Tariffs On Essential Baby Gear Are ‘A Slap In The Face’ To New Parents

Martha, who is 31, married her high school sweetheart last summer and is expecting her first baby. Martha’s doing what many moms do in their first trimester: announcing to friends and family, feeling queasy, and shopping for cute baby outfits to make it better. That, and she has spent the last few weeks researching which car seat, stroller, crib, and other big ticket items she wants. She’s ordering them ASAP before tariffs send their prices skyrocketing.

Martha says she and her husband had been “pretty opposed” to buying anything for the baby early; they plan to move somewhere larger in a few months, so better to wait. But Martha checked anyway, and noticed the stroller and car seat combo she wanted was out of stock everywhere — likely because she wasn’t the only new parent panic-buying baby gear ahead of the tariffs. She snagged it when it came back in stock in one color. It has already increased in price between $50 and $100, depending on the retailer, she says.

For Martha, the tariffs have added yet another layer of financial stress to an already fraught situation. “Having a baby was already the big financial thing of our year,” she says. “All of our bills are increasing. Both of our student loan payments have gone way up because they canceled income-driven repayment plans. It just feels like everything's going up and nothing is compensating for that.” Martha says the privilege she has is not lost on her — she and her husband can afford to buy this stuff ahead of time, or even after the tariffs kick in. She knows they will be OK. “But I also know that other people won't be," she says. "And that's really hard.”

Expectant parents and families with young children have been frantically stocking up on gear since Feb. 1, when President Trump’s economically disastrous tariffs were imposed via executive order, then ratcheted up to comical heights in a tit-for-tat with China. Of course, the vast majority of baby gear, like car seats, strollers, and cribs are manufactured there. On May 12, the U.S. and China announced a temporary agreement to reduce tariffs for 90 days, bringing the upcharge on baby gear from 145% to down to 30%. The administration has been careful to specify that this is merely a temporary pause and does not signal a reversal of Trump’s universal tariffs.

Many popular baby gear brands have already announced price hikes coming before the end of May, including UPPAbaby, Munchkin, and Nuna, Axios reports. Parents have also flocked to Reddit to report price differences as they occur, like a $100 jump on a Chicco travel system. UPPAbaby travel systems will reportedly increase anywhere from $150 to $300 dollars, depending on the model.

“What we're seeing right now is an average price increase of around $100 to $150 per gear item — talking things like car seats, strollers, and high chairs. Some are higher than that,” says Jamie Grayson, a dual-certified child passenger safety technician and speaker on car seat safety. “What's going to be terrible about it, you have lower cost brands — like Baby Trend, for example — that already operate on small margins so that their products can be a lower price point and more accessible to people. To maintain any kind of margin, they're really going to have to hike these prices up significantly.” He worries less about families who were buying a $900 travel system that now retails for $1,200 than he does those who rely on affordability to access something like a car seat at all.

Tariffs have added yet another layer of financial stress to an already fraught situation.

Naturally, the price tags attached to new items are leading many parents to shop secondhand. There has been a huge uptick in traffic to resale websites like Good Buy Gear, according to Kristin Langenfeld, CEO and co-founder of the platform, as parents try to stock up on necessities. The widely used shower registry site Babylist also added an “open to secondhand” feature so parents-to-be can indicate which items they’re open to receiving used.

It's easy to predict how much more expensive secondhand items may become as a result of Trump’s tariffs, too. Langenfeld explains that prior to the signing of his executive order, her website’s pricing algorithm would slowly drop the price of an item the longer it sat unsold. For the first time in her business’s history, the same algorithm is slowly adjusting the prices up, accounting for the amount of interest in the items and how quickly they’ve been selling — just one tangible example of the rapid increase in demand, and therefore price, for used baby gear. And, of course, when parents set their own prices on platforms like Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp, it’s their car seat or crib manufacturers’ new, inflated prices they’ll use as a reference point.

Langenfeld has heard from many major baby brands that they are increasing their prices not just to account for the increase in tariffs, but as a way to keep their products in stock. “Every one of our partners has increased prices more so to try to slow down the sales of their items while they wait to see what happens,” she tells me.

And so I ask her the bigger question that's been on my mind: if manufacturers are worried about stock, does that mean we have the makings of an essential baby gear shortage on our hands? “Oh, 100%,” she says. “If there is a shortage, then we're going to have to get more of the inventory that's sitting in our basements and garages and get it back into circulation. We're going to have to use this stuff that's already here. We just need to help parents know how to get those items safely.”

When it comes to car seats, many safety experts will say you should never purchase one secondhand. Car seats are no longer considered safe if they’ve ever been involved in a collision. While you can check the expiration date on one you’re interested in buying, you have to be able to trust the person you’re buying it from that it has no crash history.

