The Top 26 Baby Trends of 2025

The rise of screens in nearly all devices has fueled a counter-trend of premium, screen-free alternatives for babies and kids

New parents are often unsure about what technology to give their children: the only technology parents are sure kids are ready for is the one they've experienced themselves. They don’t know how new tech will affect their kids but they know how they themselves turned out, so it feels less risky. Often this means that when parents upgrade a technology they’re comfortable with, their kids get a hand-me-down version. This phenomenon has a long history—in 1997, as cell phones were catching on among adults, 20% of beepers were used by teenagers.

It applies to entertainment, too: products like Yoto Player give parents a screen-free way to expose kids to music, offering them an experience similar to the Gen X and early Millennial experience of having a collection of cassette tapes but with parent-vetted music and stories.

Screens have almost become table stakes for any new device. They’ve gotten so cheap that they're the default way to interact with more and more devices, especially because putting a screen on a product can help businesses monetize through upgrades and ancillary products. In this way, the cost of using a screen is even further pushed down as it’s effectively subsidized by the downstream revenue they enable. And why invent a new physical user interface—and pay for potentially unreliable buttons and dials—when you can just use a standardized touch screen?

As screens are increasingly plastered onto a growing number of products, the opposing anti-screen movement aligns with broader mental health shifts. The Yoto Player doesn't have screens; it just plays music and audio files. Parents can buy "cards" pre-loaded with new music for their kids, which gives the product an ongoing revenue stream: cards cost $5 to $25, and parents often buy a new one ahead of an extended trip or staycation, or as a birthday or holiday present. It's sort of a Peloton for kids: a physical device that leads to ongoing spending on a high-margin information product.

Over a twenty-year period, screens became so cheap and ubiquitous, to the point that someone who wants the same functionality without the screen is now paying a premium for less distraction.

Baby toy industry shifting to stage-based product lines to grow revenue

Brands like Lovevery increasingly offer toys for kids on a subscription model, with each toy designed for children of a specific age. Subscriptions work well for consumable products but are challenging for durables—to sell a toy subscription is to suggest that it's a toy the child will get bored of. Yet, Lovevery has leveraged a subscription model, influenced by consumer habits shaped by recent eCommerce trends..

Targeting specific age ranges gives Lovevery a justification for subscription purchases rather than one-time buys: the playmat for an 18-month-old is meant to transition to a set of blocks for a two-year-old. It also gives them a way to understate pricing: new toy kits are delivered every two to three months, but the price is expressed as a monthly subscription.

Lovevery's product positioning helps them target people other than parents with a low-risk gift. Since each toy is designated with an exact age range, the product line fits perfectly for birthday gifts—relatives don't necessarily know what gift is appropriate for a two-year-old, so gifts that are vetted as perfect for that exact age feel safer.

Surge in demand for breast pumps after IRS declares lactation equipment tax deductible

In 2011, the IRS declared lactation equipment tax deductible which led to a boom in the market for breast pump products.

Now, wearable breast pumps are gaining popularity among modern parents, particularly working moms seeking hands-free solutions to juggle busy lifestyles, driven by broader trends in convenience-focused personal care. These devices allow for discreet pumping while multitasking, making it easier to manage work and home responsibilities.

And with increasing support for breastfeeding in public and workplace settings, wearable pumps offer a more socially accepted and convenient option for moms who need to pump on the go.

Secondhand marketplaces like Poshmark and thredUP are thriving in maternity wear, as short ownership cycles create both buyers and future sellers

The maternity dress and feeding dress niches – feeding dresses for feeding infants - are undergoing a massive transformation. Walmart mostly moved their maternity section online and many retailers don’t even carry maternity clothing anymore. This is in large part due to the higher costs of supporting the category; the short duration of need for maternity clothing leads to above-average return rates.

This swift shift from offline to online has been bolstered by secondhand marketplaces like Poshmark and thredUP, reflecting wider changes reshaping the retail landscape. These items’ short ownership duration means that secondhand markets can expect their buyers in this category to be future sellers. And for secondhand marketplaces in particular, a high frequency of returns changes from a liability to an asset since it keeps people in their ecosystem and adds inventory to their sites.

Smart baby monitor companies are evolving from baby sleep tracking to capturing and sharing key childhood moments

Nanit, which sells smart baby monitor products, has had a fascinating go-to-market strategy and a compelling long-term content marketing strategy.

