Which Travel Cot? Do I need a mattress?

[maggie111]

Our baby's now 3 months old (time has flown!) and totally outgrown his moses basket

So I'm looking into travel cots and had a look in store at some and noticed how soft their bases are. I liked one in Mamas and Papas but I have read online that it recommends a mattress if he needs overnight sleeping and a lot of the reviews said the base was really hard... But it felt soft in store, I wonder if they had it displayed with a mattress in or something??

I'd like to use it as a playpen in our lounge whilst he is still small (we will upgrade to a proper one once he is older and cheekier) and we need it to travel to his grandparents. Anyone have any recommendations?

It's so difficult when you get so much more choice online but can't look at much in store.

 

[Linzi_x]

We bought the John Lewis travel cot, it comes with a mattress but we also bought the mattress enhancer and Francesca seems very comfy in it when we stay over MIL's. It's quite cheap too

 

[dgirllamius]

The "mattress" I got with my travel cot was incredibly thin and felt really hard. My mum also has a travel cot and the mattress to that was also thin and hard. I just bought an additional mattress for 30€ which seemed much more comfortable and soft than the one you get with it. It might be different with the one you're looking at though so can't really say. Might be worth asking what kind of mattress it comes with.

 

[bec01]

My LO is sleeping in her Graco Contour Electra travel cot until she goes into her own room and we have an extra foam mattress from Kiddicare in it, I think it was about £25. She sleeps really well in it. A lot of travel cots do say not to use with extra mattresses because the sides aren't rigid and in theory, baby could get caught in the gap between the side and the mattress, this would be impossible with ours though.

 

[cupcaker]

Stalking this thread, I've always looked at travel cots and wondered about the soft bases and what goes on with mattresses etc.

My nearly 4 month old has outgrown the moses basket too. He is in his 'big cot' now in our bedroom (we dragged it in from the nursery) but in the day time he is still snoozing in a moses basket in the living room as it's "okay" for short sleeps. Not sure for how much longer though.

 

[mrsbeano]

We use a graco and the base seems quite padded and comfy

 

[ke29]

kiddicare have some bargains on travel cots and matresses!

 

[KatieB]

We bought a separate mattress for ours as base felt quite hard, although we may as well not have bothered as Louis never slept in the bloody thing!

 

[SillyMoo1983]

We have used a Graco travel cot at my mums house for sleepovers but the 'mattress' is really hard. I bought a thin mattress from Amazon just to put on top and it's much comfier. My LO still sleeps in it just fine at nearly 2. Saying that, we never actually tried her on the hard mattress. I just didn't want her sleeping on something I wouldn't want to sleep on myself.