I should start wearing a black top hat and dressing Artie up like a bunny to finish off our magic act. Every time we use our Peapod tent in public a crowd of amazed parents and children gather to watch me pop it open and close it up like I’m the world’s greatest magician. They all jot down the name and where to order it for their next camping trip or beach day, so I had to share it’s amazing-ness with you guys since I know everyone with a baby or kid will have a use for it this summer.
The first time Artie slept a stretch of eight hours was when he was snug in his Peapod tent on the 40th floor of the Millenium Hilton in New York. Before we left for tour I felt so guilt about taking him away from his crib. After just one night in the Peapod I was already thinking of setting it up at home as his permanent bed once the tour was over.
Now that he’s a little older he sleeps just fine in his crib from 7:30 pm to 7:30 am most days, but at the time we first started using the Peapod we never had a night with a stretch longer than four hours. The Peapod tent, made by Kidco, immediately took the highest place on the pedestal of baby gear. For weeks we worshipped the thing for it’s magical, mystical ability to keep Artie asleep through the night.
The magical abilities of the Peapod don’t end at extending our babe’s length of sleep. A better night’s sleep is NOT the purpose of the Peapod, it just happened to be an added benefit for us. So, what is a Peapod, you ask? It’s the most portable, comfy, safe and easy way for a baby or kid to rest anywhere from a hotel to the beach. The thing is genius.
Carrying it into the hotel every day was super easy because it’s small, lightweight and has a nice case with a strap. It’s similar to carrying around your favorite pillow, but with a strap for your shoulder. When we flew it was conveniently packed in a suitcase. Try that with a pack and play…not going to happen. I hated the idea of hotel cribs with their dirty metal jail-like bars and taking our own pack and play just wasn’t an option because of space and the difficulty of lugging it in every night. I don’t know what we would’ve done without our Peapod!
Here's the Peapod in action, hanging easily on the back of the stroller on our walk down to the beach.
When you take the Peapod out of it’s little case, you’ll find a round slinky-like disc covered in material and hugged together with an elastic band. Even though I read the reviews and talked to someone who used one before, I was so taken aback by the “set up” process. It opens so fast and unexpectedly easy that it whacked me in the head the first time! Yes, there was a warning tag…but I still didn’t expect it. You literally slide the elastic band away and this tiny slinky pops open into a dome tent complete with zipper access, vents, and UV protection. It takes just a couple of minutes to blow up the air mattress with the included pump. Tuck the mattress in the zipper compartment under the tent and voila! It even comes with a sleeping bag to make it warm and extra cozy in a safe way. Your baby or kid up to five years old has their own little fort perfect for sleep or play.
Packing it away is just as easy. Day after day Ace and I looked at each other in amazement every time we set it up and put it away. Seriously, it’s that cool. It happens to be the absolute perfect solution for our lifestyle, so maybe we’re a little over obsessed, but even for infrequent travel, beach days, camping or hanging out an older brother’s baseball game, the Peapod is indispensable.
Napping on the beach, toes in the sea breeze.
We popped our Peapod Plus about 40 days in a row and had no problems with function or wear from heavy use. The only problem we encountered was because of my own paranoia. I felt uncomfortable zipping the baby completely into the tent at night just in case I needed to get to him faster than the speed of zippers due to some near-impossible catastrophe that my brain inevitably cooks up when I lay down in bed at night. Leaving the tent unzipped was fine, until Artie started rolling over in his sleep. Toward the end of the tour I frequently found him laying with his legs hanging out of the tent. But like I said, if I wasn’t a paranoid freak this wouldn’t happen. The option for snaps in addition to zippers might be nice, this way I could get to him faster. It would also be a lot quieter when closing him in for the night because sometimes the zipper woke him up.
Artie isn’t a huge sleep squirmer, but when he moves a bit more than usual the nylon material tends to create a swishing sound. This wasn’t really a problem for us, but I heard from someone with very squirmy babies that it woke them up a lot. That problem was easily solved by having a fitted sheet custom made for the mattress so it doesn’t swish against the tent lining. I think it would be great if Peapod sold a sheet to take care of the noise issue. These two minor things, the zipper and the swishing, would probably never be a problem at all for people who use the tent in a more normal way than we do (i.e. not every single night for five or six weeks).
Now that we’re home, I’m still using the Peapod all the time. It should be up there with a pack and play on every new mom and dad’s baby registry.
Find the Peapod here!
(I’m not being paid by Kidco, my obsession with the Peapod is totally legitimate! Maybe a little extreme, but legitimate!)
