Are you setting up a nursery and trying to make it the safest place possible for your baby?
Do you want to keep microscopic allergens, pollutants, and other toxic particles from getting into your baby’s eyes, throat, and lungs?
If so, you’ve landed on the right page.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to get the best air purifier for baby room that keeps the air around your child clean and fresh.
As you’ll find out below, the best baby air purifier includes a few key features. And if you don’t get the right one, it could do more harm than good for your little one.
But don’t worry.
We’ll teach you everything you need to know to get the best nursery air purifier that will last until your child is a toddler.
Table of Contents
Best Air Purifier for Baby Room Comparison Chart
Here’s a chart showing the comparison between the top three best air purifiers for a baby room and nursery.
We’ll go more in depth about each one later in this guide but this gives you a sense of what’s available and an easy way to quickly compare them.
| Image | Air Purifier Details | Price |
|---|---|---|
  | GermGuardian Air Purifier
| Check Price |
  | Pure Enrichment Air Purifier
| Check Price |
  | Trusens Air Purifier
| Check Price |
How Does an Air Purifier Help in a Baby Room or Nursery?
Before we jump into the reviews of baby air purifiers, we wanted to go over how air purifiers actually help in your baby’s room or nursery.
An air purifier is a special machine that often gets confused with a humidifier.
However, an air purifier and humidifier are not one and the same. Each product operates in a different manner and has a separate purpose.
Air purifiers help in a baby room by stripping the air of harmful contaminants. This leads to cleaner, fresher air for your infant (or toddler) to breathe.
During the first few years of life, babies and toddlers have immature immune systems, underdeveloped respiratory systems, and breathe at a faster rate than adults.
This means that it takes lower concentration levels of pollutants to cause negative impacts on a child’s health.
Fortunately, air purifiers can help protect your child from being exposed to airborne contaminants.
The most common particulates that pose a problem to your baby or toddler, include:
- Dust particles
- Microscopic allergens
- Pet dander
- Outdoor air pollution that makes its way indoors (called “PM2.5”)
- Bacteria, viruses, and fungi
- Volatile Organic Compounds (released by paint, carpeting, adhesives, furniture, and other items regularly found in a nursery)
- Smoke from wood-burning fires, tobacco, and cooking
As you can see, there are a number of invisible particles that can build up inside your home and may affect your child’s health.
So, using an air purifier in your baby room or nursery is a great first step to keeping those toxins under control.
Are Air Purifiers Safe for Babies?
Yes, air purifiers are safe for babies as long as the device uses a certain type of air cleaning technology.
There are some air purifiers that are not safe for babies to be around but we’ll explain all of this in the next section.
The best air purifier for baby room has zero negative side effects on your baby’s health.
On the contrary, a nursery air purifier works to keep your baby safe from being exposed to harmful contaminants.
What is the Best Nursery Air Purifier?
The truth is that not all air purifiers are built the same.
And not all top air purifiers are designed to be used around infants or toddlers.
In fact, some air purifiers can actually do more harm than good for small children, so it’s important for you to know which air cleaning technologies to look for and which to avoid when buying an air purifier for a baby room.
- True HEPA Filter — This is the only type of air filter that’s certified to remove 99.97% of airborne particles down to 0.3 microns. This includes allergens, dust, some bacteria, visible smoke, PM2.5, and mold spores.
- Activated Carbon Filter — This is the only type of air filter that can reduce indoor odors and airborne chemicals. It’s excellent for removing smells from the diaper pail and keeping toxins out of your nursery that comes from paint, carpeting, furniture, adhesives, etc.
- Ultraviolet Light — This is the only type of air cleaning technology that can kill germs, bacteria, and viruses. As air passes by the light, it destroys the DNA structure of those microbes and pathogens — making them harmless to your baby’s health.
Some additional features you’ll want to look for in a baby air purifier include:
- Air Changes Per Hour (ACH) — A good air purifier for babies has at least a 3X ACH rating. This means the air is fully exchanged within the room three times every hour.
- Energy Star Certified — Since the air purifier will be running 24/7, it’s a good idea to get an air purifier that’s low on energy consumption.
- Child Lock — This is a good thing to look for to keep your air purifier from accidentally getting turned off or have the settings changed by your child. A child lock will disable the control panel buttons so the air purifier settings can’t be tampered with.
Now, there are a few things you want to avoid in a nursery air purifier.
