Baby Week: Babies Asleep on the Road

At my baby shower I was given a Pack'n'Play, I had no idea what to do with it. I was told by my husband's cousin, the giver of the gift and the mother of a one year old, that it was essential. It proved to be so, allowing my son to sleep anywhere we went and giving me a free hand in the kitchen until he figured out how to climb out of it! We do our fair share of traveling and take yearly camping trips in Northern Maine, so a good sleeping area for our kids is important to us. For the July Fourth trip this year, our two and a half year old has his own sleeping bag and free run of the tent, heaven help us. But our second son will be barely four months old and in need of somewhere nice and comfortable for whatever sleep he chooses to bestow on us.

This week our family tested out the newly revamped Travel Crib Light from BabyBjörn. It weighs only 11 pounds and is a more manageable shape than most generic travel cribs so I took to it instantly. It was much easier to set up than our previous model, one fluid motion and you are ready for sleep. While most travel cribs involve snapping arms and bars into place before it is fully assembled, this crib is more about ease of set up. You actually don't feel like you are setting it up until you are folding it down. Collapsing it was a bit tough for me, but then I'm a self professed weakling. My husband couldn't understand the fuss I was making so I assume most people won't struggle the way I did. It is certainly a more manageable take down than our previous model, and comes in what feels like far fewer pieces. No instructions were used in the assembly of this travel crib, so it is great for those early baby days where most conscious and reasoned thought is a distant memory. I also enjoyed the shape of this crib more than I thought I would from the pictures, angled in and away from a large base to a smaller opening it gives a feeling of security that is nice for road trips. The slopes also mean that my two year old can peer over at his brother without the risk of it tipping over in any direction, big plus in this household.

On the downside, it does sit lower on the ground than other travel cribs I have encountered, so I doubt it will accompany us on our camping trip where we sleep on the cold earth. It will however, be great for Grandma's house and any nap time that we might encounter on days out with friends and is a much easier shape to carry for such quick trips. The mattress is much firmer and of much higher quality than most travel pads, making it feel more like a crib than a portable. It has a removable waterproof slipcover, making clean up of any accidents much easier. While my two year old still managed to climb his way out of this one, my two week old seemed quite content in here. For those traveling much farther, the new Travel Crib Light is also a much more convenient shape once packed up to fit into a large suitcase if needs be, something I cannot say about our previous travel crib which was fairly cumbersome for something designed to be portable. On the whole, this crib will prove much more convenient for the "travel" portion of its purpose.

As with all BabyBjörn products, the materials conform to the highest standards and testing. It can also be completely disassembled and machine washed, excluding the mattress foam, long gone are our days of needing a spray bottle of Febreeze to "clean" with. I was sent a BabyBjörn Travel Crib Light 2 for review purposes.

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