Munchkin Click Lock Review

The Munchkin Click Lock Cup is a handle free, toddler sippy cup made of BPA-free plastic, and it is manufactured by Munchkin. The cup offers a one piece soft silicone spout, and it comes in a variety of colors. The cup boasts a clicking sound lock feature which tells you when the cup is properly closed by making an audible clicking sound. This cup is widely available online and in stores.

Performance Comparison

Likes

This cup makes an audible click when closed properly, which was

kind of nice if you are one of those parents who finds sippy cups hard to close (like many of us). This feature can make parents feel warm and fuzzy that the cup won't be secretly leaking red staining juice in the diaper bag, or on a car seat. As mentioned above, this Click Lock feature is almost identical to the Nuby Clik-It Grip 'n Sip transition cup we tested.

The silicone drinking spout was only one piece, which made it simple to clean and required no

special tools to do so properly. Which we considered a plus. This cup only has three parts, the spout, the lid, and the body, so it was easy to assemble, and take apart.

We also liked that this cup was virtually leak free, something we feel a sippy cup should really excel at, and this one does. This cup refused to give up a drop of liquid no matter how much we shook, jostled, or dropped it.

The textured sides of this cup meant that toddlers could easily grip the cup, and move it to their face without dropping it, despite the lack of handles. The hourglass shape, combined with the texture, meant that even the littlest hands would likely be able to pick the cup up.

Dislikes

Our number one problem with this cup is it is very difficult to drink from. In our tests, reviewers felt the cup was hard to drink from, and could possibly be frustrating to toddlers trying to take a sip.

The silicone spout was soft and definitely mouth-friendly, but given the difficulty of sucking it wasn't really a surprise that many of our toddlers resorted to chewing on it instead of sucking. In addition, we felt the excessive sucking did not align to the American Dental Associations desire that parents use a no valve cup. They feel that increased sucking can lead to poor oral hygiene depending on the contents of the cup, so we rated cups based on how closely they matched a no valve experience.

We also did not like the use of plastic in this cup. Like many of the cups we tested, this cup body is made entirely of plastic. However, we did give it a nod, and point bump, for the silicone spout. Because some kinds of plastics can

potentially leach chemicals that may cause endocrine interruption, we prefer stainless steel and glass, over plastic to avoid this potential problem. We don't know if this is a problem with this particular cup (or any other cup we reviewed), but without more information, we just prefer to err on the side of caution by using materials we know are inert.

Conclusion

This cup is fairly generic and did not do well in our tests. It ranked 15 out of 21 cups, which meant it was solidly in the bottom half of the cups we tested. While we liked the general overall feel and design, in our opinion, it seemed to be executed poorly. The valve was harder to drink from than many of the other cups we tested, and it scored poorly in the eco-health metric. So while it didn't leak, there wasn't much else to write home about in our tests for this particular cup. If you put together its hard to use valve, low eco-health score, and low overall score, you get a cup we just could not recommend.

Our Best Value award winner, Tommee Tippee Sporty Bottle, is a nice easy to use, easy to clean, plastic cup with an economic price. It didn't leak, and it earned a significantly higher overall score than Munchkin. In short, the Sporty Bottle had a higher overall score than any other plastic cup we tested, making it the cup to buy if money is tight. So even though it may cost as much as twice that of the Munchkin, it also had more points to justify the added expense.