Guide and Recommendation
on Buying Baby Crib Mobiles

What factor you should consider when shopping for baby crib mobiles and which baby mobiles are the best?

We think that Infant Stim black and white basic crib mobile and the fancier battery-powered Tiny Love Sweet Island Dream musical mobile (available here ) are the best baby mobiles because they support baby's development and have the following features:

• Developmental.
  In order for the baby crib mobiles to be developmental, they have to be designed to cater the needs of infant throughout various developmental stages. Both Infant Stim and Sweet Island Dream crib mobiles are developmental and these two infant mobiles can be used until the baby grows out of it (approximately 7 months). The 'developmental' quality of these two baby mobiles lies on the fact that they have black, white and red attachment as well as other bright colored attachment. This way, the newborn can look up at the black, white and red attachment to begin with, and later on other bright colored attachments. Therefore, if you are looking for a developmental baby mobile, look for this feature and avoid the ones with soft colors since babies cannot see these kinds of colors well.
  
  
• Both Infant Stim and Sweet Island Dream have a reasonable number of suspended toys to see and talk about.
  When looking for a baby mobile, find the one which has a reasonable number of toy attachment. However, having said that, I would like to warn you that the more attachment an infant mobile has, the heavier it becomes. This means that the baby crib mobiles may fall down from the crib from time to time. However, if the baby likes the baby mobile, I personally think that the inconvenience of having to re-attach the infant mobile to the crib is not great enough to shy away from this baby mobile.
  
  
• Again, both Infant Stim and Sweet Island Dream have horizontally rather than vertically suspended attachments so that the attachments face the baby who is lying flat on their backs and looking up.
  Although most of today's baby crib mobiles have attachment which are suspended in a way such that the fun part is facing the baby, there are still some which are not suspended that way. Be careful not to buy the ones which have vertical attachment as the only thing that is visible to an infant is the flat underside.

Additionally, if you like a fancy baby crib mobile, like the battery-operated Sweet Island Dream, you may want to decide on these following features when shopping for baby mobiles:

• The movement of the attachment.
  Some infant mobiles just move horizontally, whereas some have several different movement, for instance the main arm moves like a wave, whereas the attachments themselves move horizontally. Of course the baby crib mobiles which have more complicated movement will be more fun to look at but they are more pricey. My recommendation, the Sweet Island Dream baby mobile has different kind of movement which will entertain your baby.
  
  
• Music box.
  A music box attached to the infant mobile like Sweet Island Dream baby crib mobile is a bonus and very useful especially for the one which is put over the changing table, as the baby may listen to the music and settle down during this uncomfortable process. Some baby mobiles have some music tunes with knobs to adjust the volume. Some sophisticated ones are even operated by a remote control. Decide whether you want an infant mobile to send the baby to sleep or to stimulate the baby and choose the music accordingly.
  
  
• The way the infant mobile is operated.
  Basically, there are 2 ways the baby mobiles can be operated: by wind alone, and by motor. Nowadays, most baby mobiles have motor; some are battery operated and some need us to wind the motor. All baby mobiles which cost around 20 dollars like the recommended Infant Stimneeds the wind to make them move. Other basic mobiles need to be wound frequently in order to move and play the music. These kinds of crib baby mobiles are durable but you may get frustrated of winding the motor so often (less than 5 mins per-session) especially if the baby only enjoys seeing a moving infant mobile.
  
  However, if your baby does not mind watching a stationary mobile with occasional move, then it is okay to buy a crib baby mobile which can only be moved by wind or by motor wound by you. If you find that you get frustrated with all the winding, you may want to instead try a battery operated baby mobile, like the recommended Sweet Island Dream baby mobile. Battery operated baby mobiles are good because they will give a longer 'on' time which means that the battery operated mobiles can move and play music continuously for as long as 15 minutes. This will give you enough time to do stuff around the house. However, there are disadvantages of buying battery powered baby mobiles. The disadvantages of having a battery operated baby mobiles are:
  • they are expensive -- they cost around 40-50 dollars at present.
  • they depend on batteries and eat up batteries quickly.
  • they break down more easily.
  
  
  
• Remote control operated vs non remote control operated. Again, the fancier crib mobile, like the Sweet Island Dream mobile by Tiny Love usually can be operated through a remote controller.

Any local department store and toy store will have a selection of baby mobiles you can choose from, but I personally recommend Infant Stim Baby Mobile from Manhattan Toys or the fancier Tiny Love Musical Mobile (either Symphony in Motion or Sweet Island Dreams).

If you want to buy other infant stimulation along with baby mobile, I recommend you to get the mobile at Genius Babies, a toy store specializing in educational baby toys. This store carries the Infant Stim mobile, Sweet Island Dream mobile and other high quality baby mobiles as well as a unique variety of newborn or infant visual stimulation toys/books/package not available elsewhere.

In addition, this store 'sometimes' has cheaper Infant Stim-Mobile or Tiny Love Sweet Island Dreams Mobile , and also have more selection of baby mobiles to sift through.

Musical Mobile (Battery-Operated) by Tiny Love
This baby mobile is our first choice and is the baby crib mobile we recommend to get for your baby. Read why we like it ...

Infant-Stim Baby Mobile from Manhattan Toys
This is a more basic baby mobile which does a good job in stimulating your baby. It does not have all the fancy bell and whistles but is superior for infant visual stimulation.

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Benefit of Infant Mobile

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Links to other educational baby toys articles:

Guide to the Best Developmental Infant Toys for Babies 0-6 months

Guide to Baby Developmental Toys for Infant 6-12 months

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