Everyone tells you how tired you’ll be with a newborn, but take it from someone with a 3-month-old: It’s more than you can anticipate before having kids, unless you were previously an ultramarathoner and/or offshore oil rig worker.
When you’re putting your freshly baked human into a car seat, stroller, or generally taking it anywhere with you (which you have to do, apparently), you don’t just want the process to be easy; you need the process to be easy. That’s why I’ve fallen in love with the Britax Willow Grove SC travel system.
This car seat base, car seat, stroller, and stroller base all come in a package together, and everything just works. There are no tricks for installation or daily use. Anyone can easily figure out how to use every part of these things, even when you haven’t slept in days. Just click your little one into either the stroller or car seat attachment, fold up the wheeled base with one hand, and you’re off to wherever you need to go. The price you pay for this system is about $100 higher than you might pay for another all-in-one option from Chicco, but the build quality and ease of use is well worth the extra cost.
Getting Loaded
The most important thing for any newborn is a quality car seat and base; the hospital literally checked that we had ours installed before they allowed us to leave. There aren’t any official safety ratings for this system, but the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration recommends rear-facing seats like this for infants. I grew up (and later babysat) in a time when you had to take your car to the fire department to install your car seat base permanently in the back seat until a child was old enough to not need it, so color me excited when I realized how easy the Britax base was going to be to install.
Photograph: Parker Hall
Simply click the two hooks around the now-standard child seat restraint area on your car’s seats (two hooks that often hide behind the cushions), put the seat belt through the company’s proprietary ClickTight Installation system, and press down. It all tightens in place easily, taking about 30 seconds to install. Once you’ve done it one time, swapping between cars is a breeze. No need to own two bases for different cars/friends/family.
Clicking the actual car seat into the base is also a breeze; it just clicks right in, with a handle on the forward side of the carrier (where your baby’s back faces) that easily allows you to detach it with one hand as your other grabs the handle of the carrier. Apart from the weight of your baby (we have a lunker!), it’s extremely wieldy and convenient.
I like that there are little plastic tabs on the left and right sides of the car seat you can use to hold the straps while you place your baby’s butt in the seat. This makes it super easy to then click your baby in place with the three-piece click harness and to cinch them in with the strap between their legs.
On a Stroll
The best part of the car seat is that it easily clicks in and attaches to the foldable stroller base, which means you don’t have to transfer a sleeping kid to a stroller seat when you want to roll them somewhere fresh out of the car. This is awesome, especially because the foldable stroller section can easily be deployed one-handed, thanks to a simple hook-to-hold mechanism on the outside of the right rear wheel pole. You just unhook the plastic piece that’s holding the stroller folded, and gravity does the rest.
My Children’s Favorite tablet is a good flat rock. Get the right one and it’ll do everything from launching toy cars to hop-skip-jumping its way across a pond.
Of course, as a WIRED reviewer, there are also plenty of digital tablets in my house, and they’re pretty popular at times too. After years of testing, we’ve tried almost every kid-focused tablet out there. These are our favorite picks.
If you’re still hunting for kid-related educational ideas, check out our favorite kid podcasts, some fun ways to help kids learn, and our guide to the best STEM toys.
Updated May 2024: We updated our picks to include the latest models, removed the now discontinued iPod Touch (sniff), added the Kobo Libra Colour for comics, and updated prices throughout.
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About two years ago, I was in a car with my best friend and her toddler. She was driving, and I was sitting in the back next to her 10-month-old, who was tucked into his car seat. For a while, the ride was smooth—then the baby burst into tears. We tried every common trick to comfort him. I contorted my face into the silliest of poses, my friend burst into a catchy song, but our efforts were met with louder wails until finally—mercifully!—we pulled into my friend’s driveway and she was able to scoop her son up in her arms.
This scenario, minus the useless friend in the back, is probably familiar for many parents who drive alone with their young children. And it is the reason why Japanese automaker Nissan is developing a peculiar puppet to relieve backseat tantrums. It’s called Iruyo, which translates to “I’m here” in Japanese.
The fuzzy babysitter, which gives off big Elmo vibes, is in fact two puppets: “big Iruyo,” which is strapped to the backrest of the backseat, facing the baby; and “little Iruyo,” which sits in the driver’s cup holder. Big Iruyo does most of the work. When prompted by specific voice commands spoken by the parent, big Iruyo can wave its hands, cover its eyes for a game of peek-a-boo, or clap its hands as the parent sings.
