Best Travel Crib: Is Guava Lotus Worth It? NOT Sponsored Review
There are many options for travel cribs and bassinets, from small ones to pack and plays. What’s the best travel crib for a baby?
When I started creating my registry I felt overwhelmed by a ton of highly-priced must-have baby travel products so I tested them all with our two kids, as we traveled pretty much non-stop for the first few years. If you’re looking for a portable pack and play that doubles as a long-term travel crib, you’re in the right place.
In the end, we settled on Guava Lotus travel crib for multiple reasons, but I admit that we ended up using it only for extended stays as getting a hotel crib was usually easier.
Guava Lotus Pros & Cons
Guava Lotus travel crib is the top item for traveling families and as a travel crib, it can make your life away from home a whole lot easier. How is Guava Lotus different from other cribs?
Packs small
As a travel items Guava is a travel item it can pack small and only weighs 15 lbs. While it can fit into checked baggage if needed, I suggest checking it separately as various airlines allow you to check 2 baby items for free.
It has straps that can turn it into a backpack. It’s useful when you carry a ton even just to check it at the counter or to a car on road trips.
Quick Set Up
There are two hidden safety releases that must be squeezed at the same time to make the lightweight metal frame fold up for packing. Then the folded crib goes inside the bottom pad and slides into the nylon carrying case.
It takes about 3-5 minutes and you only need one person to do it which is nice.
Extremely Safe & Stable
First and foremost Guava Lotus travel crib meets basic safety standards for infants and it’s GreenGuard Gold certified, which means it has been independently tested to meet standards for low chemical emissions.
One of the issues I had with some other portable pack and plays and playpens was that they could tip over easily (I also had a little Houdini child who mastered tripping every playpen over at 7 months).
There’s no way this travel crib will trip over or fold on the kids. Trust me, my 2 year old was climbing all over it and it didn’t even move – that part we loved the most!
It has durable and easy-to-unzip opening if you want to lie down and hold your baby’s hand. This however, proved to be a con I didn’t realize existed until my second baby.
With 2 under 2 it was a challenge when kids had to share a room in apartment rentals. The older brother would wake up in the morning and unzip the baby out to play with him and we had a baby crawling everywhere unsupervised, which defeated the point of having a crawling baby in a crib.
Easy to Clean
Many people prefer to bring their own cribs, because of the sanitary issues. Lotus is extremely easy to clean and the vinyl pad makes cleaning up spills and pee. The mattress has a waterproof cover that comes clean with a quick wipe.
The sheet doesn’t come with it, but you can purchase it as an accessory. Obviously, you’ll want at least one and as I preferred other sheets I fit a stretchy bamboo changing pad cover on it instead.
Cons of Guava Lotus
I feel like the biggest con of Guava Lotus crib is the price. It’s definitely not a cheap item, so it’s only worth it for those who know that will be needing it frequently.
Almost all standard pack n plays sold in the USA are around 40″ X 28.5″ and my son was 39″ by 2.5 years. Guava is slightly longer, with the mattress measuring 41.5″, but it’s still a very short crib overall.
If your kids are tall like mine, don’t expect them to fit into it comfortably past 2 years which makes it a very short-lived item.
Is Guava Lotus the best pack-n-play for travel with a baby or toddler then?
Despite a few cons, I still believe that there’s no better options on the market.
Would I buy it again? That depends. If I weren’t going to spend extended time living abroad or moving houses with the kids then I probably wouldn’t buy it. We had it for 2 years and apart from a trip to Seattle we never brought it on shorter trips as we simply always used hotel cribs.
It was always “we can get a hotel crib”, “we don’t want to drag so much luggage around”, or it wasn’t allowed (on smaller planes where luggage was limited), and then by the time the younger child turned 18 months we began the process of transitioning him out of the crib
It made our travels much easier and the kids just shared a sofa bed or double bed.
Guava Lotus worked great with Slumberpod and that would be an advantage over a hotel crib that are too big for it, but my little one wasn’t a fan of the complete darkness so we didn’t care for it much.
We used it in our long-term rental in France and when we were moving houses and buying new furniture. We mainly used it as a safe place to put the baby to play in the living room and use it as Guava pack and play.
I do think Guava Lotus crib is great, and if you think you’ll use it a lot then I highly recommend it.
Guava Lotus vs BabyBjorn Travel Crib Light
Both Guava and BabyBjorn are leading brands on the market and they are actually fairly similar. The Bjorn is Oeko-Tex certified, but they’re both free of flame retardants which is important.
The BabyBjorn is super easy to set up and takedown, much easier than the Lotus. Closing up the Lotus is a bit more complicated as you need match up the symbols, while everything just snaps and unsnaps on Bjorn in just one go.
Both of these travel cribs are small in sizing, but Guava is more of a rectangular backpack while Bjorn looks like a little suitcase. While lightweight and easy to carry, but Bjorn doesn’t have backpack straps and it’s about a pound heavier.
There’s a reason for the extra pound of weight as the mattress on Bjorn is significantly thicker which might matter to some if going to cold destinations and the floor tends to get cold.
The Lotus is convertible to a bassinet (purchased as a separate bassinet conversion kit) while the BabyBjorn is not.
Overall they’re both good choices but it depends on what your specific needs are.
