The Baby of the Year Contest Reality Check No One Gives You

My husband just walked into the kitchen and caught me hunched over my laptop like a sleep-deprived gargoyle, intensely scrolling through the baby of the year 2024 contestants pictures. I had half-drunk, room-temperature coffee dribbling down the front of my favorite grey sweatshirt, and I was squinting at the screen trying to figure out if my friend's six-month-old was currently beating a baby dressed as a literal hotdog.

Dave just sighed. He didn't even say anything, he just slowly moved my mug away from the edge of the counter because he knows when I get hyper-fixated on internet drama, my spatial awareness drops to zero.

I was deep down the rabbit hole, you guys. The group chats were going absolutely nuclear about what half the internet is calling the baby of the year scam, and the other half is treating like the damn Olympics. Basically, people were trying to figure out how the upcoming baby of the year 2025 voting was going to work, and whether they needed to start taking out second mortgages to buy votes for their kids.

Anyway, the point is, before you frantically try to figure out how to cast a baby of the year vote 2025 to support your sister-in-law's kid, or before you enter your own sweet, squishy newborn into this massive machine, we need to have a talk. Because looking back at when Maya was a newborn—she's 7 now, which is terrifying—I'd have totally gotten sucked into this crap. I thought "winning" at motherhood meant having the cutest, most objectively validated baby on earth.

Spoiler alert: it doesn't.

How the whole voting thing actually works in my foggy brain

So, here's what I’ve pieced together between wrangling Leo (who's 4 and currently insists on eating all his meals under the dining room table). The competition is real. It’s run by this company called Colossal, and the money apparently goes to Baby2Baby, which is a genuinely amazing charity that gives diapers and stuff to kids who need them.

But the reason moms in my local Facebook group are losing their absolute minds and throwing around the "scam" word is the voting mechanic. You get like, one free vote, and then you've to BUY the rest. As "tax-deductible donations." Which means the baby who wins the $25,000 and the Variety magazine cover isn't necessarily the cutest baby—though I'm sure they're adorable—it's the baby whose parents have the biggest network of people willing to throw money at a website.

When I realized getting involved in the baby of the year 2025 voting basically meant turning myself into a telemarketer harassing my distant relatives for cash, I had this massive reality check. Why are we so desperate for external validation? I mean, Maya had this phase where she looked like a grumpy Winston Churchill, and I STILL thought she should be on the cover of Vogue.

What my pediatrician actually cares about

It's so easy to get caught up in the aesthetics of babies. The matching outfits, the perfect nursery aesthetic, the contests. But honestly, when I look back at my kids' first years, I don't remember the cute outfits as much as I remember the absolute, soul-crushing anxiety of trying to keep them alive and healthy.

Our pediatrician, Dr. Aris—who has the patience of a saint because I used to call him crying about weirdly colored poop at least twice a week—told me once that a baby's first year is really just about two things: neurological wiring and survival. I'm paraphrasing, obviously, because I was usually operating on three hours of broken sleep when we talked.

He was hardcore about sleep safety. Like, militantly hardcore. He explained that babies need to sleep on their backs on a flat, firm surface with literally nothing else in the crib because their little brains are still figuring out how to breathe, and I think SIDS has something to do with them rebreathing their own carbon dioxide if their face gets smushed into a blanket? The science always got a bit fuzzy for me, but the fear was real. He told me about the 5 S's for soothing—swaddling, shushing, swinging... I forget the other two, maybe sucking a pacifier and side-stomach holding? But never, ever side-sleeping.

Oh, and bathing. Dr. Aris said to bathe them like, twice a week because their skin is basically tissue paper and we overwash them. Anyway, moving on.

The sleep thing, because oh god the sleep thing

Since we're talking about sleep, I've to tell you about the one thing that actually felt like a prize-winning discovery in our house. Forget a magazine cover; if you can get a baby to sleep for four consecutive hours, you deserve a Nobel Peace Prize.

With Leo, he ran incredibly hot. He was a sweaty little furnace of a newborn. We kept putting him in these thick polyester sleep sacks because it was winter, and he would wake up screaming, drenched in sweat, with these angry red heat rashes on his neck. It was awful.

In a desperate 3 AM internet spiral, I ended up ordering the Bamboo Baby Blanket with the Universe Pattern from Kianao. I'm not exaggerating when I say this blanket went everywhere with us. Bamboo fabric is weirdly magical? It feels like liquid silk, but it somehow cools them down when they're hot and keeps them warm when they're cold. It’s got these little gaps in the microscopic fibers or something.