Photograph: Nissan
A Bot for Tots
Rear-facing child seats are significantly safer than their front-facing counterparts, but they come with an inevitable flaw: you can’t see your child’s face while driving. That’s why Big Iruyo also comes with a built-in camera to monitor your child’s face. When your baby’s eyes are closed for longer than three seconds, big Iruyo will assume they are asleep and will convey the message to little Iruyo, which will in turn close its eyes to mirror your little one. When your baby reopens their eyes, little Iruyo will do the same—like a high-tech game of monkey see, monkey do.
Iruyo was designed by Tokyo ad agency TBWA\Hakuhodo, in collaboration with Nissan as well as one of Japan’s largest retail chains specializing in baby products, Akachan Honpo. The project started as a marketing campaign for Nissan’s sensing technology used in its driver-assistance system. For example, some auto models like the Nissan Ariya use a combination of radar sensors and front-facing cameras to continuously assess your environment and automate some of your driving, so you can take your hands off the wheel and feet off the pedals on a freeway.
Iruyo uses similar camera tech to assess your baby’s face and assist you with babysitting. TBWA assures me the robot’s camera only detects eye movement, which the company says should mitigate any privacy concerns associated with capturing full facial expressions.
When I started shopping for a stroller, I purchased the cheapest one that worked with my car seat and called it a day. To no one’s surprise, that stroller is terrible, and both my child and I hated using it.
A good stroller, it turns out, goes a long way for you and your little one’s enjoyment while going for a walk, running errands, or just lugging them from one location to the next. When your kid is small, safely using a stroller requires car seat adapters or the right bassinet-style attachment. Then, they get bigger, and so does all the stuff you have to carry around. But if the wheels don’t work or something breaks? I don’t know about you, but I’m going home.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the options and scared off by the sticker shock. After a bad experience with a cheap stroller, I’m here to tell you it’s worth investing in a great one. After months of testing by two different parents, these 10 strollers are all fantastic and cover a wide range of styles and budgets. If you aren’t sure what type of stroller you need, get our tips over on How to Shop for a Stroller.
Updated December 2023: We added the Zoe Tour as our new lightweight and affordable stroller pick, and added the Guava Roam to our Honorable Mentions. We’ve also updated some prices of our recommended strollers.
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The mix of content makes for a podcast that should satisfy even the pickiest of listeners. New episodes arrive every other week. There are also transcripts available so your kids can read along while listening to improve literacy.
Story Seeds is a relatively new podcast, and it’s a bit different from the others; rather than a story, it’s a meta view of how to create a story.
Each episode pairs a kid (age 6-12) with a children’s book author. They meet up in person and collaborate to write original stories that start out with the kid’s idea (the “seed” in the name). It’s not updated as frequently as some of the rest of these, but there’s over two dozen episodes available.
This Australian podcast is devoted to showcasing true stories of Australian women. From athletes to spies, Fierce Girls often promotes a unifying theme of adventurous girls with “guts and spirit.” While the stories are all appropriate for kids and not graphic, the hosts don’t shy away from telling stories as they happen. In some cases, you might want to listen first to make sure a story is appropriate for your children’s maturity level. That said, our 9-year-old twins love them.
This podcast is episodic readings of classic children’s books, making it somewhere between a podcast and an audiobook. It covers a variety of books from shorter, single-episode tales for younger kids to longer-form, multi-episode readings. The nice thing about this one is there’s something for just about everyone. My only complaint is that some of these are very short, most of them are under 5 minutes. All episodes are ad-free, but you will need a Spotify account to listen.
Offering a mix of classic stories like those of Beatrix Potter and lesser-known content, Planet Storytime aims for that mix of entertainment and education Fred Rogers perfected. It releases new episodes every Thursday.
One really nice feature that sets this podcast apart is that at the end of each month, there’s one long episode with an entire month’s worth of content—perfect for getting an hour or so to yourself.
This science podcast is aimed at kids, though I’ll be honest, I’ve learned plenty from it as well. Brains On is educational—just don’t tell your kids that. They’ll love learning how insects walk on walls, how to find their way without a compass, and even where poo and pee go when you flush the toilet.
There’s a series called “Smash Boom Best” in which two things are pitted against each other, and your kid can pick their favorite. For example, Loki was recently pitted against Athena. This podcast is probably best suited for slightly older kids.
