Top pick
This tub’s generous dimensions make it the easiest to use of the basins we tested. Its design will grow with your baby, and it includes extras that other tubs don’t.
We think the Fisher-Price 4-in-1 Sling ’n Seat Tub will work best for most parents who want a dedicated baby bathtub. It’s convenient, feels very safe, and allows babies to lie or sit in more positions than any other bath we tested. This means the Fisher-Price will probably last you longer than other baths we tested, so even though it’s more expensive than some, we think it’s a good value. If you have a small kitchen sink and want a basin to use in your tub or elsewhere, this is the one to get.
Although it may sound counterintuitive, the large—but not too large—size of the Fisher-Price made it much easier to use than smaller tubs we tested, which sometimes required repositioning the baby in order to scrub. One much bigger tub we tried was just too cumbersome to manage. The Fisher-Price, which weighs around 4 pounds, was just right: it took almost no extra effort to set up and to clean, but having more elbow room in the tub made it easier to reach every baby part. Compared with other tubs we tried with more complex designs and hard-to-reach corners, the smooth, gently sloping surfaces of the Fisher-Price are much simpler to clean.
The Fisher-Price also includes some nice touches that make it easier to use: It’s one of the only baths we found with a drying hook—a surprisingly handy bonus—to keep the tub up and out of the way. Its drain plug means you don’t need to tip the heavy water-filled basin to empty it, something we struggled with while using some baths. It’s also the only bath we tested that includes a rinsing bottle, which, although it had the flow of a weak watering can, did help me rinse shampoo out of my baby’s hair.
We felt that our babies were safe in the Fisher-Price. It sits flat on the floor of the tub or shower, unlike some of the rounder, barrel-shaped baths that weren’t compatible with my tub’s sloped sides. If this tub won’t fit in your kitchen sink—which is likely, because it’s about 30 inches long—it can sit above it; its notched feet securely hook over the divider of a split sink. The interior angles of the bath kept our babies’ heads safely above the water and didn’t let them slip side-to-side or slouch down. Another basin I tested, the Shnuggle, was scary for me and my daughter because she kept sliding sideways in the too-wide tub.
The Fisher-Price is more versatile than any other bath we tested, offering four configurations for bathing. Like some other tubs we tried, it includes a newborn sling for the first few months, and the tub itself consists of a padded, reclined lounge seat on one end and a more upright seat on the other. These two positions support newborns as they slowly work toward the ability to sit. The Fisher-Price outperformed all of the other tubs because it adds a fourth position: Once your baby can sit comfortably, removing the seat frees up even more room in the tub for larger infants to play. Even with the seat attached, the Fisher-Price has more room to move around—it’s longer and wider than most basins we looked at. But unlike other wide tubs that let my baby slip to the side, Fisher-Price’s seat held her in place while leaving her plenty of space to splash.
This versatility means you’ll be able to use this bath for longer than any other we tested. It accommodates babies up to 25 pounds, so it can provide about a year of use. Our runner-up, the First Years Sure Comfort Deluxe, has the same weight limit, but its shorter interior length limits its lifespan. Wirecutter writer Liam McCabe, who owned the Fisher-Price, loved that he wouldn’t need to buy a larger bath for his then-6-month-old daughter: “As somebody who hates buying things twice, I like the idea that I should be able to use this one tub for at least another six months—without having to fill up the whole bathtub for a person who’s barely 2 feet tall.”
Flaws but not dealbreakers
Although we like the large size of the Fisher-Price, it’s harder to store than the more compact baths we tried. It wouldn’t fit in my large 30-inch kitchen sink, as other basins did, so I was forced to kneel next to the tub during bathtime. We doubt that this bath would fit in many sinks. The Fisher-Price has notched feet to secure it on top of a split sink, but, depending on your height, doing so may make it too high to comfortably reach inside.
The removable seat, though versatile, is a pain to remove. Pulling it off requires enough force that I wondered if I was about to break something. And, to add insult to injury, the drain plug is located under the seat, which makes it more awkward to reach than those of some of the other models we tested (but still others have no drain plug). You can solve this problem by reaching under the tub to push the plug in from the outside, rather than bothering to remove the seat, as one Amazon reviewer did. Some Amazon reviewers noted that their babies’ toes were cut by small drain holes in the removable seat. Fisher-Price has updated the tub, and the removable seat no longer has holes; we have not tested this version. Finally, the squeezable rinsing bottle is a good idea, but in reality, the spray of water was too wide to rinse my baby’s hair without also splashing her face.
