Wirecutter - The gladiator of baby bibs

Harry Sawyers

Harry Sawyers

I could count on one hand the pieces of gear that have survived our three sons. There’s hardly anything resembling its original factory condition. But in that elite company you’d find the Babybjörn Baby Bib, still in circulation after nearly a decade of use, often well beyond the call of duty.

The first time my wife caught every last drop of a cascading fountain of vomit in the Babybjörn’s spill pocket was at a Chicago restaurant, where the waitstaff handled the whole situation with admirable calm, offering to carry the bib back to the kitchen and dump it out in the dishwashing sink. It was tricky; that bib was filled to the brim. But the stiffness of its construction acted almost like a bowl in the shape of a hot dog, making the bib easy to carry through the dining room without dripping. Everyone was impressed. (Caveat: We were the only people there.)

Amazing as the restaurant rescue was, the second time the Babybjörn bib demonstrated a 100% vomit catchment rate was even more epic. Our second kid got airsick on the flight from Chicago to Los Angeles and was puking while the plane was landing. My wife once again had the adjacent chair. Thank you, dear. I watched as she guided the bib beneath the burbling barf, compensating for the jostle of the touchdown as the wheels hit the runway and the plane decelerated, maintaining a level line of liquid by tilting the full bib back as its contents sloshed forward. Two very impressed flight attendants had seen the whole thing, and as we taxied, one took the bib to the bathroom, and the other passed my wife a moist towelette.

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This won’t mean much compared with the Olympic-level vomit-catchings, but the bib also does a fine job of collecting food while it’s being eaten—and I’m talking about kids eating ramen out of those big soup spoons, spilling stuff all over. Bib works great. Might need a mid-meal dump-out, but that’s easy enough to do while the kid is chewing.

The typical bibs we had on hand alongside the Babybjörn were either cute flat bibs with pockets, like these Bumkins models, or simpler, apron-like cloth teething bibs. The difference between these bibs and the Babybjörn is like the difference between being caught in a storm wearing a rain jacket versus standing under a roof.

We also commend the Babybjörn’s neck-strap design relative to that of competitors. One end is a dense rubbery plastic clasp; the other is this nubby, straw-like adjuster, which clips to the clasp at a range of settings that fit a kid’s neck from the time they can sit up to the age when they hardly need a bib anymore. Just about every other bib you see has a much less versatile range of settings, usually a less secure snap, and/or one so balky and difficult that neither you nor your kid can easily put it on. This is the only bib we’ve had that 3-year-olds are easily able to operate themselves.

Frankly, if it came down to using any other bib besides this one, I’d advise folks to skip the bib. Instead, just get some inexpensive dish towels and a 30-pack of clips on the next trip to IKEA, for a much more versatile set of gear that can also double on bib duty.

We haven’t yet seen any notable deals on this product.

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If you’re having a kid, get this. If you want to buy a random gift for a new parent, get this. It won’t be the most exciting thing on the baby registry. But if you’ve got it on your kid in the right place at the right time, it will make you feel, for a fleeting moment, that you’ve got this parenting thing under control.

The durability and longevity of this bib is really just about the construction of the plastic. What makes this particular polypropylene and thermoplastic elastomer blend so supple, so smoothly textured, so perfect for the baby’s tender neck folds?

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Whatever the explanation, this bib has been regularly run through the dishwasher, scrubbed with abrasives, and left crusted in dried sludge. It’s been crushed in cabinets and in luggage, and frustrated children have yanked it off and tossed it across the kitchen. Yet the plastic tolerances haven’t shifted a millimeter out of spec, the smooth finish remains intact, and the typical gouges and nicks of age are just barely visible.