The Warrior Kid Podcast is not for everyone, but my kids really like the question-and-answer format of this podcast, which is based on the books of the same name. The author of the books and host of the show is Jocko Willink, a decorated, retired Navy SEAL officer and leadership guru. Here Willink stands in for the character of Uncle Jake in Willink’s Warrior Kid book series, answering kids’ questions about everything from how to avoid eating candy to what it takes to be a Navy Seal.
Willink places a worthwhile emphasis on physical activity, mental sharpness, diet (encouraging kids to develop healthy eating habits), and hard work. The latter forms the core of the message in this podcast: Work hard, train in jiujitsu, and you will eventually succeed. This one is targeting slightly older kids, probably best for ages 8 and up. One special note: Willink has another podcast, Jocko Podcast, that is most definitely not for children.
A production of Anorak Kids Magazine, The Happy Podcast for Kids is educational and entertaining, and it works well for the whole family, since there are plenty of stories that will entertain adults as well kids. Much of the content explores themes similar to Anorak’s magazines, so if something really catches your child’s interest, you can order the relevant issue. Themes include everything from sea life to imagination to linguistics. Guests cover a similarly wide-ranging spectrum with everything from scuba divers to ice cream makers. While this one is fine for the whole family, given the level of detail and episode length (around 30 minutes), you might have to take breaks with younger children with shorter attention spans.
Another NPR podcast, But Why aims to answer kid questions about everything from nature, politics, culture, science, even the end of the world. Your kids can submit their own questions too; instructions are on the website.
Because But Why covers a wide range of topics, I tend to help out more with it. Many episodes are best suited to slightly older kids. My kids (7 and 5) were not about to sit through an episode on what happens when a president is impeached, for example, but they did enjoy an episode on how we taste food.
One of the few podcasts on this list that was created by a kid, Aaron’s World is a 50-episode audio-drama following the adventures of a boy (Aaron) and his trusty computer sidekick (INO) exploring the prehistoric world of dinosaurs. The episodes focus on single topics—e.g., iguanodon, microraptor, sharks—but over the five-year run, some fun larger story arcs emerged that create a running plot. All came from the mind of initially 6-year-old Aaron, who kept at it for five years. Highly recommended for any kid who’s interested in dinosaurs.
OK, this isn’t really a podcast, more of a radio show, but long before my kids got into storytelling podcasts, they loved this weekly two-hour music show released every, ahem, Saturday. And I know what you’re thinking: kids’ music. But it’s really not kids’ music, it’s just music kids will enjoy. This is also a great way to discover music your kids love that won’t drive you crazy. Did you know Walkmen co-songwriter Walter Martin has a fantastic album for children? How about The Verve Pipe? Johnny Cash? All these and more I have discovered through Saturday Morning Cereal Bowl.
Really into Podcasts? Get A Wondery+ Kids Subscription
There are quite a few podcast platforms that make it easy to subscribe to many of our favorites and listen ad-free (as well as supporting the creators). Some of these are available through Amazon Music if you’re a Prime subscriber, but my favorite way to get rid of ads and get access to a ton of great shows is a Wondery+ Kids Subscription. You get access to shows like Whose Amazing Life, Wow in the World, and Who When Wow, among others, all for one price. If your kids are really into podcasts, this is the way to go.
Other Great Podcasts and Audio Shows
The internet is awash in podcasts, with far too many to mention in detail. That said, here are some others your kids may like.
Earth Rangers: This podcast has a biology slant but makes a good listen for any kids interested in digging in the dirt, learning about animals, or listening to tales of the ecosystems in far-off lands. There are episodes on the jungle, the Arctic, and nearly everything between. Episodes are generally about 15 minutes each and usually tackle a single animal or environment. Earth Ranger is probably best suited to kids who are a little more mature.
Molly of Denali: This eight-episode podcast sets the backstory for the PBS cartoon of the same name. Each episode is about 10 minutes long, and they’re sequential, telling the backstory of Molly Mabray, an Alaska native growing up with her parents, family, and friends in Alaska.
Eleanor Amplified: This long-running adventure series features an intrepid reporter named Eleanor Amplified. She specializes in foiling the devious plots of villains. It’s a bit pro-journalist at times, in a rah-rah kind of way that’s not for everyone, but the stories are fast-paced, entertaining, and in the spirit of old-time radio shows.
Live From Mount Olympus: My kids were working their way through the Percy Jackson book series when this arrived, so this Olympian-focused podcast was an instant hit. It follows the adventures of a young Perseus, who is on a quest to save his mother from an evil king. Live From Mount Olympus mostly sticks to the Greek stories as you may remember them, though there are some additional characters. Live From Mount Olympus is part of the Trax network, which hosts other kids podcasts as well.
