Summer Infant Soothing Baby Spa & Shower

Oh my. You might want to think twice before buying this bathtub for your infant. We used ours once, maybe twice (at the most) and it was the most difficult bathing experience of my life with kids.

I know, it looks tempting. Cozy. Makes you want to hop in a bath like that yourself. However, a tiny baby won't care about a whirlpool bath. Really. Looking at it on a picture will soothe your senses as a parent, but using it most likely won't.

Remember small babies have no neck support. Most parents know that holding a slippery, wet little infant in a bathtub is no easy task. The "deluxe" newborn sling on this Soothing Baby Spa & Shower doesn't offer much help in that department, because it is wobbly to say the least, and you'll be too busy trying to keep your baby from sliding off it into the water to be able to focus on the actual washing. 

The motorized jet and shower is a nice idea in theory (at least the shower part), but you need two people to pull this off... One that holds the baby on the wobbly sling while the other one operates the shower. There are just too many parts to this bath tub and too many things to think about before and while bathing your little one to pull it off alone.

Once babies are old enough to sit up on their own, this bathtub becomes more relevant. Even then, chances are your baby won't care much about the whirlpool effect. Rinsing with the shower obviously becomes more important with toddlers and bubble baths, but you need to somehow empty the tub in between to make rinsing worth while in this tub...

We gave our unused Summer Infant Soothing Baby Spa & Shower bathtub to our friends, who returned it to us about one year later, also unused.

So in my humble opinion...

Pros:

- Hm. This is a tough one. Maybe the shower feature?

Cons:

- Wobbly newborn sling.

- Expensive as far as infant bathtubs go. 

- Does nothing that a cheaper version doesn't do, except that it creates a whirlpool that I can't imagine an infant/baby caring much about at that age.