Our Bottle Won a 2026 NAPPA Award. Here's What That Test Actually Asks
We are so proud to say that our Thyseed Natural Anti-Colic Baby Bottle has won a 2026 NAPPA Award in the Best for Baby category!
What is NAPPA?
NAPPA is the National Parenting Product Awards. What it measures is more useful to a parent than the trophy is, so most of this post is about that.
A Different Kind of Award
We hold design awards too: iF and Red Dot from Germany, G-Mark from Japan, Golden Pin from Taiwan, and Good Design awards from Australia and Korea. Design juries look at the object. They judge the form, the materials, the manufacturing, how well resolved the whole thing is. A jury can do all of that with a bottle sitting on a table.
NAPPA can't work that way, because its evaluators are parents. The program is 36 years old and is the exclusive product evaluator for L.A. Parent, which NAPPA describes as reaching the second-largest market in the country. Its reviews also run in parenting publications nationwide and in its Play Learn Connect newsletter.
NAPPA says many of its testers are pediatric nurses, educators, and child development experts. Products get sent to them, and they send back honest feedback. NAPPA asserts that it has never been a pay-to-play program.
| Design Award (iF, Red Dot, G-Mark) | NAPPA (National Parenting Product Awards) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who judges | Professional designers and design jurors | Parents — including pediatric nurses, educators, and child development experts |
| What they evaluate | Form, materials, manufacturing, overall resolution | Whether they'd trust it with their own child |
| How they test | By looking at and handling the object | By living with the product and using it |
| What the award means | It's a well-designed object | Parents would use it themselves |
The Parent Test
To win, a product has to pass what NAPPA calls the parent test. Testers ask themselves three things:
Only the last question is one a design jury would recognize. The first two are about trust. A tester can't be talked into feeling comfortable, and people aren't polite about spending their own money. A bottle that photographed beautifully but made a pediatric nurse hesitate before she'd hand it to her own baby wouldn't clear the first question. That's the whole filter, and it's harder to pass than it sounds.
What NAPPA Cited in the Bottle
NAPPA's write-up points to two things. One is the vent valve in the base: air enters from the bottom of the bottle instead of through the nipple, so fewer bubbles end up in the milk. The other is the multi-hole nipple, which NAPPA says imitates the flow of breastfeeding. Several small openings give an even stream in place of one large one. You can read their wording on NAPPA's listing.
Both features are checkable on the bottle in your hand. Tip it and look at the base. Look at the nipple tip. If you'd like the mechanics spelled out, our explainer on how anti-colic bottles work goes through them.
How to Read Any Award Badge
This applies well beyond bottles. When a seal shows up on a product page, ask:
- Who did the judging — and were they experts, or actual users of the product?
- Did they use the product, or only look at it?
- Does the award cover that exact product, or the brand in general?
NAPPA's award is for this one bottle, not everything we make, and a badge that blurs that line deserves a second look.
What This Tells You, and What It Doesn't
A panel of parents and pediatric nurses signing off tells you something a spec sheet can't. People who know babies looked at this bottle and said they'd use it themselves.
If you're choosing a bottle, the one NAPPA tested comes in six flow rates, so you can start slow and move up only when your baby shows they need it.
Thyseed Natural Anti-Colic Baby Bottle
A National Parenting Product Award winner. Available in six flow rates.
Shop the Bottle →
