The Best Baby Swings, Tested Extensively By This Mom Of Five

The best baby swings soothe a fussy baby and offer a break to you both in what can be long monotonous days of parenting a baby, as sweet as they are. While a baby bouncer or pack and play might work in a pinch, baby swings tend to offer additional soothing and entertainment features designed to keep little ones occupied longer. After testing nine baby swings over two months with my fifth child, the Graco Soothe ’N Sway LX Swing With Portable Bouncer proved the best baby swing overall. Some swings are complicated to use while others don’t offer the right motion to soothe a baby. As a professional product reviewer and journalist, I’ve tried out more than 20 baby swings over the last decade. I found four other baby swings to consider, including the Maxi-Cosi Cassia smart baby swing, which responds to a baby’s fussing.

See all the best baby swings, according to my testing for this guide, below:

While swings are helpful tools in our parenting toolbox, they aren’t meant to replace safe sleep spaces. I certainly found them useful over the years for buying myself 10 minutes, and I’m a busy, working mom to five young children. However, studies show the potential for babies to suffocate due to their position in swings if they are sleeping in them, and the American Academy of Pediatrics advises against infants sleeping in a swing for this reason. With this in mind, whenever your baby starts to look tired in a swing, it’s best to move them to their crib or bassinet. But for playtime or as a sometimes baby soother and seat, a swing really can work well for some babies.

Graco makes a variety of baby swings, bouncers and other infant gear and seats. I tested two of its swings for this guide and was most impressed with its Soothe ’N Sway LX Swing With Portable Bouncer. The swing features a large, easy to see and use knob that turns up like a volume button on your car stereo. This makes it helpful for other siblings to participate in helping the baby with the swing, their favorite job.

This swing also features three recline positions, which is helpful for newborns who need to lay flat and older babies with some neck control who are ready to look around. Though it wasn’t the easiest to build among all the baby swings I tested—it took 23 minutes compared to just 1 minute for the Nuna Leaf Grow, which comes assembled and which I also liked, and 2 minutes on the Munchkin Bluetooth Enabled Swing—the final end product felt worth the labor to me.

A Midsize Swing With Easy-To-Use Features

Compared to some baby swings that have a bigger total footprint and height, this swing fits better into smaller spaces and sits lower to the ground but not so low that I found it difficult to reach into it for my child. Instead, it feels like a true midsize swing. This size might make it a bit more palatable than bulkier swings with legs that stick out, while other parents might prefer the swing be higher off the ground. It felt extremely sturdy, especially in comparison to the smallest, lightest swings out there, and I never worried about it tipping.

I also appreciated that Graco made this a two-in-one baby gear item, offering the removable and portable bouncer bundled with the swing, reducing parents’ need to buy one more thing for the nursery. There are multiple vibration and song settings, which helps soothe the baby, but it doesn’t have a mobile that spins like some fancier full-size swings. Instead, a few stationary hanging toys have to suffice. The swing can also rotate to face a different direction, letting baby swing either front to back or side to side. After extensive testing, I didn’t find another swing that could beat this Graco’s versatility, reliability and strong features. Read my full in-depth review of the Graco Soothe ’N Sway LX Swing for additional details.

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The Maxi-Cosi Cassia baby swing affectionately became known around our house as “the egg,” because it’s shaped as such. The shape was one of the most attractive features, as it looks much more pleasing than some other more bulky options, and this shape also seemed to position the baby better into upright positions than swings with a deeper bucket seat.

This smart swing responds to the baby’s fussiness, soothing them with strong side-to-side motion, at up to five speeds. One of the indicators of a great swing, I’ve learned after five kids, is the ability to move fast enough to really simulate the movement a parent would provide rocking a baby—which is not always a slow motion. The Cassia is fast enough to actually calm the baby, and it’s easy to push the buttons near the ground on the base to select these options. However, there’s a bit of a learning curve as to what each button means; for example, the Speedometer button speeds it up. This might not be as intuitive as other options.

This swing is one that can be interesting to use for parents, watching the responsiveness to the baby as a technological innovation. Dr. Whitney Casares, Portland-based pediatrician, writer and speaker at Modern Mommy Doc, says sometimes swings are simply one tool parents can use in their toolbox to help bust boredom with young babies, to be used in a rotation with other activities and products.

“[Swings are] items that parents can use in a circuit to drive out boredom for themselves with their babies, and also provide a little bit of different stimulation for babies so that if they’re fussy, or if they want them to sit for a second,” she says. “Sometimes it’s just a slight change of environment.”

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The Bright Starts Portable Swing weighs barely 7 pounds and runs exclusively on batteries, so it isn’t tethered to the closest outlet. It quickly became my favorite swing when moving with my baby to another room in the house and would appeal to those with small spaces as well as anyone seeking an extra portable pick.

Lightweight, Portable And Enough To Entertain Babies

It starts swinging with just one button, and I pushed the highest swing intensity for a solid front to back motion. The swinging motion itself is a bit more jostling than other smoother swings—but this was a plus for her. It seemed like the equivalent of a bumpy car ride, and she was a fan.

It is low to the ground and sturdy, so I wasn’t worried about my toddler trying to pull the baby out, tip the swing, or otherwise cause terrible two-like mayhem. The seat itself is much deeper and a bit more upright than other options, which my baby seemed to enjoy. She could look around at her brothers and wasn’t looking up at the ceiling. There are a few mobile toys which she didn’t pay much attention to, but her upright angle provided more comfort and entertainment for her than some other angles.

This swing seemed exceptionally safe compared to some others, due to its five-point harness and low profile, not leaving as much room for something to happen due to height. “Even though swings are safer [now than in the past], infants should always be supervised in a swing—make sure you can see and hear them,” says Dr. Jenelle Ferry, neonatologist and director of feeding, nutrition and infant development at Pediatrix Medical Group in Tampa. “Infants under 4 months should use the most reclined swing position, as they don’t have good head control and can easily slump over. Ensure the swing has a good base and doesn’t tip over easily, especially if other children or pets are in the house.”

Like some other swings, the top bar comes off easily, obviously trying to deter parents from carrying the swing around with the baby in it. But in this case, sometimes I’d knock it off accidentally a little too easily, which was frustrating. Overall, the Bright Starts swing was one of the most convenient options I tested. It even made a trip to the Little League park to watch the older siblings play ball. Given this portability, and the unbeatable price, I found this to be the best value baby swing overall.

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You can turn on the fan or the TV with a remote, and now some baby swings offer the same convenience. The Munchkin Bluetooth Enabled Swing features volume and other functions made possible from afar through a remote control, so you don’t have to stop what you are doing to adjust the settings. This can be quite convenient, or an additional stressor to keep track of another remote, depending how organized you are. Of course, you can also operate directly by the buttons on the swing, too.

Easier Buckling And A Convenient Remote

One of my favorite features of this swing is the easy-to-access safety belt that’s already set up, preventing you from having to attach the straps each time like you’d see on a larger 5-point harness swing. This makes it super convenient to place the baby in the swing quickly if you need a safe place to put them while you help another kid, answer the door or tend to your burning dinner.