The Happiest Baby Snoo is essentially a robot bed that soothes your baby for you when your baby wakes at night. Our pediatrician recommended this bed to us when Rosie was literally not sleeping AT ALL at night. One night her Owlet monitor said she slept only 37 minutes the entire night. At Rosie’s 2-week well visit, we told the pediatrician we needed help. She said, “have you heard of the Snoo?” I said yes, of course, but it’s $1300. And she responded, “did you know you can rent one?” We were sold. We were DESPERATE for sleep and for around $100 a month we knew we at least needed to try it.
Pros of the Snoo
- Better Sleep – The Snoo has proven to help baby sleep better. Per their website, by 3 months most babies are sleeping 9+ hours.
- Safety – The baby is strapped in on their back so they CANNOT roll over even after they are able to. Also the walls are mesh so it’s super breathable.
- Best swaddle – We love this swaddle and we use it for naps during the day even when she is not in the Snoo.
- More time for Mom – The Snoo is essentially rocking your baby for you (so you don’t have to!) This means more time for sleep or whatever you want.
- White noise – The Snoo has white noise already, so you don’t need an additional noise machine (although I like to use our other one too for extra noise!)
- Weaning feature – When you’re ready to start transitioning to a crib, you can use the weaning feature to help with this. Basically, the bed will not move until the baby needs to be soothed (normally the bed moves the entire time).
- Easy to clean – You can throw the swaddle and sheet right into the wash.
- Pretty design – This is of course not super important, but I really like the design and I think it’s the most stylish baby bed I’ve seen!
- Easy Setup – We had no issues setting this up and using it right from delivery. I think it’s very user-friendly.
- The App – I like to see the sleep log and see how much she slept. You can also control the levels of soothing from the app (from your bed!)
Cons of the Snoo
- Cost – This is the biggest con with the Snoo. $1300 is very expensive for a baby bed, considering the average cost for a baby bed is probably under $100. Even with the rental, it’s over $100 a month. There seems to be a good re-sale market on this (on Facebook Marketplace and whatnot), so if you buy one, I think you could get at least half the cost back.
- Short time frame to use it – The Snoo only fits babies up to probably 6 months. Although there are three different size swaddles (Rosie is in the medium size right now), it is just a bassinet and the baby will outgrow it. When you think about the cost and the short amount of time they use it, it seems less and less worth it.
- It’s not portable – We travel quite often, and the Snoo is not portable. Besides for the fact that the legs detach, the bassinet does not collapse in any way. Luckily, we’ve been able to drive everywhere we have needed to go, but next week we are flying for the first time and will not be able to travel with it.
- Weaning – Although it does have a weaning feature, it concerns me a lot that we will have to transition her to a crib that does not move, make noise, etc. I think one of the big risks with any sort of sleep training, is getting your baby used to something that they cannot use forever (whether that be a Snoo, dockatot, etc.)
Did It Work?
I’m not sure! Rosie was sleeping 0 hours at night before the Snoo and she now sleeps 3 to 4 hour stretches (she is 3 months). Would she be doing this now without the Snoo? Maybe? I think that Rosie is a difficult baby. She has really bad gas and really bad separation anxiety. These are things that the Snoo cannot fix.
Their site says that most babies are sleeping 9 hours by 3 months. I think it’s likely that these were “good” babies that were going to sleep 9 hours without the Snoo by 3 months. There are always going to be babies that don’t sleep through the night at this stage (like Rosie) and I don’t think the Snoo is going to magically make these babies sleep through the night.
Would I Recommend?
If you can afford it and your baby is a night terrorist like ours was (lol), it’s definitely worth it. But if you have a good baby that is already sleeping 5 to 6 hours a night and you’re trying to get to 8 or 9, I don’t think it’s worth it. If you’re getting 6 hours of sleep in a row, count your blessings and save your money!