Best non-toxic sippy cups

Stated drink-contact materials, no polypropylene in the drink path, and — the criterion that actually separates good cups from bad ones — a design you can genuinely clean. Cups with narrow necks, sealed valves or non-removable straws did not make the list regardless of material.

We have not used these with a toddler. Leak resistance in real-world use is the thing parents care about most and the thing we cannot assess for you.

1. Buy a straw brush. A straw cannot be cleaned with a sponge and nothing else works. This is the single most useful thing on this page.
2. Disassemble every time. Valves and gaskets are where milk residue sits, and a cup washed assembled is a cup not washed.
3. Prefer wide mouths, where a bottle brush actually reaches the bottom.
4. Replace straws and valves periodically. They are consumables, and a discolored or slimy straw should be binned rather than scrubbed harder.
5. Do not leave milk in a cup. Milk residue in a warm valve is the fastest route to a cup you have to throw away.

Glass lets you see intake and is fully inert. Stainless cannot break and keeps drinks cold. Both are better than polypropylene on the materials question, and both cost several times what a plastic cup costs.

If the realistic alternative is one glass cup that breaks in week two and then a plastic one, buy stainless. A cup that survives the stage in a slightly less inert material beats a broken ideal one, and this is a place where practicality should win.

Polypropylene cups, for the same reason as the bottles. Any cup with a non-removable straw or a sealed valve, which cannot be cleaned properly. Cups with undisclosed drink-contact materials. And insulated cups with a coated interior, where the coating is undisclosed and the whole point of stainless is that there is no coating.