When my kids’ noses start running, I know that it’s not only cold and flu season but also humidifier season. They help add moisture to the air and ease the uncomfortable symptoms that come with seasonal illnesses. The best baby humidifiers are the right size for your nursery and distribute a cool mist only. I also appreciate ones that are easy to use and clean. Our top pick after testing 10 humidifiers, the Canopy Nursery Humidifier 2.0, is dishwasher-safe, filters both the air and water, and has a built-in night light and sound machine. But I also found several other nursery-friendly models to recommend, depending on your family’s needs.
We tested 10 top models to find the best humidifier for baby.
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“When the temperature goes down, air becomes very dry, and this can lead to baby’s dry skin, itchiness and a stuffy nose,” explains Dr. Allen J. Dozor, M.D., professor of pediatrics and division chief of pulmonology, allergy and sleep medicine at New York Medical College. “A humidifier can help, as long as it is used properly and safely.” In addition to testing humidifiers in our homes, we consulted with Dozor along with three other experts to help inform our picks for the best baby humidifiers.
Designed For Cleaner Air
There are truly so many great things to say about the Canopy Nursery Humidifier 2.0. As someone with asthma and allergies, clean air is extremely important to me, which is why I appreciate the filter and UV technology to reduce mold, bacteria and other contaminants. A pre-filter catches larger particles from air, and an antimicrobial filter core reduces metals, minerals and dust. It runs until it’s almost completely dry, which further inhibits mold growth. Our tester found that she doesn’t have to clean it as often as other humidifiers for this reason.
When you do have to clean it, you can pop the tank in the dishwasher. It’s also wide enough to easily wash by hand, which our tester found very easy to do.
Nursery-Friendly Features
The humidifier is just the right size for a nursery, according to our tester. To help keep your baby’s nursery at an ideal humidity level, it uses “Smart Persistent Airflow Technology” to keep the mist going at just the right pace. It’s available in seven colors, so you don’t have to go with the stark white of many other humidifiers. It also has a night light and an integrated sound machine, so you may be able to reduce clutter in your baby’s room—but if you don’t plan to use the humidifier year-round you may want to buy these items separately anyway.
The best humidifier for baby is the Canopy Nursery Humidifier thanks to its nursery-friendly features and filter.
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Our tester used an older version of the Canopy humidifier that didn’t have some of these newer features, but we’re looking forward to testing the newer version. While the older version can go completely dark for sleep, we’re also looking forward to testing whether this is the case with the new version.
Not The Most Budget-Friendly
As much as we like this humidifier, it’s not the most affordable. In addition to the steep cost of the humidifier itself, you need to continually purchase filters, which are $19 each (or $10 if you sign up for the filter subscription). Nonetheless, our tester finds the filters worth it because she doesn’t have to use distilled water or worry about contaminants in the water. The way the filters look after use are proof that they work.
Kid-Approved And Quiet Operation
While the aesthetics of a humidifier aren’t the most important consideration when deciding which one to buy, they are important, especially when you’re shopping for your baby’s nursery. Many options look rather utilitarian, so I appreciate these kid-friendly designs. In addition to the frog I tested, other options include a penguin, a train and an elephant—there are 11 designs total. During testing, my daughter gave this her seal of approval, explaining that kids will like it.
Accidentally waking up a sick baby is not ideal, which is why I like that this pick is very quiet, too. It clicks when you first turn it on, but then it’s not loud. I can hear the slight trickle of water, but I don’t hear a fan or motor noise.
No Extras But Easy To Use
There aren’t any frills on this humidifier such as night lights or connected apps, but that also means it’s very easy to use. Simply turn the dial and you’re set. A small green light stays on all the time, but it’s not very bright and would be easy to cover with a light blocking sticker if you or your child are sensitive to these things while sleeping. It doesn’t measure the humidity level, though the output is easy to control thanks to the variable dial. If you really want to keep an eye on humidity levels, consider purchasing a hygrometer.
With a simple dial, the Crane Adorables Humidifier is easy to use.
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It has an average-sized opening and shallow but wide water tank that makes it easy to fill even in a shallow sink. The hole is wide enough to fit a cleaning brush in, but I can’t quite get my hand inside to clean. The brand recommends weekly cleaning with a water and vinegar solution, which eliminates the manual cleaning many other humidifiers require.
No Mist Direction Control
With the frog design, I can’t control the direction of the mist (other designs may differ). I’d prefer to be able to direct the mist away from walls or other items that need to stay dry without turning the whole unit.
While it doesn’t need a filter to function, you can opt to add a demineralization filter to help slow the buildup of gunk. The brand recommends doing this if you notice white dust accumulating as a result of using the humidifier.