Avoiding products that include the following air cleaning technologies will keep the health of your infant or toddler safe.
- HEPA-type Filter — This type of filter is inferior to the True HEPA filter. In fact, it only captures particles that are 2 to 5 microns in size which are 500 to 1,500% larger than the 0.3 microns a True HEPA filter can trap. A HEPA-type filter misses a lot of potentially harmful pollutants.
- Ionizer — This technology emits negatively charged ions into the air as a way to clean it. They’re known to cause lung irritation and difficulty breathing which isn’t good for your child’s developing respiratory and immune systems.
- Ozone Generator — Ozone is a powerful way to clean the air fast; however, it’s a toxic substance that can cause a number of issues (skin, eyes, and lungs) in adults and children. So, never buy an air purifier with this type of technology.
Choosing the Best Baby Air Purifier Size
Here’s another universal truth about air purifiers:
No two air purifiers cover the same amount of space.
What this means is that every air purifier is designed to work in a certain size room and you’ll want to get a device that meets—or exceeds—the square footage (sq. ft.) of your baby’s room.
For example, an air purifier that covers 200 square feet wouldn’t do much good in a nursery that’s 350 square feet big.
You’ll want at least an air purifier that can cover 350 square feet or more to be effective.
But don’t worry.
In our next section with the baby air purifier reviews, we give you the exact square footage coverage for each product so you can find the perfect one for your needs.
How to Measure the Size of Your Baby’s Room
As for how to measure the square footage for a baby room, the process is easy.
Just follow these two steps:
- Measure the width and length of the room (and round up to whole numbers)
- Multiply the width and length together to get the total square feet
Here are a few examples to show you how simple this really is:
- A 10′ x 12′ nursery = 120 square feet
- A 15′ x 15′ baby room = 225 square feet
- A 16′ x 19′ toddler room = 304 square feet
For each of those examples, you would want an air purifier that meets or exceeds those square footage sizes.
To make things easy for you, the next section will show you the best air purifiers for every size baby room and nursery.
The Best Air Purifiers for Baby Room & Nursery
Now that you know what features to look for in a baby air purifier, we’ll now move onto the list of the best air purifiers for any child’s room—from infant to toddler.
1. GermGuardian Air Purifier for Small Baby Rooms
If you’re looking for the best air purifier for baby room that’s on the smaller side, this is going to be your top choice.
It also comes in two colors: black or white.
It includes all of the essential air cleaning technologies to remove and sterilize indoor contaminants:
- True HEPA Filter — For trapping 99.97% of allergens, bacteria, and other microscopic particles down to 0.3 microns in size.
- Activated Carbon Filter — For eliminating common baby room odors and airborne chemicals that are released by new furniture, paints, and room decor.
Ultraviolet Light — For killing off viruses such as influenza, staph, and rhinovirus as well as other bacteria and germs.
The tall, slender design makes it great for smaller baby rooms that don’t have much space spare.
It covers up to 167 square feet and exchanges the full volume of air 4X every hour.
With an Energy Star Certification for low energy consumption and a special quiet mode setting for sleeping, both you and your baby will enjoy the benefits of this machine.
A Wi-Fi version is also available if you want to control this air purifier with your mobile device or a voice-controlled system like Alexa.
2. Pure Enrichment Air Purifier for Medium Size Rooms
If your baby’s room is more on the medium size, then this nursery air purifier would be a better fit.
It too includes all of the essential air cleaning technologies as our last review:
- True HEPA Filter
- Activated Carbon Filter
- Ultraviolet Light
But this device has the added advantage of covering up to 200 square feet of space.
Another nice perk is that this device includes a carrying handle, so you can easily transport it from room to room.
This is especially helpful in the early infant months when you don’t always know which room you’ll be spending most of your time in each day.
The compact white design is also a good touch because it helps the air purifier flow well with practically any nursery room decor.
3. TrueSens Air Purifier for Large Rooms (and Everything In Between)
Our final recommendation for the best baby air purifier is this high-quality machine right here.
It includes everything you need to strip airborne pollutants and toxins out of your baby’s breathable air: True HEPA Filter, Activated Carbon Filter, and Ultraviolet Light.
Additionally, not only does it cover the largest amount of room size, but it also comes in two smaller sizes as well. With this brand of air purifier you can cover:
- 750 square feet with the Trusens large model
- 375 square feet with the Trusens medium model
- 250 square feet with the Trusens small model
Another thing that makes this air purifier stand out from the rest is that it includes several advanced features not found on other devices:
- 360-degrees of Air Filtration — Air is pulled in from every side of the machine as opposed to just one like other products.
