Customer Reviews

KidCo PeaPod with Self-Inflating Mattress

5 star:		(62)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought the green PeaPod for my 9 month old daughter to sleep in during our family vacation. We were flying and I didn't want to take her bulky pack-n-play. I read the reviews and researched the product quite extensively before finally making the decision to purchase it. Overall, I am very happy with the PeaPod and would recommend it to friends. Below, I have given my positives and negatives.

Positives:
1. Easy to open and close
2. Compact and fits nicely in a suitcase
3. Self Inflating (to a point)
4. Easy access to get child in and out
5. Spacious (even for my very long and chubby baby)
6. Love the color

Negatives:
1. Opens quickly and could cause injury to anyone standing close enough.
2. In order to make the self inflating mattress more firm, I had to blow it up myself.
3. There isn't a convenient way to put a sheet on the bottom of the PeaPod without having the sheet/blanket get tangled up by the child. I ended up puting a pack-n-play sheet around the mattress and placing it inside the PeaPod, rather than in the compartment that it was supposed to go in (outside and underneath the PeaPod).
4. If you have a baby that is rolling over already, you will have to have the baby zipped in. My daughter rolled out of the PeaPod every time I put her inside, so I didn't have the option of keeping it unzipped.
5. The zipper is noisy and will probably wake up the baby if she/he is asleep when put inside. It didn't bother my daughter, who went right back to sleep, but I could see where it might be an issue for some babies.

I originally got online to search for a baby tent to use at the beach, and then my eye fell on the pea pod travel bed. I got it in the mail just in time for a weekend music festival, where it more than proved its worth. We used it in the pop-up camper for bedtime, outside in the shade during naps, and even took it down for the baby to lay/play in while we listened to music. Very light and portable, I found it easy to fold, and although I bought it for my 3month old baby, my three year old found it novel and took a couple naps in it himself. Since then we've taken it to friends houses so we can put the baby to bed there, and she plays in it happily in the kitchen floor while I cook.... it's soooo much nicer/lighter/more space efficient to haul along than a pack and play. Not made exactly for beach cover, but it keeps her out of the sand and we drape a towel over or place the pod under the umbrella. Anyway, I am really happy with the functionability and travel-friendliness of this item.

i love the peapod! i would have given it 5 stars but i wish it came with a way to put a sheet down on the bottom, what i've done instead of putting the mattress underneath in the zipper compartment i would put it inside with a fitted sheet around it. all in all its a great product and my 14 month old still fits with room to spare.

we take this tent everywhere. if our son needs a nap, it pops right up. we've taken it to parks, camping, friends houses, and even placed it next to our table at restaurants when he's fallen asleep. it's compact, lightweight and very portable. no need to lug a pack n play with you ever again!

the only thing i wish they had for it is a UV cover - then we could take it to the beach too!

I have six month old fraternal twins. I purchased the self-inflating peapod (green) and the manual inflating peapod (blue). I would definitely recommend the self inflating peapod over the blue one because of the simplicity. The mattress pad inflates really quickly and it also holds air much better.

Overall the peapods have a lot of pros and cons:

Pros
1) Super compact for travel. Even having two, they packed really nicely in our suitcase for a trip to Hawaii. They are very easy to setup and take down. We had a walk in closet in our condo and this fit beautifully in the there. So no need to get another bedroom which saved us money in the long run!!
2) This is a great replacement for the traditional pac n' play which is bulky.

