OXO Tot Splash & Store Bathtub

What it is — a real tub that folds flat

A standalone infant bathtub that holds its own water — for use in an empty adult tub, a large sink or on the floor — 30.8 × 17.8 × 9.3 in open and 4.79 lbs (model 63142700). Two ends do the staging: the narrow “starter” end cradles newborns and smaller infants with no separate insert, and the wider end gives sitters (brand copy: 9–18 months) room to splash behind high walls; a built-in support post in the base is meant to keep a baby from sliding forward at either stage. A quick-release, dual-sided drain is reachable with the baby still in the tub. When bath time ends the tub collapses flat, the legs fold in, and a 360° swivel hook hangs it from a shower head or rod to dry and store. Materials are listed simply as “Plastic”; a retailer mirror adds BPA-free / PVC-free (goldtex.ca — retailer-asserted, not verified on a brand page in this check). Brand age range: birth to 18 months — and notably, no weight limit is published in any source reached in this check: MomLovesBest’s spec table lists “Weight Limit: Not specified,” and a parent roundup puts the practical ceiling at “about 18 pounds or so” (see the 18-month claim check below). Not OXO’s other bath accessories, and not the Angelcare-style reclined support of check #40 — a different product type: a support inside your tub vs. a standalone tub that holds its own water.

Claims vs reality

“Built-in support post keeps babies safely in place”: it keeps SOME babies in place and is itself the product’s #1 complaint. The post is a fixed, hard, non-removable centre stump the baby straddles. The negative pattern is specific and repeats across years of Target/oxo.com reviews: “Terrible design. Baby slips down. Plastic piece not ideal for girls or especially boys privates” (Feb 2025, 1/5); “he always cries when I use this one… He slipped once when kicking and squirming around and it’s like it pelted him [in] the private area” (Jun 2024, 1/5); “The middle stump is horrible. It’s not removable and its size and location was not well thought out” (Jun 2023, 1/5); “his bum is resting on the hard white plastic which is keeping him in place which can’t be comfortable,” plus a head resting on hard plastic with no cushion (Jul 2024, 2/5). The counter-pattern is also real: other owners put a washcloth over the middle piece “just in case” and report zero issues to 4 months (Jun 2023, 5/5), and the held-upright owner above credits the post directly. Net: the post is a genuine anti-slide device whose hard, fixed geometry is a comfort gamble that splits by baby — it is the single feature to test in the return window, ideally with the washcloth-over-post workaround, before deciding.

More claim checks — the 18-month headline, the fold, and the clean

“Grows with little ones from 0–18 months”: age is the wrong ruler and the owner pool proves it. Length ends this tub, not birthdays: a 5-star Target owner whose baby loved it reports “He outgrew it quickly… didn’t make it to 6 months! Let alone 18. But we have a very long kiddo” (Jun 2025); The Bump’s forum file has the same arc (moved on once the baby could sit, to a laundry basket in the adult tub). With no published weight limit and a 30.8-in shell, long babies exit months before the headline; average babies plausibly get the sitter phase, but almost nobody’s buying pattern should assume 18 months of use. Treat the real window as newborn to sitting-plus-a-bit — roughly the first 6–9 months for most, less for long babies — still longer than check #40’s ~6-month support window, but not the toddler runway the box implies.

“Collapses flat for compact storage” + “smooth construction makes it a cinch to clean”: storage is the verified headline; clean is mostly true with two documented asterisks. Storage: MomLovesBest names it Best Baby Tub for Small Spaces (4.25/5 — Safety 4.5, Design 4.5, Comfort 4, Ease of Cleaning 4.5) precisely because it “folds nearly flat, with legs that tuck in and a swivel hook so you can hang it on a shower rod or towel bar instead of surrendering floor space,” and owners confirm it stores behind a bathroom door, travels, and hangs from shower head, door rail or towel rack. Asterisk 1 — mould: a verified Target owner reports “it molds! Even if you fold it up [to dry] it holds water [in] the legs” (Dec 2023, 2/5) — the fold that makes storage work can trap water in the legs if it is folded wet; hang it open on its hook to dry first, fold second. Asterisk 2 — the warning label itself: two separate owners report the interior warning sticker is not waterproof and peels/dissolves into the bath water in flakes the baby can mouth (Mar 2024, 2/5: “the warning sticker on the inside of the tub was not waterproof??? So every bath resulted in more and more of the paper peeling away into the bath water”; Oct 2023, 1/5: “The peels were all around the tub and in the water, they got attached to my baby’s body”). A safety label that disintegrates into the bath is a quality defect to inspect for on arrival — doubly ironic on a product governed by a federal warnings standard (see Safety). A third durability report is single-source and flagged as such: one oxo.com review via Target (Oct 2025, 1/5) reports the plastic at both ends separated at 2.5 months and snagged/cut the baby’s head skin — one report, not a pattern, but the reason to inspect seams and stop using a separating unit.