If you do need to shop secondhand for a car seat, Grayson echoes Langenfeld's concerns and says to avoid swap sales, third-party sellers on Amazon, and Facebook Marketplace — Meta historically has not policed for recalled or dangerous products. Instead, he recommends browsing a site like Good Buy Gear that follows an expert-backed inspection process on all its used car seats, and requires resellers to sign documents attesting their seat has never been involved in an accident.

“These products are not going to be accessible in terms of prices, and that's going to be a really big problem.”

Grayson also worries that parents who are trying to do the best they can will resort to unsafe alternatives, like counterfeit car seats.

“There are counterfeit, unregulated Doonas that are sold on TikTok Shop,” Grayson says. “They are hundreds of dollars cheaper than a Doona that is properly crash-tested. These counterfeit Doonas have been around for years, but now we see them just saturating the online market." Grayson says that a regular crash test is still very intense to watch, but “[the seat is] still doing its job. If you look at a counterfeit Doona crash test, the entire seat shatters into pieces.” (To avoid accidentally purchasing a counterfeit car seat, purchase seats directly from the manufacturer, Grayson says.)

When doing car seat education in underprivileged communities, Grayson sees many parents who stretch the use of their products, like using a bucket car seat for their child long after they’ve outgrown the height and weight limits. “I think a lot of people think, ‘Oh, they're just being stupid and not reading manuals.’ No. They're trying to do the best with the situation they're in and get more lifespan out of that car seat. Even if it was ‘just a $60 car seat,’ $60 is a lot of money to a lot of people.”

All systemic issues have unique, often compounded effects on minority communities. When I ask Grayson if this will be the case when it comes to tariffs hiking up the prices of baby gear, he doesn’t hesitate: “I think it's going to be really bad.”

“We already know specifically if we're looking at car seat education, that minority and underserved communities are the ones who are already not getting this information,” he says. “Now you stack the fact that these products are not going to be accessible in terms of prices, that's going to be a really big problem. The other side of this coin is that a lot of the car seat check events that we do, we basically will give free car seats out to families in need. They show up, they go through a little bit of training with us, we give them a seat, teach them how to use it, all of that. I'm very worried now that brands that historically have been beyond generous [in giving] seats to these programs, I’m worried there may be a cutting-back moment with that, which could be devastating for people.”

On April 1, Democrats in the House of Representatives called on the Trump administration to “exempt essential child care products from President Trump’s reckless tariff wars.” The letter highlighted that families spend roughly $20,000 on their baby’s first year of life alone, and that the tariffs “leave parents with fewer affordable options to keep their babies safe.” It also points out that the first Trump administration provided exemptions from tariffs in 2018 for essentials like high chairs and car seats, something House Democrats and the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA) are advocating for again. In an Oval Office meeting on May 7, President Trump told reporters he was considering exemptions for baby gear, but was hesitant to overcomplicate his universal tariffs. “I want to make it nice and simple,” he said.

The fact that these exemptions were not reinstated is “wildly unethical and wrong,” Grayson says, considering the fact that it’s illegal to even drive your baby home (or anywhere else) after birth without a car seat. “The one single baby item you legally have to have is a car seat. And the fact that now it's going to be $100, $200 more expensive is absolutely outrageous.”

Shopping secondhand can be a great way to get what you need at a more affordable price point. That said, experts say there are a few precautions you should take to ensure the used products you buy are safe:

• Search for the product on cpsc.gov/recalls, a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) database, to ensure the product is not recalled. You can also search SaferProducts.gov to check for incident reports, which identifies potentially dangerous products that may not have been recalled yet.
• Find the model number on the product and search for the owner’s manual online, then read the safety recommendations for it. This will ensure it fits your child properly and you know how to use it safely.
• Only buy cribs or high chairs manufactured in the past 10 years. It has been required for cribs to have their manufacture date printed on them since 2011, so be wary if you don’t see one. And if the crib, play yard, or bassinet comes with a mattress, make sure they’re designed to be used together, and that it fights tightly inside.
• Only purchase products you can see in person — check that they feel structurally sound and include all parts and hardware. If you’re going to check out a stroller, swing, or something similar, watch a YouTube video about all its features so you know how to properly test the product in person.
• If a crib is too expensive, know that bassinets, play yards, mini cribs, and bedside sleepers may be cheaper options, while still being considered safe sleep spaces by the CPSC. Do not settle for a swing, inclined sleeper, nursing pillow, or other unsafe sleep setup.
• Once your purchase is complete, visit the manufacturer’s website and register the product to you. This allows them to notify you directly if there is a recall on your product.

Sources: Jamie Grayson, dual-certified child passenger safety technician; Gabe Knight, senior safety policy analyst for Consumer Reports; and Nancy Cowles, executive director of Kids In Danger.