Product DescriptionWe believe life should be spent together. So we designed a crib to make it easier to do just that.The Lotus is more than a travel crib. It's an EVERYWHERE crib. So light. So portable. It sets up in 15 seconds. Use it everywhere, everyday. At Home. At friends' for dinner. At a playgroup. Across town. In the airport. Across the world.And the Lotus travel crib is beautiful. It has clean lines, art-inspired graphics and logos, soft textured fabrics, and modern colors.Easy for You:Since it's effortless to take the Lotus portable crib with you and super fast to setup, you'll go more places and see more friends & family. Not just on overnight trips, but all the time at home and across town. And since it's a lightweight backpack, both hands are available for everything else, including the baby and diaper bag. Guava Family is the only company in the world that makes cribs that pack into backpacks.Fun for them:Nothing makes us happier than to see how much fun the little ones have in the Lotus travel crib. Give them their own way in and out, and they think of it as their world, not a prison. The side door, which can be zipped and secured closed turns the crib into a secure space where they'll love to play, laugh, sleep. We won't blame you for climbing in with them either....Safe For Everyone:No Phthalates. No Lead. No PBE or PBDE Flame Retardants. Full-side breathable mesh. ASTM F406-11B Approved. Also, the Lotus Crib cover is removable and machine washable. Spit up. Slobber. Drool. It's only a matter of time...What You Get:The Lotus Crib comes with the crib, mattress, and bag (with convertible backpack straps), and instruction manual, and our heartfelt thanks for joining the Guava Family!
Lotus Travel Crib and Portable Baby Playard
Customer Reviews:* It's lightweight and very portable. Much lighter than our pack 'n' play. Setup takes me less than 1 minute (plus another 1-2 minutes to close all the velcro tabs) and requires no tools. Putting it all back into the case takes me about 2-3 minutes. It will probably go faster when I become accustomed to doing it.When it's set up, the shape and size are longer and narrower than our Chicco Lullaby LX play yard, and it's not as tall. It does not have wheels but it is very lightweight and easy to pick up and place elsewhere. Having it longer but narrower than a regular play yard means that it will fit a taller/longer baby until a later age (especially as there is no weight limit, unlike our play yard which has a 15 pound limit in the bassinet and 30 pound limit in the play yard). The narrower design and light weight also make this easy to move from room to room within the house, as it fits through doorways and is light and easy to carry (obviously take the baby out first). The narrower footprint also means that it's easier to find a place to set it up in a hotel room. (tip: When closing the crib to fold it up, the instructions tell you to press a button on each side of the top rail, that you can feel underneath the gray fabric. I think I was expecting something more round and sticking out, so it took me a minute to figure out what I was supposed to do, and I unzipped the gray fabric from the top rail to take a peak at the structure inside and look for the button I was intended to press. It was shaped more squarish and instead of being pushed in from the outside of the top rail as I had expected, you put your fingers under it and pulled up (towards the sky) on the button. Very simple and easy once you know what to expect.)The travel case is about the size of a roll-aboard carry-on suitcase but both narrower and deeper, less wide (more squared base, less flat). there are straps to tote as a big tote bag, and in the back is a zipper compartment in which are stored backpack straps that turn the case into a backpack. It's rather long for a backpack but that does free up a set of arms for carrying other luggage or baby, or pushing a stroller. My husband (6ft tall) could more comfortably wear it as such than I could (5'5" tall).Safety/practicality:We had planned on using our pack 'n' play (Chicco Lullaby LX) as our normal bassinet and as a travel crib/bassinet. But then our little one came along and he's very big for his age. He quickly outgrew the 15 pound weight limit on the bassinet feature of the Chicco Lullaby before he was 2 even months old, but he was still too young to have him sleep in the pack 'n' play on its lowest setting (play yard instead of bassinet) because he could not yet lift his head up and the lowest setting of the play yard had a fabric border along the bottom of the mesh sides, which would be a suffocation hazard for such a young infant. And the way he can gradually scoot himself around the crib by kicking his legs out, I didn't want to take the risk that he'd wedge his face against the fabric. So using the Chicco play yard as a travel crib wasn't going to work while our baby was still just a few months old. We transitioned him to sleeping in a traditional crib at night at home, but still needed a travel option. We don't want to rely on hotel cribs, as they are often outdated (pre-recall) or may end up being a regular pack 'n' play which is not safe for our baby to sleep in at his current young age and heavy weight. We looked at basically every other travel crib available on Amazon and in the big box stores and found that the Guava Family travel cribs (Go Crib and Lotus Crib) are the only ones that are very high quality and sturdy, ultra portable, and most importantly, do not have any fabric border at what would be nose-level for our infant who does not yet have the ability to lift his head. It's disturbing to me to see how many travel cribs out there don't warn parents of younger infants not to use them. (*see update below on new competitor model)Also a nice