I’m not looking forward to the day the baby girl outgrows her pop-up tent travel cot. We bought it for a trip to Goa when she was four-months-old, and have used it every time we’ve gone away since then, at hotels, B&Bs, in our campervan, at festivals, when staying with friends and relatives, and for nearly a month when working in Edinburgh in summer 2017.

The benefits of a pop-up tent travel cot

It’s handy for a lot of reasons, primarily that it functions almost like a separate space within the room because it’s entirely enclosed once it’s zipped up. It’s not soundproof, and it doesn’t entirely block out the light, but it’s better than an open cot in both respects. (If it’s not dark enough in the room, we might drape a breathable blanket over the top). The zip itself is important too: zipping the tent closed works as a sleep cue – for our baby at least (except when it doesn’t, of course). And once it’s closed, it’s a barrier to mosquitos and other insects.

Given how different sleeping in the tent is from sleeping in a cot, you’ll want to do a few practice runs before you go away. It took the baby girl two naps in the tent in our living room at home to get used to it when she was three months old.

Daytime uses for a pop-up tent travel cot

Depending on your destination and type of trip, you might find the tent useful in the daytime too; and for more than just napping. We put the baby girl in it all the time in Goa so she could roll around with her teething rings and toys in a relatively clean environment. We must have looked ridiculous carting it to and from our room all the time, but the staff took it in their stride. We thought we’d have the tent on the beach a lot, as it provides UV protection, but ultimately it was too hot to do that, so we stayed in the beachside restaurant most of the time and took turns going for dips in the sea.

We’ve used it camping too, as a way of safely stowing away the baby girl for the moments when two sets of hands are required to set up or strike camp. Further perks are that it packs down very small and is very light. It’s so small and so light in fact that you can take the tent as carry-on on a plane or pack it into your luggage. Cunningly concealing the tent like this, you can pass off another small bag as a travel cot, thereby making the most of your infant baggage allowance of (usually) travel cot, pushchair and car seat.

The downsides of the pop-up tent travel cot

A major downside of the tent is that it doesn’t provide complete shade, so you can’t rely on it in sunny places – you’ll still need sunscreen and a sun hat. It gets pretty warm in there too – in Goa we used a little battery-operated fan and covered the baby girl with damp muslins to keep her cool.

It’s very easy to pop up and pack away, but the fact that you have to be either on the floor or in a very deep bend to get your child in and out means that it won’t be ideal for all parents/carers. We use the more conventional BabyBjörn Travel Cot Easy Go when we take the baby girl to stay at her grandparents’ house.