Ten-and-a-half years and two more children later, our latest KATY cot bed mattress still lives under the bunk bed of our youngest (now five) - despite the cot bed itself being relegated to the loft about a year ago. We use it mostly for sleepovers these days - it's small enough to slide easily under the bed when not in use, but big enough to fit a visiting child as old as eight or nine, depending on their size.
How comfortable is the KATY cot mattress?
All three of our babies slept really well on the KATY cot bed mattress (or as well as the average baby sleeps anyway!) We didn't have any difficulty transitioning from the smaller newborn crib to the larger cot, and they all continued to sleep well on the mattress right from day one in the cot, through each lowering of the base and to conversion into a cot/toddler bed.
As mentioned, we've since used the mattress as a spare bed for visiting children who have all slept well on it. I've also used it myself when one of the kids was poorly overnight and I needed to be close to them. At the time the child in question was in a full-sized bed (ironically) and I used the cot bed mattress on the floor of their room - my feet were on a slightly different level to the rest of me but at the time I'm fairly sure I was too exhausted to care and thanks to the KATY, I was able to sleep fairly well with the added reassurance of being near enough to tend to the sick child as and when they needed me.
Related: The best mattress protector and white noise machines
Does the KATY cot bed mattress represent good value for money?
In a word, yes. If you search for cot bed mattresses online, you'll find a huge range of options from as little as £25 all the way up to the hundreds. Sure, the KATY isn't made from natural fibres like The Little Green Sheep Twist and it's not got dual sleeping surfaces like the Snüz SnüzSurface Duo, but for us, it's done everything it has needed to. When the time came to replace it for our second child, the decision was a no-brainer.