Here’s a proposition: Rather than delight your kid once or twice a year with a big, expensive present that will eventually get put aside, why not surprise them with a small, delightful package once a month? I have two kids, a 6-year-old and a 9-year-old. They are thrilled when something arrives in the mail that isn’t bills, replacement chargers from Amazon, or Garnet Hill catalogs.
Subscription boxes can be useful supplements for remote learning. Some of them are consumable, so your kid can have a treat that won’t be left to molder in a corner of a playroom until they’re 25. They’re also handy to have around the house if you can’t send your sniffly kid to school or a big indoor birthday party, and as a bonus, they’re also usually affordable. I tested some of the subscriptions on this list, and I bought others for my kids and their friends. These are our favorites.
Be sure to check out all of our other buying guides for kids, including the Best STEM toys, Best Kids’ Headphones, Best Tablets for Kids, and Best Tech Gifts for Kids.
Updated March 2024: We added the Lalo toy subscription box and Stickii Club.
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YouTube has updated its rulebook for the era of deepfakes. Starting today, anyone uploading video to the platform must disclose certain uses of synthetic media, including generative AI, so viewers know what they’re seeing isn’t real. YouTube says it applies to “realistic” altered media such as “making it appear as if a real building caught fire” or swapping “the face of one individual with another’s.”
The new policy shows YouTube taking steps that could help curb the spread of AI-generated misinformation as the US presidential election approaches. It is also striking for what it permits: AI-generated animations aimed at kids are not subject to the new synthetic content disclosure rules.
YouTube’s new policies exclude animated content altogether from the disclosure requirement. This means that the emerging scene of get-rich-quick, AI-generated content hustlers can keep churning out videos aimed at children without having to disclose their methods. Parents concerned about the quality of hastily made nursery-rhyme videos will be left to identify AI-generated cartoons by themselves.
YouTube’s new policy also says creators don’t need to flag use of AI for “minor” edits that are “primarily aesthetic” such as beauty filters or cleaning up video and audio. Use of AI to “generate or improve” a script or captions is also permitted without disclosure.
There’s no shortage of low-quality content on YouTube made without AI, but generative AI tools lower the bar to producing video in a way that accelerates its production. YouTube’s parent company Google recently said it was tweaking its search algorithms to demote the recent flood of AI-generated clickbait, made possible by tools such as ChatGPT. Video generation technology is less mature but is improving fast.
Established Problem
YouTube is a children’s entertainment juggernaut, dwarfing competitors like Netflix and Disney. The platform has struggled in the past to moderate the vast quantity of content aimed at kids. It has come under fire for hosting content that looks superficially suitable or alluring to children but on closer viewing contains unsavory themes.
WIRED recently reported on the rise of YouTube channels targeting children that appear to use AI video-generation tools to produce shoddy videos featuring generic 3D animations and off-kilter iterations of popular nursery rhymes.
The exemption for animation in YouTube’s new policy could mean that parents cannot easily filter such videos out of search results or keep YouTube’s recommendation algorithm from autoplaying AI-generated cartoons after setting up their child to watch popular and thoroughly vetted channels like PBS Kids or Ms. Rachel.
Some problematic AI-generated content aimed at kids does require flagging under the new rules. In 2023, the BBC investigated a wave of videos targeting older children that used AI tools to push pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, including climate change denialism. These videos imitated conventional live-action educational videos—showing, for example, the real pyramids of Giza—so unsuspecting viewers might mistake them for factually accurate educational content. (The pyramid videos then went on the suggest that the structures can generate electricity.) This new policy would crack down on that type of video.
“We require kids content creators to disclose content that is meaningfully altered or synthetically generated when it seems realistic,” says YouTube spokesperson Elena Hernandez. “We don’t require disclosure of content that is clearly unrealistic and isn’t misleading the viewer into thinking it’s real.”
The dedicated kids app YouTube Kids is curated using a combination of automated filters, human review, and user feedback to find well-made children’s content. But many parents simply use the main YouTube app to cue up content for their kids, relying on eyeballing video titles, listings, and thumbnail images to judge what is suitable.
So far, most of the apparently AI-generated children’s content WIRED found on YouTube has been poorly made in similar ways to more conventional low-effort kids animations. They have ugly visuals, incoherent plots, and zero educational value—but are not uniquely ugly, incoherent, or pedagogically worthless.
