Best Teething Toys of 2026

Two hands, one toy: the Winkel is a looped maze of soft tubing that a four-month-old can grab with both fists and shake, and the rattle in the middle makes the shake worth repeating. Of everything we handled, it's the pick that doubles as a real toy, with the teething almost a side effect of all that grabbing.

The tubes are the teething part, and there are a dozen angles to mouth, so a baby can find the one that matches the spot that hurts. It's rated from newborn up and measures 5 by 4 by 3.5 inches, which makes it the most forgiving shape here for a very young baby still working out how hands operate. It's also soft enough that a wild swing at the face doesn't end the session.

Where it doesn't suit: a baby working on molars wants something slim that reaches the back of the mouth, and this maze doesn't get there. It's a front-of-the-mouth toy that happens to be excellent company.

It's the most expensive of the small teethers here, and the extra buys the rattle and the construction rather than more chewing surface. We still think it's worth it, because this is the one babies pick up on their own long after the gums have settled.

Three teethers in one pack, each a different vegetable with a different surface: ridges on the carrot, bumps on the corn, a handle at each end of the pod. We think it's the smartest buy here for the four-to-eight-month stretch, when a baby wants variety but can't yet tell you which shape is working.

The silicone is soft enough that a missed swing lands without a yelp, which we came to value at the stage where aim is approximate. Each shape offers a genuinely different feel, so a baby working on front teeth can choose between a broad surface and a narrow ridge, and three of them means one can live in the car, one in the diaper bag, and one in the wash.

The carrot is a substantial mouthful, and smaller babies can find it awkward; the three-to-six-month crowd did noticeably better with the Comotomo. Once a baby is sitting up with a couple of teeth in, the bigger surfaces here turn into the advantage rather than the problem.

Most teethers are lumps of silicone shaped to be chewed. This one has bristles, which makes it the only pick here doing two jobs at once: it scrubs a sore gum, and it gets a baby used to the idea of a brush in their mouth before anyone has to fight about it.

The peel-shaped handles are the design detail we didn't expect to care about. They stop the brush end from going too far back, and the whole thing is flexible enough that a tumble onto it isn't the accident a rigid toothbrush would be.

We treat it as a second teether rather than a first. It earns its place from around six months, when a baby starts poking at their gums with a finger and the bristles give more feedback than a smooth surface. The chewing motion is the same one they'll use on a brush later, which is the real reason it stays in the rotation.

It's dishwasher safe, so it's the easiest thing here to keep clean, and at 4 by 3 by 1 inches it drops into a cup holder or a diaper-bag pocket. That's more than the bigger teethers on this page can manage.

Cold is the oldest trick for sore gums, and these keys are built around it: silicone keys with ice gel sealed inside, meant to sit in the refrigerator. Chilled and handed over, they buy a few minutes of real relief, and then the gel warms up and you're holding a room-temperature keyring again. That's the honest shape of a cooling teether.

What surprised us is how much the keys work without the cold. The ring holds several keys with different bumps and edges, so there's a surface for every part of the gum, and a baby can gnaw the handle end while the rest hangs. As a plain teether it holds its own against anything here that doesn't chill.

Care is specific and worth following: warm water and mild soap, per the maker. High heat is the risk with a gel fill, since a bottle sterilizer or a rolling boil can damage the seal, and a damaged gel teether is one to replace rather than keep using. Wash it, chill it, hand it over.

It won't be the only teether a baby uses, and it isn't trying to be. It's the one that comes out when a tooth is actually moving and nothing else is working.

If your baby refuses a pacifier and treats every teether as something to drop off the side of the stroller, this is the one to try. The penguin is a chunky open silicone shape with a wing on either side, so a small fist closes around the body and the chewing surface sits right at the mouth.

It's one piece of food-grade silicone with meaty walls, firm enough to take a real bite without turning into hard plastic, and it goes in the dishwasher or a pot of boiling water. The two-pack is the practical part: one for the diaper bag, one for home, and a spare whenever one is in the wash.

The case for it over a slimmer teether is grip. A baby who drops everything else holds this one, and the chewable surface stays at the mouth instead of swinging past it. Of the picks here, it's the one we hand a baby who can't yet manage a stick or a tube.

Back gums are the hardest thing to reach. A baby can get a finger to the front teeth, but the molars at the sides and back need something long and slim, and these hollow tubes are exactly that: an apple-shaped handle with a tube a baby can run along the side of the mouth.

They're food-grade silicone, dishwasher safe, and safe in boiling water, and the hollow centre means drool runs through instead of pooling around the chew. Five in the pack sounds excessive until you've watched one roll under the stroller for the third time; we kept one in the stroller, one in the diaper bag, and the rest in the kitchen, and there was always a clean one.

It's a specialist, not a starter teether. The tube does one thing well, reaching the sides and the back, and a baby who wants a big soft mouthful still goes back to the Comotomo or the carrot. This is the pick you add once the molars start moving.

Where it wins is the combination of reach and redundancy. Nothing else here gets to the back of the mouth as easily, and nothing else survives being lost quite so gracefully: losing one costs you a fifth of a pack, not the whole purchase.

This isn't a teether the way the others here are, and we'll say so up front: it's a small sherpa bunny with a textured silicone teether where the face would be, plus ribbons to finger and crinkly arms. A baby can chew the silicone corner. The rest is for cuddling, grabbing, and the car seat.

At three to five months, that combination is more useful than it sounds. A baby that age can't hold a big teether for long, but can clutch a soft body against their chest and get the teether corner to their mouth. The crinkle is quiet enough not to be maddening in the back seat, and the ribbons give fingers something to find.

It's 9.75 inches from ear to foot, which is bigger than it looks in photos: long enough for a baby to drape over an arm, small enough to tuck beside them in the stroller. The silicone corner is the part that goes in the mouth, and it wipes clean in seconds.

What it can't do is the hard work. There's no cooling, no bristles, and nothing long enough to reach the back gums, so it sits alongside a real teether rather than instead of one. As the thing a tired baby cuddles while a tooth comes through, though, it's the most comforting object here.