PeaPod Baby Travel Bed Review

Baby Travel Gear Serves as Play Area and Portable Travel Crib

Aug 6, 2006

The PeaPod Baby Travel Bed gives your infants a place to play and sleep while the family travels. Here is a review of the PeaPod Baby Travel Bed.

The PeaPod Baby Travel Bed is a handy, multi-purpose portable crib and play area for infants. It is basically a bed with a tent on top, which allows it to work at night, at the beach, at picnics and camping.

The bed itself is an inflatable mattress with its own slot in the contraption. Situated over this is a top which protects the baby from insects, wind and UV rays. The mesh portion can be unzipped so that the PeaPod is open for playtime.

PeaPod Baby Travel Bed - What I Liked

It seems more comfortable than the usual travel baby crib (typically a folding playpen). Those have a simple board at the bottom, probably less comfortable than even a cot. This comes with an inflatable mattress that tucks into a sleeve underneath it.
It was actually quite easy to assemble and disassemble. My experience has been that the smaller travel baby gear is, the more of a pain it is to put together (which can be a real nuisance when you arrive tired at your hotel). After being pulled out of its bag, it was a snap to expand it. While closing it is trickier, the picture-by-picture instructions simplify things.
Although it looks small when expanded, both my 5-month old twins fit inside nicely, even for playtime.
It folds into a compact, lightweight carrying case that really is small. A travel playpen, by contrast, is large, bulky and quite heavy. This could easily slide into a car trunk or a suitcase.

PeaPod Baby Travel Bed - What I Didn't Like

It comes with a manual hand pump for the air mattress, which is what one would expect. If you plan to inflate it a few times (such as during a trip with a few stops), I'd recommend buying an electric pump. It doesn't take too long to hand pump the small mattress, but electric pumps are also quite cheap.
I wish it had a fitted sheet, instead of the quilted pad that simply lies inside the bed.
You can certainly put toys inside the PeaPod Baby Travel Bed, but it would be nice if it had loops overhead and a couple dangling toys. It seems a shame to have the roof of the tented bed sitting there, without the ability to take advantage by hanging toys

In summary

The PeaPod Baby Travel Bed takes a need of many traveling families, and meets it with ease. While there are a couple of design features I might change, this is by far superior to the limited alternatives for sleeptime when traveling with infants.

I love that it doubles for daytime playtime. This could also be handy around the house as a playpen, as it takes up less floor space than a playpen.