AI tools make it easier to produce such content, and in greater volume. Some of the channels WIRED found upload lengthy videos, some well over an hour long. Requiring labels on AI-generated kids content could help parents filter out cartoons that may have been published with minimal—or entirely without—human vetting.
Neither Yes! Neo nor Super Crazy Kids responded to WIRED’s request for comment.
Few Limits
Yes! Neo, Super Crazy Kids, and other similar channels share a common look—they feature 3D animation in a style similar to Cocomelon, YouTube’s most popular children’s channel in the US. (Dana Steiner, a spokesperson for Cocomelon’s parent company Moonbug, says that none of its shows currently use AI, “but our talented creative team is always exploring new tools and technologies.”)
This familiar aesthetic means that a busy parent glancing quickly at a screen might confuse the AI content for a program they’ve vetted. And while it is not particularly well-crafted, the content of the videos put out by these channels tends to be shoddy in the same way that so much of today’s human-made children’s entertainment is shoddy—frenetic, loud, unoriginal.
YouTube is in the process of introducing new policies for AI-generated content, although the company doesn’t seek to significantly restrict it. “YouTube will soon be introducing content labels and disclosure requirements for creators who upload content that contains realistic altered or synthetic material, including content geared toward kids and families,” YouTube spokesperson Elena Hernandez says.
When WIRED inquired whether YouTube will be proactively seeking out AI-generated content and labeling it as such, Hernandez said more details will come later but that it plans to rely primarily on voluntary disclosure. “Our main approach will be to require creators themselves to disclose when they’ve created altered or synthetic content that’s realistic.” The company says it uses a combination of automated filters, human review, and user feedback to determine what content is accessible in the more restricted YouTube Kids service.
Some fear YouTube and parents around the world aren’t adequately prepared for the coming wave of AI-generated kids content. Neuroscientist Erik Hoel recently watched some of the tutorials on making kids content with AI, as well as some videos he suspected to be made using the technology. Hoel was so unsettled by what he saw that inveighed against the concept on his Substack, including by singling out Super Crazy Kids. “All around the nation there are toddlers plunked down in front of iPads being subjected to synthetic runoff, deprived of human contact even in the media they consume,” he wrote. “There’s no other word but dystopian.”
Hoel’s warning recalls the last great scandal about children’s YouTube, dubbed “Elsagate.” It kicked off in 2017 when people started noticing surreal and disturbing videos aimed at kids on the platform, often featuring popular characters like Elsa from Disney’s Frozen, Spiderman, and the titular porcine hero from Peppa Pig. While AI-generated content hasn’t reached a similar nadir, its creators appear to be chasing a similar goal of drawing the attention of YouTube’s automated recommendations.
Creative Baby Padre
Some more obscure AI video channels are already veering into weird territory. The channel Brain Nursey Egg TV, for example, gives its unsettling videos names like “Cars for Kids. Trailer the Slide With Lyrics.” The video’s description is a gigantic string of keywords, including “disney junior elimi birakma 24 chima sorozat BeamNG-Destruction ali babanın çiftliği şarkısı la brujita creative baby padre finger.”
The plotless video is an amalgamation of glitchy visuals like floating eyeballs and melting blocks of color. The soundtrack features children applauding, a robotic voice counting, individual babies laughing, and different robotic voices intoning the word “YouTube” at seemingly random intervals. “This has generated voices throughout and is either powered by an AI-generated script or may be one of the greatest and most underrated works of surrealist video art in recent memory,” says Colman of Reality Defender. Either way, this kind of content hasn’t picked up much traction yet—some of the channel’s videos only have a handful of views. Brain Nursery Egg TV does not provide an email address or other way to contact those running the channel.
As writers and testers in WIRED’s Gadget Lab, we spend all day immersed in personal technology of all kinds. It’s probably no surprise that if we work on a computer during the day and enjoy gaming in our downtime, our kids do, too. My colleague Adrienne So has a 6-year-old and a 9-year-old that attended school remotely and play video games; I (Simon Hill) have an 11- and a 14-year-old. Between us, we—er, well, our kids—have tested many of the kid headphones on the market.
These are our top picks, along with some advice—such as why you might want a pair of child-specific headphones. Don’t forget to check out our other parenting guides, such as the Best Kid Tablets and the Best Kid Podcasts. Looking for a pair for yourself? Check out our list of the Best Headphones.
Updated February 2024: We added headphones from Puro Sound Labs, Altec Lansing, iClever, and myFirst.
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