Is The SNOO Really Worth It? My Honest Review After 6 Months of Use
Products marked with an asterisk (*) were provided for review. All other items were purchased with my own money. Affiliate links are used in this post, which means I make a commission if a purchase is made after clicking through the link at no additional cost to you. All stated opinions are my honest thoughts. I value your trust and only partner with brands that I truly love! Keep reading for a mom’s honest review of the SNOO!
You guys know I’m all about anything that makes a mom’s life easier – especially when it also helps them be a better mom to their kids. That’s why I was thrilled to share my initial thoughts on the SNOO Bassinet Smart Sleeper* by Happiest Baby last year when Luna was only 2.5 months old. If you haven’t read the post yet, *spoiler alert*, I love it haha! Now that we’re at the end of our SNOO journey, I thought I’d give you my final and honest review of the SNOO bassinet!
Luna is 5.5 months old, weaning mode is enabled, and her crib mattress is in the mail. Since she’ll be transitioning to her big girl crib in about two weeks, I decided it was time to give you an update on my thoughts and let you know if the SNOO is really worth it!
Is The SNOO Really Worth It? A Mom’s Honest Review of The SNOO
Ok, let’s get down to business. Is the SNOO really worth it? 100% YES. Will your baby be ok without it? Absolutely. Will you be ok without it? Of course. But will this smart bassinet make your life a whole lot easier and more pleasant? YES. It definitely changed our family’s life for the better!
As someone who has had a baby without the SNOO and one with the SNOO, I can honestly say my experience has been so, so much easier this time around. I will 100% use the SNOO with all of my future children, and I will sing its praises to anyone who will listen. You can read more about the SNOO’s basic functionality and features along with answers to a few frequently asked questions in this post, but today I’ll be sharing some of the questions that I’ve gotten recently about our experience.
Why do you think the SNOO is so much better than a traditional bassinet?
I’ll try not to repeat all of the details from the first post too much, but here’s the gist.
1. I love the safety features. It gives me SO much peace of mind to know that Luna won’t roll in the middle of the night, and this article pretty much blew me away. This particular quote from the article is incredible: “slept over 50,000,000 hours in SNOO Smart Sleepers without a single reported death. By comparison, 20-30 deaths would have been expected in a similar population.” You can read the full article here. SNOOs are also being used and studied in hospitals, and I cannot wait to see the new data as it’s released.
UPDATE: The SNOO was accepted into the FDA’s Breakthroughout Device Program, which means that the FDA is fast-tracking its review to consider it to be a SIDS/SUID prevention product. Babies have slept over 75 million hours in the SNOO with ZERO injuries or deathes. They are also conducting studies to see if there’s any correlation with reduction of postpartum depression. Seriously, I can’t wait to see where this thing goes! Click HERE to read the full article about this research / FDA consideration.
2. It helps our entire family sleep better. The soothing features of the SNOO (white noise, swaying movement, swaddling of the SNOO sack) help Luna fall asleep like a champ. As I mentioned in my first post, the SNOO doesn’t get your baby to fall asleep if they aren’t sleepy. If your baby is hungry or needs your help, believe me, they will still cry and scream and stay awake. But if they’re drowsy or fighting off sleep, it really helps.
Luna’s been sleeping 10-12 hours a night consistently since she was around three months old, which means that I’ve been sleeping 10-12 hours a night along with my husband and daughter. Those precious extra hours of sleep help me be a better mom to my kids, and honestly, just a better and healthier person overall.
Of course there are nights every now and then when she wakes up because she’s hungry or teething and sleeps less – like all babies do. Sleep regressions are normal and developmentally appropriate, but even so, Luna sleeps very consistently with great quality of sleep. Even on the random nights when she sleeps less (for her), she’s still usually sleeping in long stretches with minimal wakings.
Most nights she is relaxed all night long, self-soothes if she rouses (and isn’t hungry), and wakes up happy as a clam.I truly believe that Luna getting the sleep she needs has helped us maintain a great breastfeeding relationship and helped her maintain good health (and a great overall mood) and develop to the best of her ability.
How long can a baby sleep in the SNOO?
I get this question a lot. With traditional bassinets, you need to switch babies to a crib as soon as they can roll over; however, the SNOO bassinet‘s unique design allows babies to stay in the SNOO by for a longer amount of time because the SNOO sack securely attaches to the sides of the bassinet to prevent rolling. It’s safe to keep babies in the SNOO for six months or until they get up on their hands and knees.
UPDATE: We kept Luna in the SNOO for six months with zero issues. She was never able to get out of the swaddle or move off of her back.
Do babies become dependent on the SNOO?
This issue is something I was genuinely worried about before I actually used the SNOO bassinet. In my experience, no. Luna is absolutely not dependent on the movement or white noise of the SNOO. I’ll keep you guys posted on how things work out when she officially transitions to her crib, but I honestly don’t anticipate any problems. We do most of her naps outside of the SNOO, and Luna does just fine. She can fall asleep in a variety of settings and with or without white noise / motion.