Cons
1) If you have a baby that rolls a lot during sleep, I would not purchase this product! One of our twins is all over his crib during the night. When placed in the peapod he was like a fish in a cooler! It was terrible, he kept waking himself up as he bounced into the edges of the peapod and it would make lots of noise. If your baby is more stationary at night (like my other twin) then the peapod works very well.
2) The peapod is very hot! If your babies are still "crying it out" to go to sleep then they will get HOT! After five minutes of normal fussing we checked our baby and he was dripping in sweat. It was terrible! His room was well ventilated and had AC. So be very careful of overheating. For that reason alone we didn't bother taking these to the beach in fear of them getting too hot.
3) The zipper is super loud. It can easily wake a baby that is just on the verge of sleep as you put him in the peapod. They really should figure out a less noisy zipper.
4) It is made of normal tent material that is very loud. We finally figured out to pull the mattress pad from its regular pouch, wrap it with a full size sheet (nice and tight), then put it into the peapod main compartment. It works much better and is much more comfortable/quiet for the baby.

So, for our family, it worked great for one of our twins that is not very active during the night. Make sure you keep the tent well ventilated and it works well overall.

We got this far too late in the game, schlepping a pack n' play on planes and roadtrips for our daughter's first 18 months. Last month we got this for a 2 week trip and we were concerned she would hate it. We couldn't have been more wrong. The only crying she did was when she saw us packing it up on two occasions. She even crawled into it herself with a few of her stuffed toys for nap times, smiling and saying "night, night". I think it brings out a nesting instinct, or maybe it makes her feel like she's back in the womb! At any rate, we all couldn't be happier. Really easy to use, super light weight and so much easier to travel with... both big trips and the small ones- like day trips to a friend's place, the park or the beach, which we're more likely to do because she will now get a proper nap! We aren't big into buying a lot of baby stuff and try to make to do with little, but this is well worth the space and the price.

This portable bed easily fits in my suitcase and doesn't add much weight. I ordered this because I didn't want to deal with a Pack N Play when travelling by plane. This tent is very light. Folds up easily, but it's even easier to set up. You just slip off the elastic band and STAND BACK. I smacked myself in the face with the tent the first time I set it up. So definitely make sure you get out of the way. But the convenience of this thing is well worth the money, and my baby loves feeling like he has his own cozy space to sleep in.

In theory this was wonderful. I was so excited to find a travel bed this easy to carry, and so many wonderful reviews. It was very easy to fold and unfold, inflate and deflate-but the baby didn't want to sleep in it. We tried waiting until he fell asleep, adding toys, giving him lots of positive attention while he was in there, but after a couple of sleepless nights we gave up and returned it to Babies r us. There was another peapod at the store that had obviously been returned as well so I don't think we had the only baby with this issue. It's worth trying, but make sure you buy it with a merchant that has free shipping just in case.

We bought this before our last vacation and it has proven WONDERFUL! Our 13 mos old loves it. The zipper is a bit noisy, but if you practice you can get better at zipping it. Helps to have your child very sleepy before you put him down. Also helps to "practice" using it before a trip, and to bring along a favorite blanket, etc. Our babysitter thinks our son sleeps better in it than in his pack-in-play.

My only complaint is that a pack-in-play sheet doesn't fit very well and comes off easily. Wish they came with a specially made travel sheet.

I also debated whether to buy the larger version--it can be confusing to figure out the options on Amazon and is helpful to go to the maker's site. I decided the smaller made more sense. The larger is much less portable and by that time, your child can sleep in a lot more places safely (mattress on the floor, etc).

One last selling point. An earlier reviewer mentioned bringing it to friends' houses and being able to put your child down for naps. We did that just the other day and it meant our older kids could stay and play while our baby napped. We're no longer completely tied to his sleep schedule--a true perk.

I was looking for something that I could use for sun protection at first, but I found this days before a he firdst trip I was taking with my 7 mo baby girl. I couldn't have made a better choice! I had problems getting her to nap on the first day of the trip, but I think that was due more to the two and a half hour drive, the excitement, etc. When it was bed time, she went right to sleep. The next day she took both her naps during the day with no problem at all. It's big enough for a three year old, so I know I'll get a lot of use out of it!

Also, it is extremely easy to fold up and get back into its carrying case. I was a bit worried about that aspect to to some of the other reviews I read on Amazon, but now I have no idea what their problem was. I was able to fold it up without even reading the instructions!