14 Mobiles for Nurseries to Promote Your Child's Development

From picking out accent pillows for a rocking chair to dressers to store your baby's clothes, creating a dreamy nursery is a beautiful and fun experience. But overthinking every detail of the nursery can get overwhelming.

Let's start with the baby mobile, a beautiful ceiling accessory that can help foster your baby's developing motor skills, including following objects with their eyes. They're a fabulous idea to ensure your baby is calm, happy, and entertained when they're in their crib. Not to mention, it adds a beautiful design element to the nursery, and it could easily become the focal element.

Some baby mobiles have music boxes to play music and soothing sounds to capture babies' attention; these are great to have by the crib. Most have remote control settings you can connect to even when you're not in the room.

Overwhelmed? Keep it simple and opt for just a few defining accessories, starting with an adorable crib mobile. These picks are so sweet, gender-neutral, and will fit your nursery's decor perfectly.

We love the look of this playful pom pom mobile. It works perfectly as a baby ceiling mobile, and once the baby grows out of the crib, it can become a decorative accent.

If you're grooving on the southwest or desert-chic decor, a cactus mobile feels just right. It's another gender-neutral baby mobile that will never go out of style. Handmade with bright felt and synthetic fillers, the wooden hoop lets the cactuses be the center of attention. This Etsy seller also has an option to customize the baby mobile so you can get the colors that match your nursery's color palette.

With adorable sparkling stars and soft felt clouds, this baby mobile will help your little one sleep under the stars — literally. Choose a neutral color palette for a genderless nursery, or mix and match different colors to personalize your baby's mobile.

Half art piece, half nursery decor, this mobile is made from sustainable bamboo and adds just the right amount of color to your nursery. Plus, it's free of solvents and other toxic materials that you want to keep away from your baby. Accented with wool felt pieces, it's a subtle mobile that won't take away from the rest of your nursery's decor.

This woodland mobile feels like it was plucked straight from a storybook. It's an adorable gender-neutral baby mobile that will fit right in with the nature and animals theme that's so popular in nurseries. It can also serve as a decorative piece by a corner to add texture, color, and interest.

Designed for the modern nursery, this origami mobile is a must-have. Paper mache origami shapes in bright colors hang from rattan hangers for a natural look that's both beautiful and artistic. Great for a gender-neutral nursery with hints of bright colors.

For the boho-inspired nursery, this adorable baby mobile will bring a breath of fresh air. This nursery mobile will add an unexpected decorative flair to the room with desert-inspired accents like camels, cactus, and night pom poms.

Your baby is already the center of the universe; add this artful solar system display in bright handcrafted felt to highlight the nursery room. As the baby grows, this planetary mobile can move to the games area for an educational accessory that kids will love.

Infuse your nursery with a burst of colors and textures with this felt ball ceiling mobile. Different-sized balls fall from the skies to engage your baby's fascination for shapes and colors. When your baby grows up, you can still place it by the corner for a pop of color.

Here's a simple design that will make a lasting impression on your nursery decor. The wooden rods act as balancing weights to swing gently. Your baby will love to see how the balls swing and shimmer with their bright rainbow colors. It's a masterful nursery mobile that can become a sensory toy once the baby grows.

For a homely, modern nursery aesthetic, this simple geometric baby mobile is perfect. Shapes made of natural wood and iron complement each other for a mixed-media baby mobile that fits any nursery decor. Easy to pair with other accessories, it's a must-have for a modern, gender-neutral nursery.

Plush whales and stars (starfish, perhaps?) are made out of chambray for a beautiful pastoral look, with delicate striping to add a nautical touch. They dance in a circle to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," which plays for three minutes once the mobile is wound.

Five guardian angels watch over your slumbering little one in this mobile — we think it's particularly perfect for a subtle touch of holiday decor. The angels take on abstracted, geometric forms made of smooth white plastic, which contrasts the organic texture of the wood balls peppered throughout the mobile.

Take a walk on the wild side with this safari-themed mobile. Your baby can take a peek at the felt elephant, zebra, monkey, lion, and giraffe peeking through some jungle leaves as they spiral overhead. Keep in mind that this is a pretty long mobile, so as soon as your baby can sit up, you'll want to remove it from its location above the crib and perhaps hang it elsewhere.

If you're planning on adding a baby mobile to your nursery, try to hang it no more than 12 to 16 inches away from your baby's face and slightly to the side of their line of vision so that they can see it. Most babies will start interacting with their crib mobile by the time they reach three months. If your baby doesn't seem to be responding to it, try to lower it a little bit until they do.

When your baby can get up on their hands and knees, you should remove their mobile. This is to prevent them from trying to pull it down when they stand. You can also raise the mobile a few inches to keep it away from their reach, especially if your crib's mobile adds a decorative accent to your nursery.

Of all the things you can get to spruce up your nursery, a baby mobile is one of the easiest, effortless, and most adorable accessories you can pick. Have fun choosing the right one for your nursery. We hope these picks give you tons of inspiration to get started.