The Halo BassiNest Flex Portable Bassinet Should Be Recalled
Despite continuing complaints from parents and a class-action lawsuit, it’s still for sale on Amazon and Walmart. Parents should not buy or use the product.
In January 2024, CR reported that the popular Halo BassiNest Flex portable bassinet had a tendency to tilt to one side, rather than remaining flat and level. Consumer Reports’ independent safety tests confirmed what numerous parents had complained about: The sleep surface of this bassinet is not flat when a weight is placed inside. It slopes toward the side that lacks support from the bassinet’s frame.
According to safe infant sleep guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics, babies should sleep on their back on a firm, flat surface. Every year in the U.S., around 3,500 babies die suddenly in their sleep, and many of those deaths are thought to be due in part to unsafe sleep environments. The slope of the Halo BassiNest Flex portable bassinet puts babies at potential risk of suffocation if they roll over in their sleep into the corner of the bassinet—or worse, face down against the bassinet’s thin mattress.
Federal safety standards for bassinets do allow for a slight head-to-toe incline in the sleeping surface (up to 10 degrees), which is different from the unsafe side-to-side slope associated with this product. CR supports proposed revisions to the standard that would establish new limits on how much a bassinet can tilt to the side.
When CR published its 2024 report to alert readers to the dangers of this product, we asked the company and the Consumer Product Safety Commission to recall it before any babies got hurt. As of this writing, no action has been taken by either the company or the CPSC to recall the Halo BassiNest Flex, or even to warn consumers that the bassinet poses a safety hazard.
In the meantime, several lawsuits filed against Halo for allegedly knowingly selling an unsafe product were consolidated into one federal class-action suit in the Southern District of New York. Attorneys for Halo argued in court filings last year that “federal regulations expressly allow the sleeping surface to slope within certain limits” and that the company “has never promised that the Flex’s sleep surface would have no slope or tilt at all.” Halo settled this class-action lawsuit in February 2025 and is offering a small compensation to unhappy owners of the bassinet.
Despite its history of safety concerns and lawsuits, today the Halo BassiNest Flex is still for sale from some retailers.
An Ongoing History of Safety Complaints
When CR first wrote about the Halo BassiNest Flex in January 2024, several complaints about it had already appeared in the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s consumer complaint database, as well as over 100 negative customer reviews on online retailers’ websites. Parents wrote about having put their babies down to sleep on their backs in the center of the BassiNest Flex, and then later finding them rolled to one side. None of the incidents appeared to involve an injury, but the parents were concerned enough about the close calls to register complaints.
Since that story was published last year, there have been seven additional incidents reported to the CPSC about babies rolling to one side after being laid down flat on their backs in a Halo BassiNest Flex.
One parent in North Carolina wrote to the CPSC in October 2024 about their experience putting their newborn daughter into the Halo BassiNest Flex to sleep: “My infant (less than 8 pounds) has been sleeping in the Halo BassiNest Flex portable bedside bassinet,” they wrote. “Multiple times I have woken up to her body rolled into the mesh side and stuck there. She cannot roll yet and she is not rolling. The bassinet tilts and she can’t help but have her body roll.”
“This is a huge suffocation risk,” wrote another parent in March 2024, explaining that their baby son “rolled on his side and almost had his face against the side of the bassinet within 15 minutes. He is only days old, he cannot roll by himself.”
What Safety Experts Say Needs to Happen Next
CR tested the Halo BassiNest Flex portable bassinet in the lab at our headquarters, along with other bassinets of a similar design, and was able to replicate the problem. Our safety experts reported the problem to the CPSC, and also called for the product’s recall. When we published our story about the issue in January 2024, the CPSC declined to comment.
CR’s Gabe Knight and Ashita Kapoor, CR’s associate director of product safety, sent the CPSC a new letter on March 17, 2025, again asking the agency to coordinate a recall of the Halo BassiNest Flex.
“Expert medical guidance states that a firm, flat, noninclined sleeping surface is a key characteristic of a safe infant sleep environment that can help to reduce a baby’s risk of injury or death, including from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS),” they wrote. “[W]e once again urge the agency to investigate this bassinet and push for its recall to protect babies from potentially unsafe sleep spaces.”
CR reached out to the CPSC for this story and the agency declined to comment.
What Parents Need to Know Now
The Halo BassiNest Flex is still on the market, and still attracting more complaints from worried parents. As of this writing it is in stock at both Amazon and Walmart. Target had it in stock last week, but it is currently out of stock there. When CR asked the retailers whether they had plans to remove this bassinet from its stores or online platforms, Amazon acknowledged receipt but did not comment by press time. Target and Walmart did not respond.
Wherever the BassiNest Flex is still being sold, unhappy customer reviews follow. On the Target retail listing, for instance, almost a third of the reviews are one-star reviews. “Do not get this! Safety hazard!” wrote a reviewer named Mae. “Just got our baby home and he’s literally sliding to one side on the bassinet.”
Source: Target Source: Target
Halo has settled the class-action lawsuit about the Halo BassiNest Flex (Morning Mist and Heather Weave colors) for $1.5 million without admitting any wrongdoing. If you bought this product and are unhappy with it, you have until June 10, 2025, to sign up to submit a claim. Those who do may receive a maximum of $30.
Parents should not buy the Halo BassiNest Flex portable bassinet, and should stop using this product if they already own one. CR’s safety experts urge parents to report any issues they’ve experienced with this product to the CPSC’s SaferProducts database. And if you’re shopping for a new bassinet, Consumer Reports has tested and recommended bassinets that perform well in our evaluations.