One time, Leo projectile vomited half a bottle of breastmilk all over this specific blanket in the back of my Subaru. I was practically in tears because I thought it was ruined forever. I washed it in the machine on cold, totally ignoring whatever delicate care instructions it probably had, and it came out softer than before. He's 4 now and still drags "planet blankie" into the living room to watch cartoons. If you're going to spend money on your kid, skip the internet contest votes and buy a blanket that won't make them sweat through their pajamas.

Clothes that don't make them break out in hives

Then there's the clothing situation. Maya had horrible eczema. Like, sandpaper patches all over her little thighs and elbows. I felt like the worst mother in the world because I was dressing her in all these cheap, adorable synthetic outfits I bought on clearance, and they were just making her skin so angry.

We switched her to organic cotton. I'll be totally honest with you about the Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit from Kianao. It’s... a onesie. It’s not going to do your taxes or sleep-train your child. It’s fairly basic. But you know what? The snaps don't suck. You know how some snaps feel like you need pliers to pull them apart, and then the fabric rips? These don't do that. And more importantly, Maya's skin stopped looking like a topography map.

It's made with 95% GOTS-certified organic cotton, which apparently means they don't spray the cotton with toxic pesticides. I don't fully understand the agricultural supply chain, but I do know that when I stopped putting plastic-based fast-fashion on my baby's eczema, she stopped crying every time I got her dressed. So, take from that what you'll.

If you're trying to build a wardrobe that seriously functions instead of just looking good for Instagram, you can check out some of their organic baby essentials.

The only "winning" that really matters

I guess what I’m trying to say, as I sit here picking dried oatmeal off my jeans, is that the internet is really good at making us feel like we aren't doing enough. Oh, your baby isn't entered in a national contest? Oh, your baby doesn't have a perfectly curated digital footprint by month three?

Who cares.

The real flex isn't winning $25,000 in a popularity contest (though, hell, I wouldn't turn down the cash). The real flex is getting through the day. It’s finding a cute organic cotton squirrel blanket for tummy time so your kid isn't face-planting into synthetic carpet chemicals. It’s figuring out that your baby prefers the pacifier chilled. It’s surviving the four-month sleep regression without filing for divorce.

When you're tempted to buy votes or stress over how your baby compares to the perfectly lit, professionally photographed infants online, just close the tab. Go sniff your baby's head. Drink your cold coffee. You're already raising the baby of the year in the only house that matters.

If you want to focus on things that genuinely make your day-to-day life easier and your baby's skin happier, I highly suggest looking at pieces that work as hard as you do. Shop Kianao’s organic baby blankets and essentials here before you spend another dime on internet contest votes.

Messy, Honest FAQs About This Whole Circus

Is the Baby of the Year contest a literal scam?

Look, legally? No. It’s a real fundraiser for Baby2Baby, which is an incredible charity that gives diapers to families who really need them. But emotionally? Yeah, it kind of feels like one. It's a pay-to-play model where the baby with the wealthiest network of friends and family usually wins because they can buy the most "tax-deductible" votes. Just treat it like a charity donation, not a reflection of how cute your kid is.

Do I really need organic cotton for my baby, or is that a scam too?

I used to think it was totally a marketing gimmick until Maya got raging eczema. Regular cotton is heavily sprayed with pesticides, and synthetic fabrics (like polyester) don't breathe at all, which traps sweat and bacteria against their skin. When we switched to organic cotton and bamboo, her skin cleared up in a few weeks. It's not magic, but it definitely isn't a scam.

How do I keep my baby warm at night without making them a SIDS risk?

This terrified me so much. Dr. Aris practically drilled it into my skull: NO loose blankets in the crib. Ever. We used wearable sleep sacks, or when Leo was tiny, we tightly swaddled him in that breathable bamboo universe blanket from Kianao. Because it controls temperature, he didn't overheat, which is apparently a huge safety factor for infant sleep.

How long do those bamboo blankets genuinely last?

My son is four and still drags his everywhere. Unlike those fluffy polyester blankets that get weirdly matted and gross after three washes, the bamboo really gets softer. I've washed ours on the wrong cycle, scrubbed spit-up out of it with dish soap in a panic, and it still looks completely fine. They survive toddlerhood, which is saying a lot.

I didn't enter my kid in any contests and now I feel guilty. Normal?

Oh god, so normal. Mom guilt is a wild ride. We feel guilty for not doing contests, we feel guilty for doing them and spending too much money... it never ends. Give yourself a break. Your baby doesn't know what a magazine cover is. They just want you, your smell, and maybe to chew on your keys.