- Dual Airflow — Clean air is split into two streams which makes it 24% more efficient than other air purifiers.
- SensorPod — This small device is placed on the opposite side of the room to help the air purifier better detect pollutants throughout the entire room.
- Color-Coded LED Feedback — This gives you an exact reading of the level of air quality in the room through LED numbers and color-changing lights.
If you want the best nursery air purifier with the most advanced features, this is the one to get.
Additional Information on Babies and Air Purifiers
Common Sources of Pollutants Found in a Baby Room
If you’re like most people who are expecting a baby, you’re probably decorating a new baby room or renovating an older room to give your infant their own special space.
Also, as a baby grows into a toddler, it’s normal to swap out furniture, change wall colors, and get new decorations to fit your child’s growing personality.
The only downside to all of this interior refreshing is that many items contain volatile organic compounds that off-gas pollutants and are harmful to your child’s health.
If you’ve ever bought a new piece of furniture or painted a wall and smelled that “chemical smell” then you know exactly what we’re referring to.
- Wall and trim paint (both latex and oil-based)
- Painted furniture
- Stained furniture
- Pressed wood furniture
- Glues and adhesives used in furniture and wall hangings
- Carpet backing and foam padding
- Household dust
- Allergens
- Mold spores
- Pet dander and hair
- Chemical vapors from cleaning agents
- Diaper pail odors
With so many different things causing indoor air pollution, you can see why an air purifier is so important to have in your baby and toddler’s room.
It can strip the air of those contaminants so the air around your child is clean and fresh.
Tips on Using the Best Nursery Air Purifier
The following list of suggestions can help you get the most out of your new air purifier:
- Keep it Out of Reach — Baby’s love to explore and grab things. They’re also prone to tipping objects over. So, make sure the air purifier is out of your child’s reach when you’re not in the room to supervise. Don’t put it within your child’s arms reach from the crib. And don’t put it in an area that your baby likes to play most.
- Put it on the Floor — Having the air purifier at floor level will do things: 1) capture more pollutants and 2) prevent a serious injury to your baby. Some contaminants are too heavy to remain high up in the air so a floor-level air purifier will suck in and trap more particles than having it up high on a table or dresser. Also, having your air purifier high up is more a safety risk to your child if he or she does something to knock it down.
- Put it Close to the Diaper Pail — If your air purifier has an activated carbon filter, it can help reduce odors of all kinds, including diapers. So, putting it next to the diaper pail can keep your child’s room smelling fresh and clean and less like a stinky mess.
- Run it 24/7 — Air purifiers work best when they’re never turned off. As the air gets recirculated through the filters, more and more contaminants get collected. This means that the longer your air purifier runs, the cleaner the air around your child becomes. So, don’t turn it off and if you’re worried about the noise when you’re baby is sleeping, just know that most nursery air purifiers have a sleep mode or pleasant white noise feature that’s soothing for your baby while he or she sleeps.
- Keep the Room Door Closed — When an air purifier can recycle the same batch of air over and over again, it gets cleaner and cleaner. So, keep the door to the baby’s room closed as much as you can. Any time you open the door, new bursts of air come rushing in that bring a number of contaminants with it.
- Change the Filters Often — A baby air purifier is only as good as the filters inside it. And if those filters are dirty with pollutants, the machine won’t do much good to protect your child’s health. So, keep up with the internal filter changes as recommended by the manufacturer. Replacements are usually every 6 to 12 months depending on the number of contaminants in your home.
Your Baby’s Room Can be a Safe Sanctuary
As you learned in this guide, there are a number of things that can lead to polluting your child’s room and harming his or her health.
Some of the things you can control, like choosing zero VOC paints or letting new furniture off-gas in another room before bringing it into your baby’s room, but others you can’t control, like the flow in indoor allergens, mold spores, and bacteria.
That’s why getting an air purifier is a good idea.
This simple machine can remove the indoor toxins that pose a threat to your child’s health.
Just remember that the best air purifier for baby room is one that includes three types of air cleaning technologies: True HEPA filter, Activated Carbon filter, and an Ultraviolet light.
And the best nursery air purifier for your particular needs will be one that can meet or exceed the square footage size of the room.