safety feature is that the fitted sheet (we have the plain regular sheet not the quilted, since the quilted is not recommended for babies under 1 year old), has slots the edges. The velcro tabs on the mat connect from the mat through the slots on the sheet, and then to the bottom of the crib floor. This secures the mat and the sheet so baby can't grab it and pull it over his face.I also like that this travel crib will still be suitable for our baby as he grows into a toddler. Once he's older (over a year is the recommendation, but it depends on when he can lift his head), we'll use the quilted sheet to add a little more softness, and maybe insert one of our waterproof pads (from another company) under the sheet (the mat is already water resistant, but this would be just to add another layer).Sturdiness:The top rail of the crib (looks like gray fabric border around the top edge) is completely rigid and sturdy when set up. The legs are metal and fold upon themselves where you see the round joint in the leg. The mat and bottom of the crib rest on the floor, so there is no weight limit. This is a plus if you are like us and need a travel crib safe enough for a newborn but able to support a very heavy young infant who weighs over 20 pounds at just 3 months (or if you have an older tot who needs a travel play yard but will outgrow the 30 pound weight limit on the traditional play yard. The sides of the Lotus Crib are black mesh fabric. The floor seems to be a black nylon or other synthetic. The mattress is also a synthetic that seems easy to clean by wiping it off, in case of any accidents or diaper blow-outs. The mattress does not have a wood support under it like our Chicco, but that's not necessary here since the mattress is laying on the crib floor which is directly flat on the floor of the room. The Lotus Crib mattress has velcro tabs to hold it down onto the crib floor. The ends of the mattress turn up a bit even so, but the baby's weight pushes it flat.We pushed on the top rail ourselves to simulate an older tot pushing on it and found it remained stable. The top rail is rigid and the legs are also rigid and are set at a slight angle so the tops of the legs lean in towards the crib, so the base on the floor is wider and very stable.Other aspects:The mattress is thin, as noted by other reviewers. This is a legal requirement to prevent a suffocation hazard for infants in case they turn over and end up face down on the mattress.The shape seems a bit longer and narrower than our Chicco play yard, but in theory we could use a regular fitted play yard sheet on the Lotus Crib, but I wouldn't. I think it's safer to use the sheets sold by Guava Family specifically for this crib, because they have slots in them as noted above, for the velcro tabs to hold them down. This is not necessary for a regular play yard as the wooden subfloor of the crib or bassinet would hold the mattress down and the mattress edges would hold the fitted sheet edges down. With the Lotus Crib, the velcro serves this purpose, so you really need the open slots in the sheets to put the velcro tabs through.Also, the company is super responsive and excellent to deal with. I wouldn't hesitate to order from them again. You really get the friendly and attentive service of a small company.UPDATE May 2013: Since the time of my original review, phil&teds Traveller Crib has had a re-design and the new version looks similar to the Lotus crib, with mesh all the way down to the mat. I haven't tried it since I'm happily still using the Lotus but just wanted to mention in all fairness there's another all mesh-sided travel crib to consider in your due diligence. * I wrote the following review in March 2013: I was really excited about this travel crib (I mean, the customer reviews can't be beat), but the moment I got it out of the box, it was covered in dust and dirt smudges and it smelled like wet paint. I washed all the machine washable parts to get rid of the smell, but because the mattress smells like paint, it really doesn't matter what the rest of the crib parts smell like. Crib was manufactured in January 2013. I'm bummed. Surely I can't be the only one who received a stinky crib??!!On April 4, 2013, I changed my review from 2 stars to 5 because my issue with the mattress was fixed immediately by the Guava Family owner, Scott. He handled my concerns personally and professionally. He researched the issue and sent me a new mattress that was scent free!In the owner's words to me in a recent email: "I also want to let you know that we have taken your complaint very seriously. We've received about 5 total now (yours, the other negative review on amazon, the other commenter on your review, and 1 or 2 others) out of about 1200 sold in the last couple of months. We actually re-inspected all of our inventory and found a couple more that we have since replaced to make sure everything is up to our standards going forward, and talking with our suppliers to make sure this can't happen again."In my opinion, you can't go wrong with this small company. The personal attention to detail and making sure to fix the mattress issue immediately was comforting. While the Velcro tabs would take a little getting used to, the product is solid and the packed size CAN'T be beat! Seriously, even if you were considering another competitor's travel crib, the fact that you can wear this like a backpack when it's packed up and take it as a carry on makes this a winner in my book. (Hint hint, not many of the competitors offer the same compact feature even if they are light-weight).Do yourself a favor; grab a box of Kleenex and watch the video introducing the Lotus set to the world. Besides the amazing features, it's what sold me on the Lotus Crib! [...]
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