Extra Large For Large Spaces
The Levoit Superior 6000S Smart Evaporative Humidifier, which is designed to sit on the floor, has a six gallon tank that ran for 35 hours on high in our test. According to the brand, it can run for up to 72 hours on low. If you’re looking for something that you don’t have to keep checking or refilling, this is ideal. Designed for spaces up to 3,000 square feet, this pick is best for larger rooms, and it’s a great option if you want something to humidify your living space while baby is awake.
With such a large tank, I appreciate the wheels on the bottom that facilitate moving the humidifier from one location to the next. It also comes with a long hose with a flexible funnel at the end to fill the tank. Because it has a filter, tap water works just fine. When the fan is running, it makes a soft white noise sound on low. On high, it is rather loud, so keep this in mind if you don’t like to use white noise in your baby’s room.
A long hose makes the large Levoit Superior 6000S Smart Evaporative Humidifier easy to fill.
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Though this humidifier took a bit more work to assemble than many others, it wasn’t difficult. As an evaporative option, you won’t notice a mist coming from the machine, and you can turn the display off to keep your baby’s room dark.
Convenient App And Smart Features
One of the standout features of this humidifier is the app, which I found incredibly easy to set up. It allows you to not only control the humidifier but also to view data about its performance. With the app, I can set a timer or schedule, view the filter life, see the humidity history, connect to a voice assistant, access a cleaning guide and control the humidity and fan speed.
On the display on the humidifier itself, I can control many of these features as well, and I can lock the display to prevent kids from adjusting the settings.
Not The Simplest Cleaning Process
While many humidifiers recommend cleaning once per week, this pick recommends emptying and wiping down all parts every three days, which can be a lot to remember. Additionally, the company recommends a more in-depth cleaning process that takes about an hour every month. To help with cleaning, drying and extending filter life, run the humidifier on dry mode to dry out the filters.
Incredibly Simple To Use
As a mom to three, including a set of twins, I appreciate any time a baby product is so easy to use it’s almost foolproof. That has been my experience with the Aquaoasis Cool Mist Humidifier. There aren’t any complicated setup directions, and the knob on the front has three fan speeds. I can rotate the direction of the mist by turning the nozzle on the top. When all I need is something simple to humidify my baby’s room, I don’t miss the smart features of other options that are nice but that can also sometimes complicate the operation.
You certainly don’t want a humidifier to wake a sleeping baby, so a quiet device is ideal for many families. Even on the highest speed, I can hardly hear the fan run at all. Occasionally, I hear some water trickling, but I don’t worry that the noise will wake my baby. Like many similar humidifiers, it does have an external green light. It’s very dim though and could easily be covered by a sticker if you want total darkness.
The Aquaoasis Cool Mist Humidifier is just the right size for a nursery and has an impressive run time.
ALICIA BETZ FOR FORBES
Impressive Run Time
With a tank that is relatively small at just over half a gallon, I was impressed with the run time of this humidifier: 23.5 hours on high. Waking up in the middle of the night only to refill my baby’s humidifier isn’t ideal, so this run time is a huge bonus. The tank is very easy to fill, even in shallow sinks.
Clean Every Three Days
The manual recommends cleaning this humidifier every three days by wiping the internal components, rinsing with water and then drying. Like our pick for the best large humidifier, this is pretty frequent cleaning that could prove frustrating. However, since this is a smaller option, this cleaning isn’t as time-consuming.
Impressive App Features
If you want to create a smart nursery, the Safety 1st Connected Smart Humidifier is an excellent choice. The app not only connects to the humidifier but also to certain baby monitors, and it works with Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home virtual assistants. In addition, you can set up routines with your smart devices and keep a diary of your baby’s schedule and routines. I find these features very helpful when I’m trying to coordinate the care of my baby between multiple caregivers and I need everyone to be on the same page.
When it comes to controlling the humidifier, the app allows you to change the fan speed or humidity, turn on a night light or activate night mode. In this mode, almost all of the lights go off except for one very dim one on the display. Though the app is really nice now that I have it set up, I did have a bit of trouble initially. It certainly wasn’t as easy to set up as the Levoit app.
A night light under the Safety 1st Connected Smart Humidifier gives it an optional gentle glow.
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Thoughtfully Designed For Nurseries
As opposed to many other multi-purpose humidifiers, I appreciate that this pick is designed with babies and nurseries in mind. The overall look and aesthetic of the humidifier is much nicer than many other options, and I don’t mind leaving it in my kids’ rooms all the time, as opposed to others that I want to put away as soon as I’m done using them. I also like that it has a built-in night light, which saves room on my kids’ night stands, and that I can lock the display so my kids don’t adjust the settings.
As a parent, I like that it’s easy to clean. The entire top comes off to access the tank. The manufacturer recommends cleaning the inside weekly with a bottle brush.
Powerful Mist
While many other humidifiers have a softer mist, I noticed that this one produces a pretty powerful mist, so watch for over-humidification, especially around the area of the humidifier itself. I’m also not able to adjust the mist nozzle.
