshorn who covered the juvenile product market for American Baby magazine for 17 years and Parents magazine for 10 years. She's a mom of two now-big kids, so many on-staff parents of younger kids also weighed in, including Chief Technologist & Executive Technical Director Rachel Rothman, Nutrition Lab Director Stefani Sassos and Textiles, Paper & Apparel Lab Executive Director Lexie Sachs. Primarily, however, this list is based on in-Lab testing notes and extensive consumer feedback.

Jessica (she/her) is a freelance writer with several decades of experience writing lifestyle content and evaluating home and parenting products. A mom of two teens and two cats, her previous work can be seen in American Baby and Parents.

Nicole (she/her) is the director of the Good Housekeeping Institute's Kitchen Appliances and Innovation Lab, where she has overseen content and testing related to kitchen and cooking appliances, tools and gear since 2019. She’s an experienced product tester and recipe creator, trained in classic culinary arts and culinary nutrition. She has worked in test kitchens for small kitchen appliance brands and national magazines, including Family Circle and Ladies’ Home Journal.

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