Travel Cots

[RossIsTheBestFriend]

Can anyone recommend a decent travel cot. There seems to be a huge selection and the prices look like the go from £30ish to hundreds of pounds!
I’ve seen that some places sell additional mattresses too - are these necessary or one of these “not really recommended” things?

---

This thread is quite old now so some of the suggestions may be out of date, but if you’ve landed here looking for a travel cot for your child, we’ve recently updated our best travel cots page with lots of great options, as tried and tested by Mumsnet users and their babies. We hope you find it useful.
MNHQ

We splashed out on the Baby Bjorn one a few years ago and have never regretted it, for our circumstances.

Basically your variables are ease of assembly, size, comfort and price. It’s about how often you’ll use it and how you’ll travel (car, train, plane etc). BB is super easy and comfy (comes with a mattress), smaller than average (and easy to check in as hold luggage in its bag) but very spendy. Classic travel cots are cheap but bulky and fiddly but don’t come with a decent mattress. There are some pop up tent style ones which are fiddly, but light, middling in comfort and price.

Oh and if it’s for a little baby, consider a Koodi pop up bassinet thing for the first few months. So much easier to cart around and you can use as a Moses basket during the day.

Agree the Bjorn one is worth the investment - it's indestructible, as safe as a regular cot and my eldest could use it until she was almost 3. Also useful as a makeshift play pen if you need one and stores easily

@TellMeSomeGoodNewsPlease @YukoandHiro Thanks guys! We bought the Baby Bjorn bouncer and it was great so I did wonder if their travel cot would be another worthwhile investment. Will probably only be used 2-3 times a year but I’d rather he was safe and comfy so happy to spend more for something good! He’s 10months at the moment but he’s very tall and is a very active sleeper 😅
We have the Joie Compact Kubbie at the moment which we bought when he was tiny because of the bassinet feature but he can barely roll over in it properly now - it seems to be a good 10-15cm narrower than a standard travel cot and slightly shorter too!

We are using the babybjorn right now. It’s definitely been worth it as Ds sleeps well in it, decent mattress, light to take on plane, and any bigger folded wouldn’t have fitted in car with other luggage

I bought the Joie Allura. Its big and is suitable from baby to toddler. My sons always slept really well in it.

I have two (different makes) in this style (one lives at ours, one at my parents) and they do require an extra mattress but are great. Easy to put up, will last for ages and my son sleeps well in them. www.argos.co.uk/product/7065165?clickSR=slp:term:mamas%20and%20papas%20travel%20cot:3:28:2

The extra mattress is to help the baby sleep better. The typical travel cots have very hard bases. If you add an extra mattress, of course the cot isn’t as it was when it was certified safe. How much I’d worry about that would depend on the age of the baby.

@T0rt0ise I’ve actually just bought that very one as we need one for going away for a couple of nights tomorrow (very last minute trip for family reasons) and it’s literally the only thing I could get in stock anywhere near us 😳 Have a mattress being delivered tonight as the one that they recommended to fit it in Argos doesn’t actually fit well now that we’ve unpacked it to try it!

@3womeninaboat Always a worry of mine when it comes to him sleeping in things. Bought a mattress which I have tried in it and I’m not comfortable with how it fits - it’s slightly big for the cot so lifts slightly at the edges when he rolls which I’m not happy with. Have ordered another one from the same manufacturer as the travel cot so hopefully it will be a better fit. His compact travel cot that we had with the bassinet top is much smaller and I didn’t add a mattress to that as he used it when very young but I feel more comfortable adding one now that he’s bigger - provided it fits properly and is firm etc

Hauck. Cheap, sturdy, and a larger-than-average size so lasts them ages. My DD is 3 and slept in it on holiday recently very happily. We do have the extra mattress they sell as well.