In: Glass bottles. Rotating car seats. Bottle washers. ✅
Out: Bottle warmers. Wipe warmers. Hard-to-clean high chairs. And anything that’s hand-wash only. 🙅🏾♀️
For the past nine years, Babylist has asked parents to tell us about the baby gear they can’t live without. For our 2026 Most Loved Baby Products survey, we polled 6,700 parents about the products they love most, what they regret registering for and what shapes their buying decisions. We also asked about their age (because who doesn’t love a good Millennial versus Gen Z debate?) and household income, helping us see where preferences overlap—and where they split.
The results offer a snapshot of both how families are building their registries and what matters in their day-to-day lives. Parents want gear that makes life easier, from bottle washers to rotating car seats. They’re paying closer attention to what goes into their baby’s products. And they’re increasingly open to using AI to sort through it all. Here are the seven trends that stood out.
🌎 Materials Matter More Than Ever
Parents want baby gear that looks good and actually works—but they’re also paying close attention to what it’s made of.
Nearly three in four parents (74%) said materials are the most important or a very important factor when choosing baby products, a priority that shows up across everything from bottles and crib mattresses to diapers and wipes.
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Half of parents (50%) now prefer glass bottles over plastic, up nine percentage points from 2025 and the highest share we’ve recorded. This shift has been building for the past few years—and materials appear to be driving it. When we asked parents about the biggest factor in choosing bottles, 71% of those who cited materials preferred glass.
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When we asked parents why they loved their favorite crib mattress, breathability topped the list (37%), followed by organic materials and low chemical emissions (27%). It makes sense that Newton’s fully breathable, GREENGUARD Gold Certified crib mattress was parents’ top choice.
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Nearly half of parents (48%) said ingredients and materials heavily influenced which diapers they bought. (Pampers Swaddlers came out number one.) And their favorite baby wipes skew toward brands that skip harsh chemicals in favor of plant-based formulas and water at the top of the ingredient list, with The Honest Company wipes taking first place.
🙃 Gen Z Is Embracing a Different Mix of Baby Brands
Gen Z isn’t inheriting the Millennial baby registry playbook. While they still gravitate toward established brands like Graco (there’s a good chance they hung out in a Pack n’ Play as babies, after all), they’re also leaning into newer brands like Joie that offers stylish, feature-rich gear at accessible price points.
Gen Z parents were more than twice as likely as Millennials to choose Joie for both full-size strollers (12% versus 5%) and infant car seats (13% versus 6%). And unlike many big-ticket brand preferences, Gen Z’s interest in Joie remained fairly consistent across income levels.
A few other products also stood out as Gen Z favorites:
Income factored into the Millennial versus Gen Z divide, too, especially for premium gear. Across both generations, higher-income parents were more likely to choose UPPAbaby, Nuna and Nanit. Nuna’s lead was especially pronounced in infant car seats: among households earning over $200K, it was selected by 31% of Gen Z parents and 36% of Millennials, compared to 13% and 14%, respectively, among those earning under $100K.
🖥️ AI Has Entered the Baby Registry Chat
AI hasn’t taken over registry-building, but it is slowly starting to help parents figure out what their babies need: 15% of parents surveyed used it to build their registry. ChatGPT was the runaway favorite, used by 88% of those AI-assisted registrants.
But 15% may be just the beginning. 45% of parents said they’d trust AI to help build their registry—three times the number who have actually tried it. With so many more parents open to the idea, we expect this share to grow significantly over the next year.
🏆 Bottle Washers Are the 2026 MVP…
The surprise registry hero of 2026 isn’t a luxe stroller or smart bassinet. It’s the countertop bottle washer. When we asked parents to name the best thing they registered for, bottle washers rose to the top.
“It’s the hardest-working member of our house,” one parent told us. Another summed it up even more simply: “Saved so much time and sanity.”
⛔ …But Parents Have No Patience for High-Maintenance Gear
The bottle washer love comes with an important caveat: parents only want convenience gear that actually makes life more convenient. In nearly one in five responses, parents described their worst registry item as “never used,” “unnecessary” or a “waste of money.”
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Bottle and wipe warmers, sterilizers that didn’t actually wash bottles and anything requiring hand-washing were frequent offenders.
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Parents also called out bottles with too many parts and high chairs with seams and hard-to-reach spots.
🤦🏻♀️ Mistakes Were Made
Babies, famously, do not care about all the research you do for their gear. Many parents’ biggest misses weren’t necessarily bad products—they were products that didn’t work for their baby, their body or their lifestyle.
Common regrets included:
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Registering for a full set of one bottle brand before knowing what baby would take
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Stocking up on swaddles before knowing whether baby tolerated swaddling
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Splurging on a swing or bouncer that baby hated
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Buying a bassinet or lounger with a very short useful lifespan
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Choosing a carrier or nursing pillow that wasn’t a comfortable fit
The takeaway: parents wished they’d sampled first and stocked up later. (And that’s exactly why Babylist Try-It Kits exist.)
🌀 Rotating Car Seats Are Here to Stay
Once a niche feature, rotation is quickly becoming the new standard, especially in convertible car seats. Three rotating models—the Evenflo Revolve360, Chicco Fit360 and Joie Chili Spin—landed among parents’ five most-loved convertible car seats this year. It’s no surprise; rotating car seats make ins and outs so much easier, especially during the squirming toddler phase.
And the swivel isn’t just a nice-to-have. Rotation was the number-one reason parents gave for loving their convertible car seat (31%), narrowly edging out longevity (30%).
Methodology
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6,700 parents surveyed, fielded June 27–July 16, 2026, via Babylist's user/prospect list (email, newsletter, on-site placements)
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Data cleaned, coded, and tabled by Edge Research; differences called out as statistically significant unless noted otherwise