Safety & recalls

Real reviews — the most polarised tub in the library

A storage design editors endorse, attached to a hard-post newborn fit owners split on, at a middling aggregate score. Target rates it 4.1/5 across 116 ratings / 59 reviews (checked Oct 17, 2026) — the lowest tub score in checks #40–#41 and visibly bimodal: the review file interleaves 5-star storage raves with 1-star safety/comfort rejections, with very little in between. Editorial file: MomLovesBest Best for Small Spaces at 4.25/5 with the explicit newborn caveat (“very floppy newborns still want a steadying hand, and the rigid shell, even folded, is bulkier than a fabric sling”); Babylist’s expert files it under tubs that benefit from an added towel/sponge insert; a sponsored 2020 blog review (Her Life Sparkles, sponsored by OXO Tot — flagged as sponsored, counted as brand-adjacent colour only) praises the two ends, the accessible drain and flat fold. Praise, consistently: the fold + hook genuinely disappears the tub in small bathrooms (the one-bedroom-apartment owner who kept it for baby #2, Feb 2024, 5/5); the drain plug “seals super well but isn’t hard to remove” and lets you swap dirty water without lifting the baby out; smooth interior wipes clean and dries quickly when hung; worked for both kids in repeat-buyer accounts. Complaints, in order: (1) the hard centre post — discomfort/crying, especially for boys, and head/bum resting on hard plastic with no cushion (the dominant complaint cluster); (2) slipping/sliding despite the post, including a face-dunk slide at 6 months — the no-insert promise failing for kickers; (3) outgrown early by long babies (before 6 months in the flagged case) against the 0–18-month headline; (4) warning-sticker peeling into the water (two owners) and mould held in the legs when folded wet (one verified owner) — the easy-clean asterisks; (5) price resentment at the current street level — The Bump’s owner “really like[s] it but I don’t think it’s worth $70!!” at a lower historical price than today’s. No BabyGearLab or Wirecutter dedicated tested review of this tub was reachable in this check and none is claimed; MommyHood101’s best-tubs testing does not feature it in the coverage reached.

Price & FSA/HSA

$63.99 at Target (in stock, checked Oct 17, 2026); MSRP $79.99 per the manufacturer’s datasheet (model 63142700). The Bump’s owner file shows it sold well under $70 in earlier years, so $63.99 is a sale-off-MSRP price, not a bargain-basement one — never pay the $79.99 list without checking Target first. The comparison set is the verdict: check #40’s Angelcare Baby Bath Support at ~$20 does the newborn months better-loved (4.7/5, Babylist parents’ favourite) but is not a tub and ends at sitting; rigid multi-stage tubs — Fisher-Price 4-in-1 / First Years Sure Comfort class at ~$27–$40 and Frida Baby 4-in-1 at ~$39.49, Skip Hop Moby/Wave at ~$40–$50 — cost roughly half to two-thirds of the OXO, include slings/inserts the OXO omits, and run as long or longer, but none of them folds flat; Stokke Flexi Bath at ~$79.99 is the other folding premium tub, at/above the OXO’s MSRP. So the OXO’s premium buys exactly one thing — disappearance between baths — at ~$24–$44 over a good rigid tub or ~3x the Angelcare. Secondhand: defensible with inspection — no motor, fabric or foam — but inspect the specific failure points this check found (seam separation at the ends, flaking interior label, mould in the leg folds, hook intact — one owner reports the hook broke on first use, Mar 2024) and skip any unit showing them.

FSA/HSA: not eligible — a baby bathtub is standard consumer baby gear, not a medical expense, and no FSA/HSA eligibility listing was found for it (checked Oct 17, 2026). Budget it as a regular registry purchase.

The verdict

WORTH IT IF small-space storage is your binding constraint — because on that one axis this tub has no rigid-tub rival: it is a full standalone tub (its own water, sink/tub/floor use, a drain you can open mid-bath) that folds nearly flat, hooks onto a shower rod and vanishes behind a door, which is why MomLovesBest makes it its small-spaces pick and why apartment owners rebuy it for baby #2. That buyer should go in with the conditions that are the verdict: the price of admission is $63.99 at Target (not the $79.99 MSRP, and ~3x check #40’s Angelcare); the “no insert needed” promise is half-true — keep a folded towel or bath sponge ready as the traction layer Babylist’s expert recommends, and a washcloth over the hard centre post, and judge the post in the first baths inside the return window, because the post is the binary feature — babies who tolerate it get a genuinely secure, held-upright bath; babies who don’t cry and slide, and no adjustment fixes a fixed stump; the 0–18-month headline is length-capped in practice (long babies out before 6 months); and the care routine is hang-open-to-dry on the hook before folding (mould in wet-folded legs), plus an arrival inspection of the seams and the interior warning label (separating plastic and flaking labels are stop-and-return defects, not wear). Use it the federal warning’s way — arm’s reach always, empty adult tub or sink, drain open, never carry the baby in it. NOT worth it if: you have room to store a rigid tub (a $27–$40 Fisher-Price/First Years/Frida multi-stage tub includes the sling this one omits and leaves $25–$35 unspent); your baby is a newborn you expect to be floppy or a vigorous kicker (the Angelcare support in check #40 at ~$20, or a sling tub, holds that baby better); you are buying for the 18-month runway (buy on length, not the box age — a bigger rigid tub or the adult tub with a bath seat later is the honest path); or the unit in front of you shows seam separation, a peeling label or mould in the folds at any price, new or used.