The motor produces a very light sound, and I can occasionally hear water trickling. This isn’t a huge issue, but if you prefer a very quiet nursery, consider the Aquaoasis Cool Mist Humidifier (our pick for the quietest humidifier for babies) instead.
Super Simple Operation And Cleaning
One of my favorite things about the Honeywell HCM-350 Humidifier is that it doesn’t require much thought to run or clean, which is ideal when you’re dealing with a sick baby. While extra features like night lights and timers can be nice to have, sometimes they can complicate parenting. I found the tank easy to fill and place in the humidifier, and with only three fan options, operating it is simple. You can control the humidity in the room, but you can’t set a preferred humidity percentage. It also ran for 22 hours on high in our tests, meaning it can easily last the whole night.
A tank that’s easy to clean is the hallmark of a good humidifier. When it comes time to wash this pick, throw both the tank and the base in the dishwasher. If that’s not an option for you, wipe it clean with a mixture of bleach and water.
It can humidify rooms up to 400 feet, which should cover the size of most nurseries. It only has one small power light; there are no super bright display lights to disturb your baby’s sleep—or yours.
With a dishwasher-safe tank, the Honeywell HMC-350 Humidifier is easy for parents to clean.
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Designed To Distribute Cleaner Humidified Air
Mold and other toxins can quickly become an issue with humidifiers, and you don’t want your baby breathing in unhealthy particles. In an effort to combat this, the Honeywell HCM-350 Humidifier has both a filter to remove particulates and a UV light to help kill microbes. These are designed to prevent mineral and mold buildup, and subsequently improve air quality. You will need to replace the filter with some frequency, depending on your water, and the UV light every 3,000 hours.
This humidifier uses evaporative rather than the ultrasonic technology found in many humidifiers, so there is no visible mist—don’t worry if you don’t see anything coming out of the humidifier. On the lowest fan setting, it’s relatively quiet, but it’s rather loud on the highest fan setting. The sound wasn’t an issue for my kids, however, because we use white noise in their rooms anyway.
Take Care When Moving It
If you need to pick the humidifier up to move it, take care to lift from the very bottom, not the sides. If you don’t place your hand underneath, the base separates from the rest of the humidifier, which can be frustrating.
Other Baby Humidifiers We Tested
Between myself and another Forbes Vetted parent tester, we evaluated 10 humidifiers total. Here are the other options we tried:
Frida Baby 3-in-1 Cool Mist Humidifier (3.5/5 stars): Simple and easy to operate, this humidifier is ideal for smaller rooms. However, I don’t like that it beeps when I operate the night light, and sometimes I have to fiddle with it to get it to start working after I place the tank on the base.
Vicks Mini Filter Free Cool Mist Humidifier (4.3/5 stars): Though this is a cost-effective option, this humidifier was one of the first to empty in our test. It only ran for 12 hours, meaning it can run out of water while baby is still sleeping. It also has a more complicated cleaning process than many of the other humidifiers I tested.
Levoit 4L Smart Cool Mist Humidifier (3.8/5 stars): I like that this humidifier has a nozzle that can spray mist in two directions and that it can be controlled via an app. However, I found this one to have an unnecessarily complicated set up, cleaning process and control panel.
Crane Drop (3.8/5 stars): Available in multiple colors, this can be a good pick if you want something that matches your baby’s nursery. The manufacturer recommends letting it fully dry daily, but the hole in the tank was too small to reach my hand in. This means it takes a lot of time to air dry every day. Additionally, there is a small light that sits inside the water tank, so you can’t cover it with a sticker like you can with many other humidifier models.
How We Tested The Best Baby Humidifiers
I’ve been testing humidifiers for babies for over a year, running them throughout rooms in my home and performing tests on each. Another parent tester also tested a humidifier by using it in her child’s room. Here is how we evaluated each one:
- Setup: I set up each humidifier in my home according to the instructions. I also filled each in two types of sinks: a larger kitchen sink and a more shallow bathroom sink.
- Ease of use: I used each humidifier and its features, including each fan speed, humidity level and other features like night lights, timers and mist nozzles.
- Run time: I ran each humidifier in my home on high with a full tank, measuring how long each took to run out of water.
- Lights and sounds: I listened to each humidifier run independently and described how loud it was and what types of sounds I was able to hear. I also ran each one in the dark to see how bright the lights are—because sleep experts recommend that babies and adults alike sleep in rooms that are as dark as possible.
- Cleaning: I cleaned each humidifier according to the instructions in the manual, noting how easy it was to clean, how long it took and any special cleaning considerations.
- Continued testing: Throughout this winter, I plan on continuing to test each humidifier in my home. As the air gets more dry, I plan to measure how each humidifier changes the humidity in a room after one and three hours. I also plan to continue to use each one to test their longevity.
