Best Baby Mobiles for Cribs

Best Baby MobilesOne important item for soothing and entertaining your little one in the crib is the baby mobile. Here, we’ll talk about the benefits of crib mobiles and review some of the best musical, black & white, and organic baby mobiles.
Contents:
Benefits of Baby Crib Mobiles
What Is the Best Baby Mobile?
Musical Baby Mobiles
Black and White Baby Mobiles
Organic Baby Mobiles

Benefits of Baby Crib Mobiles

Baby mobiles are a great addition to your nursery. Here are three good reasons why you should have one:

  • Soothing baby to sleep. A musical mobile can be part of your bedtime routine, signaling your baby that it’s time for sleep.
  • Safe baby entertainment. If you need to put your baby down to answer the phone or pick up around the house, mobiles offer a wonderful source of entertainment.
  • Stimulating development. Research suggests that bright colors and engaging music can help stimulate your baby’s sensory and cognitive development.

What Is the Best Baby Mobile?

We’ve put together a Slideshare presentation on the benefits and considerations when choosing a crib mobile for your baby.

Musical Baby Mobiles

Most (but not all) musical mobiles play sounds or music to help entertain and soothe your baby. This comes in two forms: wind-up and battery-powered. The most common complaint I hear about the wind-up ones is that they don’t play for long enough – usually only 30 seconds to 2 minutes. The battery-powered ones often play for longer periods of time, but they obviously mandate batteries. By this point you probably wish you held stock in Energizer or Duracell, don’t you? It might be worth having one of each kind.

Fisher-Price Precious Planet Projection Mobile Fisher Price Baby Mobile
Reviews: Projection Baby Mobile
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Features:
  • Soft, colorful animal friends from around the planet
  • Plays a full 20 minutes of music and nature and heartbeat sounds
  • Includes a remote control

Baby Mobile Review:

The #1 bestselling baby mobile on Amazon.com is two products in one: a musical baby mobile and a projection night light for the crib. The canopy below which the plush animals dance and twirl catches the night light projection, keeping it close enough for your baby to see and focus on.

When your baby gets older, you can remove the canopy part and now it’s a crib soother with a night light that projects to the ceiling. And the music plays for 20 minutes! No wonder this is the bestseller.

Tiny Love Classic Mobile Classic Musical Baby Mobile
Reviews: Musical Baby Mobile Reviews
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Features:
  • A classic developmental mobile to enrich cognitive and emotional growth
  • Colorful sliding beads on the arms that move while the mobile rotates
  • 20 minute continuous play of melodies or nature sounds
  • Built-in night light behind the smiling pony on the mobile base

Baby Mobile Review:

I love the products from Tiny Love, and their Classic Baby Mobile is no exception. The appearance is eye-catching: black-and-white discs support colorful dangling animals including a duck, a bunny, and a pony. The mobile base attaches securely to the side of the crib, where three easy-to-press buttons allow you to choose between the classical melodies and nature sounds to soothe your little one to sleep.

The moving parts of the mobile can be removed, after which the base can serve as a cribside night light and music player.

Tiny Love Sweet Island Dreams Mobile Island Musical Baby Mobile
Reviews: Musical Baby Mobile Reviews
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Features:
  • Island theme whose animals move in multiple directions
  • Soothing night light
  • 20 minutes of continuous music

Baby Mobile Review:

Another great mobile from Tiny Love, only this is the “island dreams” version. The form and function are similar to Tiny Love’s classic mobile. This mobile has multiple dimensions of movement for the island pals, and also plays continuous music.

Three puppet-like island friends–a giraffe, bird, and monkey–dangle from the branches and move to the music, captivating your baby’s attention.

Zutano Owls Musical Mobile Owls Musical Baby Mobile
Reviews: Owls Baby Mobile
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Features:
  • Individually handcrafted in knit with embroidered details.
  • Fabric arm cover included
  • Plays Brahm’s lullaby

Baby Mobile Review:

One of the most unique baby mobiles is from Zutano, a maker of some of the cutest baby pajamas I’ve seen. Their musical mobile plays Brahm’s lullaby while four little owls spin around to the sound of it. How cute are they!? This is a bit on the pricey side, but it’s one of the most unique and colorful baby mobiles I’ve come across in putting together these reviews.

The Zutano mobile plays Brahm’s lullaby, which I just love. You can also turn the music off and just run the mobile.

Black and White Baby Mobiles

Black and white baby mobiles are quite popular these days. The thinking is that because babies’ color vision doesn’t mature until around 4 months of age, the black-and-white contrast on a mobile is more likely to get their attention. Unfortunately, there aren’t nearly as many options for black and white crib mobiles, but I found two that I really like.

Baby Boom I Luv Zebra Crib Mobile Black and White Stim Baby Mobile
Reviews: Stim Black & White Baby Mobile
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Features:
  • Rotates and plays a lullaby
  • Wind-up so no batteries required.
  • Adjustable arm fits most crib rails

Baby Mobile Review:

This whimsical and soothing mobile is black, white, and pink. It coordinates with the “I Love Zebra” collection, featuring 100% polyester plush zebras and hearts. You wind up the mobile, and then it rotates slowly while playing a lullaby. This combination of movement and sound will keep your baby’s attention but doesn’t require batteries, which is rare for baby gear these days.

Wimmer-Ferguson Infant Stim-Mobile Black and White Stim Baby Mobile
Black and White Stim Baby Mobile
Reviews: Stim Black & White Baby Mobile
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Features:
  • Stimulate visual activity and encourage early motor skills
  • Introduces baby to high-contrast graphic toys for early visual and multi-sensory development
  • Features contrasts objects of bright color with bold black-and-white designs

Baby Mobile Review:

The award-winning Stim Mobile is one of a kind. It features vivid color and bold black-and-white images: Simple-to-complex images stimulate early visual activity and pre-reaching movement.

There are black and white patterns for the first few months, then bright colors and eye-catching pictures to use as your baby gets older.

One reason this mobile is so popular is its ingeniously simple design. The mobile includes hanger with attachable arch and 20 images that you can swap in and out at will.

Simply put, this is the best black-and-white baby mobile I’ve seen.

Organic Baby Mobiles

If you’ve already invested in organic bedding sets, clothing, and sleep sacks for your little one, you probably want the same natural materials in a baby mobile. Organic mobiles are harder to find, but Kids Line makes one with deer that’s cute and well-reviewed.

Kids Line Organic Willow Musical Mobile Willow Organic Baby Mobile
Reviews: Willow Organic Baby Mobile
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Features:
  • Fabricated from 100% pure organic cotton
  • Suspended deer slowly turn to the soft music of Brahms’ lullaby
  • Attaches to most standard-size cribs with an included universal suspension arm

Baby Mobile Review

The Willow Organic baby mobile from Kids Line is made from 100% pure organic cotton materials. These little deer spin slowly around above your baby to the tune of Brahms’ lullaby.

According to the reviews, these deer are a bit darker in color than they appear in the photos.