If anything, I truly believe the SNOO has helped her learn how to self-soothe and become a great sleeper AND helped me be more attuned to her sleep cues. With Summer, it was so hard for me to tell when she was tired vs overtired vs not wanting to go to bed vs hungry vs in pain in the beginning.
With Luna in the SNOO, it was so much easier. If the SNOO wasn’t settling her quickly, I knew something else was wrong. It helped me to quickly learn her different cries / behavior for different things, and I was able to pinpoint almost exactly when I needed to put Luna down for a nap or bedtime.
More accurate sleep schedule = better sleep, and sleep begets sleep. I truly, truly, truly believe that her time in the SNOO has set Luna up for a good sleep routine in the future.
UPDATE: She had no trouble transitioning to the crib at six months!
How did you use your SNOO? (Settings/Naps/Swaddles)
Let me start by saying that I don’t think there’s a perfect way to use the SNOO. All babies and families are different, so you just have to see what works best for you and your baby.
Settings: We found our perfect settings with a little trial and error, but we ended up preferring to have the motion limiter on, sensitivity decreased, and white noise decreased. Luna loved the gentle swaying of the SNOO on the baseline setting, and Level One and Level Two movement/sound would soothe her if she was upset; however, the higher levels didn’t seem to suit her. The motion limiter stops movement and sound from escalating past level two, so it worked out great for us.
SNOO Sack / Swaddles: We had Luna swaddled arms down in the SNOO sack for the first three months, and then around 3-ish months, she really wanted to self soothe with her hands. We started letting her sleep with her arms out of the SNOO sack, and she instantly took to it. You can see how the SNOO sack sleeve buttons unsnap to make an arms-out sleep sack in the photo above.
As you can see in this sweet photo, Luna falls asleep with her hand right across her face. It cracks me up every time!
Clothing: We keep our home around 72 degrees at night, so Luna normally sleeps in footed onesie pajamas underneath the SNOO sack. We’ve never double swaddled, but I know some people swear by it. Again, you just have to see what your baby prefers and follow their cues as they grow and develop.
Naps: We live in a two-story home with a very active toddler, so it just wasn’t possible for me to have Luna sleep in the SNOO for all of her naps because it’s upstairs in our bedroom. We mainly did naps out of the SNOO, but that was solely for convenience – not because of the SNOO. She naps peacefully in the SNOO, and it’s the easiest place to get her to fall asleep. We do some naps in the SNOO and others in various safe sleep spaces around the house where I can supervise her. Again, do whatever works best for your family.
How does the SNOO weaning mode work?
When your baby is around five months old, the SNOO app will send you a notification that you may want to enable the weaning mode to help baby transition easily into a crib. Basically the weaning mode plays the same white noise all night long, but it doesn’t have constant swaying motion on the baseline setting. If your baby starts crying in the middle of the night, it will start a swaying motion (only to level two) to help soothe them. When baby calms down, the movement slowly lessens and moves back down to the baseline of only white noise.
We started Luna on weaning mode earlier this week when she was officially 5.5 months old, and she’s been doing so well! Her sleep is basically the same, and she’s been self-soothing extremely well (moving her body, putting hand on face, sucking her thumb, kicking her legs, etc) to get back to sleep if she wakes. It does seem like she’s in the middle of a growth spurt / developmental leap / teething phase right now, so I honestly attribute the few sleep hiccups we’ve had this week more to those things vs switching to weaning mode.
Do I need to buy additional items for the SNOO?
The SNOO bassinet comes with SNOO sacks in small, medium, and large sizes as well as one fitted sheet for the mattress. We didn’t buy any additional items, and it’s been just fine. Luna’s skin isn’t directly touching the SNOO sack or sheet, so we don’t have to wash them every day. If you’re thinking about purchasing the SNOO, I’d recommend waiting until after baby arrives before purchasing any additional items for the bassinet. Once you know your baby’s size, you can purchase additional SNOO sacks in the correct sizes if you want to have extras on hand.
With any future babies, I’d probably purchase one extra SNOO sack in each applicable size (after baby arrived) and a few extra fitted sheets. Again, I really don’t think it’s necessary to buy too many. The Happiest Baby website has other accessories you can buy if you’d like.
One thing you may want to purchase is a Sleepea swaddle. It’s basically the same exact design as the SNOO sack but without the attachments to hook onto the SNOO. Having one of these swaddles is so convenient for traveling and naps when baby isn’t sleeping the SNOO. They’re awesome!
Additional Items Available for The SNOO Smart Sleeper Bassinet
I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to test out the The SNOO Bassinet Smart Sleeper*, and I am such a huge Happiest Baby fangirl now! Thank you so much to Happiest Baby for sending me this amazing bassinet, so that I could share my experience with you. I would GLADLY spend my own money on this product and have and will continue to purchase other Happiest Baby products in the future. I hope you found this honest review of the SNOO helpful!
If you’d like to learn more about the SNOO, how it was developed, and more about our early experiences, be sure to read this post where I discuss if the SNOO is really worth the money or not. And if you have any additional questions, feel free to leave a comment or DM me on Instagram @ashleybrookenicholas. I’m always happy to share my honest experience with you!
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