Honest baby product review: Moonboon slyngevugge

This post was edited in September 2024 to remove my son’s name.

Welcome to a new series where I’ll honestly review some very popular baby products that we bought. When we were shopping for our first (and so far only 🙂 ) baby, we realized just how overwhelming the world of baby products is, and to be honest, we didn’t do a ton of research into most of what we bought. We bought a lot of things that were popular and seemed nice, because we figured, they wouldn’t be this popular if they weren’t good products! And for the most part, that strategy worked well for us. But we also learned the downsides of some of these products the hard way.

I posted a poll on my Instagram stories to see which baby products y’all would like to see reviewed first, and the Moonboon slyngevugge was the lucky winner! So without further ado…

Disclaimer: We purchased our Moonboon slyngevugge ourselves and I am in no way affiliated with Moonboon. These are my honest opinions!

Why we bought it

When I was pregnant, we heard a lot about the Moonboon, so we knew it was popular and that people really seemed to love it! But we thought that it seemed unnecessary, so we didn’t plan on buying it ourselves. That changed after we brought our baby home. The nights were ROUGH. Newborns need to eat every 2-3 hours, even overnight, and when our son would wake up to eat, it would take forever (I’m talking like, an hour) to get him back to sleep again. He would cry inconsolably, and the best way to soothe him was by bouncing on a yoga ball, which I physically could not do in my postpartum state, and it was exhausting for my husband (and his back). The nights took a toll on us and we finally decided to spring for the Moonboon when he was about 2 weeks old. We went all-in and got the motor and stativ (stand) in June 2021.

The review

Pretty much immediately, we felt like this was the best purchase ever. The nights got much easier. My son never slept in the Moonboon at night, but we would put him in it to calm him down and then move him to his bassinet to sleep. He would also nap in it during the day. We had a really bad “witching hour” for many weeks, and the Moonboon would stop his crying immediately when almost nothing else would. We absolutely loved it and I have raved about it because of that!

When my son was about 3 months old, we purchased the afstiverbund, which they recommend using from about 3 months to give more support and space inside the slyngevugge (at the time, the 3 month recommendation was on their website, but I can’t find it now). When we started using it, it became really obvious that our slyngevugge was crooked.

I took the whole thing apart and put it back together again, checking the manual and instructional videos. It would hang pretty straight until I put my son in it, and then it would go crooked again. I also switched which side the motor was attached to, and still had the same issue.

I reached out to Moonboon’s customer service, and they suggested that I take the afstiverbund out of the pocket and just place it on the bottom of the hammock. This helped a bit (and made it easier to adjust), but it was still a bit crooked. I sent the below picture to customer service saying it still looked crooked to me, but the representative said that she thought it looked normal and was definitely safe to use. I kind of left the conversation at that and thanked her for her help. (These email exchanges were between September 3-10, 2021.)

After that, we continued using the Moonboon for a few weeks, but I was constantly adjusting the afstiver and really felt like I had to keep a vigilant eye on my son so he wouldn’t roll around in there if it got too askew. I did not reach out to customer service again, so to be fair, they did not have a chance to address it when it continued to be a problem.

When my son was about 4 months old, he started to get really excited every time we put him in the Moonboon, so we felt like it wasn’t serving the purpose of calming him down for sleep anymore. We transitioned him to the crib/bassinet and stroller for naps, and put the Moonboon away. When I took the slyngevugge down, I laid the hammock fabric out on the floor and checked to see if any part of it looked obviously uneven, and it didn’t, really. So I still don’t know what caused the crookedness. If we wanted to continue using it, I definitely would have reached out to Moonboon again and insisted on more guidance or even a replacement hammock. The customer service representative that I corresponded with (via email) was lovely and really nice, and I think if I had insisted that the problem wasn’t solved, they would have helped more.

Would I recommend it?

Despite the issues that we had after adding the afstiverbund, the Moonboon was absolutely worth it for how much it helped us during the newborn period. It REALLY was a lifesaver. I know a lot of people who have used the Moonboon slyngevugge, and I haven’t heard of anyone else having the issue with the hammock hanging crooked. So I’m giving the benefit of the doubt that our crooked hammock was probably some sort of product defect or user error, and not a reason to caution against Moonboon in general. However, it is pretty expensive, so I would suggest new parents wait to purchase it until after their baby is born to decide if they really *need* it, like we did. Some babies will sleep just fine without it! And I also know parents who used a slyngevugge with no motor, and that was enough.

TL;DR: Wait until after baby is born to decide on this one. It could really be worth it, but it might be totally unnecessary. And I *hope* that the crooked hammock isn’t a common issue!