The Snoo Smart Sleeper Bassinet Review: No Other Crib Compares

The Happiest Baby Snoo Smart Sleeper Bassinet won over this mom as the best bassinet overall during a larger review of top models . See why in her review of the Snoo below. In my recent tests of 10 bassinets, I found a clear winner that my baby continued to enjoy sleeping in far after testing concluded.

The Happiest Baby Snoo Smart Sleeper Bassinet has saved my family, and my baby, from more long nights of fussing and discomfort than any other crib or bassinet. As the mother of five kids in the past 8 years, this is now the top item that I recommend when new parents ask what they need for their baby.

Here’s why. The Happiest Baby Snoo Smart Sleeper Bassinet is the best bassinet overall after rigorous testing. It’s the middle of the night. You’ve fed, changed, rocked, shushed, swaddled and done every last thing the baby books (and Instagram or TikTok) taught you during your pregnancy. But it’s just not working.

Most likely, your baby just wants to be held, which is not only impossible but not safe as you doze off in the wee hours of the night. This is where the Snoo’s smart features become crucial. This smart bassinet has saved me and my husband from some serious sleep deprivation over the years. The Snoo is a baby sleep product meant to be used in the first 6 months of life.

It connects to an app and responds to a baby’s cries or sounds to help soothe them back to sleep. The bassinet uses a side to side motion and white noise that increase in intensity and volume if the baby gets more upset. All of these soothing features are meant to calm the baby down and help them drift off to sleep again.

If it doesn’t work, all the sound and motion stops, and the app alerts a parent to come help. It doesn’t let the baby fuss for long before alerting a parent, but those extra soothing efforts by the bassinet reduces the number of times overall that a parent needs to jolt awake (again) to rock the baby back to sleep when the newborn really didn’t need anything.

Happiest Baby Assembly time: 5 minutes | Size: 35.75 x 19 x 31 inches | Weight: 38 pounds | Portability: Removable legs and travel bag | Soothing options: Four levels of movement and sound, adjustable in the app | Adjustable height: Yes (two additional leg extenders available separately for reflux issues) Best for: Skip if: Some of the other smart bassinets I tested offered a more generic response to my baby’s fussing, and with others I had to manually start an intervention by pushing buttons in an app or on the bassinet.

But the Snoo’s response to fussing is highly customizable to you and your baby’s preferences. There are motion limiters for new babies, and you can make it extremely responsive and sensitive, or if you know your baby is fussing but doesn’t really need anything, you can make it a bit less responsive.

You can also adjust certain levels of the response or lock the levels into place via the app if you know your baby needs a bit more time to settle before the bassinet launches into full blown helper mode: It can go up to level four, which is a substantial amount of noise and movement, before “tapping out.” The swaddle is integral to the success of the Snoo.

One of the most helpful and innovative aspects of the Snoo isn’t the bassinet, but rather the swaddle. A specific swaddle bag hooks into two long plastic pieces on the side of the bassinet, which is the only way the Snoo will start up. In this way, parents don’t have to worry about the baby rolling into an uncomfortable or even dangerous position.

I found the new version of the swaddle quite secure; it also keeps the baby’s face from slipping into the swaddle. It has two flaps that wrap around the arms and one that comes up around the diaper area and attaches onto the chest, keeping the baby securely in place and quite cozy. While it isn’t safe to have babies sleeping in swings or on nursing pillows, according to the latest safe sleep guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics , the Snoo offers a solution for babies with reflux and thus in need of a safer elevation with the additional purchase of leg risers.

Add these to one side of the bassinet to elevate the baby’s head a bit while keeping the body in a safe sleeping position to ease reflux symptoms. One of the greatest concerns I’ve heard voiced about the Snoo is that the baby will become “addicted” to the automatic motion and noise and won’t be able to sleep without it once it is time to transition to the crib.

However, the brand built in several features to prevent this from happening. First, there is an option to not have the side to side motion going all the time. Also, there’s a “weaning” mode on the Snoo that helps babies get used to sleeping without motion when they are older by only soothing them when they are fussing, not the rest of the time.

Next, the swaddle setup is such that you can transition your baby to one and then two arms out of the swaddle easily using the same bag you had before. This is one of the reasons that Dr. Jenelle Ferry , a Tampa, Florida–based neonatologist and director of feeding, nutrition and infant development at Pediatrix Medical Group, recommends the Snoo and notes that “many parents love the Snoo.” She does recommend caregivers make use of the weaning “function as your infant gets older...so that great sleep can continue once they outgrow the bassinet.” The bassinet that comes closest to the Snoo is the Cradlewise All In One Smart Crib.

How Does The Snoo Compare To Other Bassinets? I haven’t found another bassinet as good as the Snoo, truly—and I test baby and kids products for a living. It’s the only responsive bassinet that uses side to side motion and sound in a way that genuinely soothes the baby back to sleep most of the time.

Some of the cheaper smart bassinets tried to do this, but I didn’t find the motion as smooth or as helpful, and the app was often clunkier to use. While other bassinets might be cheaper, the Snoo simply works the best. Some other differences that parents might want to compare, however, include the height of the bassinet, as well as other dimensions if you are tight on space.

The Snoo bassinet isn’t the tallest of the bunch, nor does it swivel like the Halo BassiNest Soothing Swivel Sleeper 3.0 , which I did like as a non smart bassinet with its removable and portable bassinet and side wall that smushes down. I also saw utility in the Arm’s Reach Mini Ezee 2 In 1 Co Sleeper Bassinet , which offers storage that the Snoo does not, along with the ability to attach it to the side of your bed like a true co sleeper.

Neither of those two bassinets offers smart soothing—but both cost hundreds less. The bassinet that comes closest in comparison to the Snoo is the Cradlewise All in One Smart Crib , which offers a different type of motion that’s bouncier, which some babies might prefer but mine did not. The Cradlewise is actually a full size crib, so investing in this bassinet could save you money in the long run, since your baby can sleep in it until toddlerhood, but it’s also more expensive than the Snoo and not available to rent.

The Happiest Baby brand, makers of the Snoo, is one of the only companies offering a month to month bassinet rental program . This allows parents to give the Snoo a try and return it if it’s not working out, or to use it just for those first couple of extra fussy months as the baby learns to self soothe: it’s currently $159 per month and comes with some accessories, including bassinet sheets and the necessary swaddles.

The Snoo’s inventor, pediatrician Harvey Karp, is also working to have Snoos placed in hospitals for new parents who need to get some rest, potentially replacing the hard bassinets that babies currently “rest” on but that offer exhausted parents little support on the first night or two in the hospital after birth.

This commitment to maternal mental and physical health and recovery makes the Snoo a brand I enjoy supporting. I considered how easy each app was to use and how useful and detailed the information it provided. How I Tested The Bassinets I tested each bassinet with my newborn from a week old to 6 months of age, using the product during naptime, overnights and even a bit during play/awake times, to see how well they performed.

I considered the following criteria to determine what makes for the optimal bassinet: My Expertise I’ve had the benefit of using the Snoo with two of my five babies. I wish that I’d had the option when one of my middle children had intense colic and some other issues that resulted in so. much. crying.

But I’m excited to see other families, and my last two children, be able to benefit from it, and it’s made a permanent impact on my and my husband’s ability to enjoy the earliest months with our children. I’ve long been researching and writing about baby products, as a product journalist with 15 years of experience, and enjoy keeping up with the latest trends in this industry.

In addition to my own personal and professional experience, I interviewed multiple baby sleep and medical experts for this story. They helped me choose the best bassinets for parents and babies..