We tested each humidifier in our homes to gain real-world insight.
ALICIA BETZ FOR FORBES
What To Consider When Buying A Humidifier For Babies
The best humidifier for your baby is both safe and sized appropriately for the room. You’ll also want to make sure you choose something you can continue to use as your baby gets older.
Mist Temperature
It’s always best to choose a cool mist humidifier for babies. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) notes a warm mist humidifier can cause burns.
Humidification Type: Ultrasonic Vs. Evaporative
There are two different types of humidifiers to choose from: ultrasonic and evaporative. Ultrasonic humidifiers use high-frequency sound vibrations to create a fine mist that is dispersed though the air, while evaporative humidifiers use a fan that increases water’s natural evaporation and circulates humidity.
With ultrasonic humidifiers, you’ll get larger water droplets, and they tend to humidify the room rather quickly. It’s important to keep an eye on the humidity of the room because the larger droplets can collect on surfaces and objects near the humidifier, which could lead to mold growth and water damage. This can also lead to uneven humidity levels as the air is more humid near the humidifier, so be sure to choose an appropriately-sized humidifier.
“If the water contains lots of impurities, the droplets that deposit on the surface of furniture, home appliances, ceilings and walls will form sticky-white dust,” explains Jie Zhao, president of P3Global and healthy building expert. “Also, droplets may spread any pathogens present in the water supply by distributing them into the air.” For this reason, he recommends considering using distilled water or nanofilter-treated water when using an ultrasonic humidifier. The EPA also recommends using distilled water in ultrasonic humidifiers, as well as regular cleaning to cut down on scale buildup and to prevent the dispersement of minerals and microorganisms into the air.
Evaporative humidifiers tend to have smaller water droplets that can travel further than the larger droplets of ultrasonic humidifiers. However, evaporative humidifiers typically take longer to humidify the room. According to Zhao, “this type of humidifier can be considered partially ‘self-regulating’; as the humidity of the room increases, the water vapor output naturally decreases.”
He explained that it’s also less likely that minerals or pathogens will be distributed through the room since the humidifier only evaporates pure water. You need to clean the porous surface in the humidifier regularly, and it can be more difficult to find an evaporative humidifier with a larger tank capacity.
Room Size
Choosing an appropriately sized humidifier can help make sure you’re not under or over-humidifying your room. Most humidifiers list the room size they are designed to be used in.
Pediatrician Dr. Rosana Lastra also recommends using humidifiers with caution, especially if you live in an area that’s already humid. “Adding more moisture indoors can sometimes do more harm than good,” she says. “Too much humidity can encourage mold and dust mite growth, which may actually worsen allergies, asthma or respiratory symptoms in sensitive children.”
Ease Of Cleaning
If the water tank of your humidifier is not cleaned properly, it can develop mold or become damaged, so choosing something you’re able to regularly clean effectively is imperative. If you know you won’t have time to manually clean the tank at least once per week, consider buying a humidifier with a dishwasher-safe tank. If you’ll be manually cleaning your tank, look for one that has a wide opening and fewer crevices—designs that make it easy to clean.
Additional Features
Think about what additional features might be important to you, such as a night light, remote control via an app or a built-in sound machine. If you don’t want a utilitarian-looking humidifier in your baby’s nursery, you might also opt for one of the humidifiers that has a kid-friendly design, like Crane Adorables. Common features in humidifiers include:
- Diffuser/aromatherapy
- Filter-free
- UV or LED sanitation
- Remote control via an app or remote
- Dishwasher-safe tank
- Night light
- Sound machine
- Cute designs and colors
Why Trust Forbes Vetted
The Forbes Vetted team is committed to helping our readers find the right baby and kids gear for their needs. We have tested hundreds of products for children, from the best strollers to top kids mattresses.
- Author Alicia Betz is the baby and kids gear writer at Forbes Vetted, and she spent years using various humidifiers for her three children and hours researching, testing, and vetting the best products. She has covered a wide range of parenting topics, including important health and safety topics like how to sterilize baby bottles and the best diapers for sensitive skin.
- This article is overseen by Margaret Badore, baby and kids gear editor. She’s a mom to three with over 15 years of experience reporting on heath and science topics.
- Betz also consulted with Forbes Vetted deputy editor Rose Gordon Sala, who oversees the baby and kids gear section and has also tested a range of humidifiers with her kids.
- We interviewed three pediatricians to get their feedback about the benefits of a humidifier and how to select the safest one. Those doctors are Allen J. Dozor, professor of pediatrics and division chief of pulmonology, allergy and sleep medicine at New York Medical College; Rosana Lastra, a pediatrician at Head2Toe Pediatrics in Florida; and Leslie Sude, a Yale Medicine general pediatrician. We also interviewed healthy building expert Jie Zhao, president of P3Global.
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