The company’s growth has been driven by its ability to keep families connected. Over time, the distance that children settle down, away from their roots, has grown. And on top of this, the pandemic has accelerated this distance between family members for many demographics. In fact, grandparents, aunts, uncles and other relatives have recently made up 20% of Nanit’s active users. Parents can set permissions so that relatives can hear, see, and even talk with the baby no matter the distance.

Nanit’s marketing angle has shifted as it has grown its customer base. The early adopters were customers who wanted to more closely monitor and track their baby’s sleep - an extension of the Quantified Self movement exemplified by Fitbit and the Apple Watch, but applied to quantifying others instead.

Nanit then started going after consumers who didn’t want to miss their kids' earliest moments and even wanted to share these moments with family. It’s a different use case, but utilizes the same underlying technology. This lets them expand the market and, once they own it, help all their customers understand the value of the health and sleep data they are collecting, not just the early adopters.

Originally, baby monitoring was just a microphone that let parents hear if their baby was crying. But it wasn’t something parents would record and share, even if they technically could.

Nanit combines imagery and data to auto-generate content, tapping into increasing consumer interest in smart-home and connected-device technologies, producing image reels celebrating milestones like a baby’s first smile.” This turns Nanit into a content conveyor belt that, in addition to helping parents share more of their baby’s journey on social media, also serves as free and powerful marketing for the Nanit brand.

As secondhand baby product sales rise, brands push premium options like rotating car seats to maintain revenue

The lifespans of some home appliances have more than halved over the past half-century. At partial fault is the addition of screens, sensors, and more moving parts which create more failure modes. But companies are also increasingly relying on planned obsolescence strategies that fail products earlier in order to increase recurring revenue.

The beginnings of large-scale planned obsolescence started almost exactly a century ago. Known as the “Phoebus Cartel”, representatives from top light bulb manufacturers, including GE, colluded to artificially cap the lifespan of their lightbulbs at 1,000 hours.

Sometimes, when companies can’t compel repurchases because a product has no breakable electronics, they’ll use any number of other strategies, including setting plausible expiration dates or just setting a higher price.

This works particularly well with health-related products because consumers prefer to not risk damaging their, or their child’s, health and so end up paying the premium.

Car seats, for example, are one consumer good that, surprisingly, have expiration dates. And while independent experts do agree that car seats for kids should be replaced after a decade or more, a number of companies recommend replacing them after just half that time.

Interestingly, it’s as much for preventing reuse among one’s children as it is to prevent secondhand sales. This is important because secondhand sales of baby products are at an all-time high. As birth rates decline, it’s harder to spread some of the costs of raising children across multiple kids. Products that could be used more than once, like hand-me-down clothing, and other stage-based products, are effectively more expensive now.

Rotating car seats, an increasingly popular premium option influenced by changing consumer behaviors toward safety and convenience, offer parents an easier way to get their kids into the rear-facing position, which is considered the safest.

Rising C-section rates are fueling demand for scar tape, originally used for plastic surgery, to minimize scarring

The rate of C-section baby deliveries around the world has grown more than 300% over the past 30 years alone.

This drastic growth is in part due to medical billing. Doctors are paid about 15% more to deliver babies via C-section than via birth canal, as the operation is then classified as a major surgery. And because C-sections take less time, doctors can perform more of them per day, leading to greater earnings.

Numerous studies have found that C-sections spike around morning, lunchtime, and the end of the day, spikes that are attributed to doctors’ scheduling pressures like going home and heading out to lunch. Doctors also get sued less when performing C-sections compared to traditional delivery.

As C-sections become more common, scar tape’s popularity rises in tandem with broader consumer interest in skincare solutions aimed at minimizing scars.

Parents increasingly seek out products that let them watch their kids while also still using their phones

One of the biggest drivers of new adoption for parenting gear is the rise of multitasking: parents who are using smartphones, watching Netflix, or checking email can still supervise a baby, but only if their child is kept out of trouble and entertained. In some cases, this leads to a constant stream of new toys—or of new streaming entertainment options on tablets. But it’s also increased the adoption of indoor baby swings.

Like neck fans, indoor baby swings are part of the battle for the last hand: a parent who has a phone in one hand needs a consistent one-handed activity they can do with their baby, and swings can keep children delighted for long periods.

While the DIY community offers tips on constructing a swing at home, many parents opt for the safety of buying one that’s built for exactly their use case. Since the most important safety feature is how well a swing attaches to the doorframe, some companies double up, by offering both a baby swing for kids and a pull-up bar for parents, all as part of the same product.