My son still sleeps in the Pack n'Play when we travel, however he is a tall boy and fills it from end to end...he is 20 months and doesn't sleep in a big bed yet. We travel a lot so it would be great if anyone knew of a product out there that could help!
I have seen tube like things (in some crazy catalog my mom gets) that you put under the sheets so kids have a barrier. I even want to say they are inflatable so you blow them up each time you would use them?? Unfortunately I can't remember what catalog they are from.
Are those bed rails out of the question to travel with (do you fly or drive?)?
Sorry, that's all I got for you...I would google those under the sheet things :-) Good luck!
Check out One Step Ahead for a pretty cool inflatable kid bed. We have one and it is very easy to use.
They also have the inflatable bedrails referred to below.
http://www.onestepahead.com/catalog/thumbnail.jsp?siteId=...
Could he sleep on the floor? Maybe put some blankets down and let him sleep there? My kids were both in big boy beds before they were 18 months, so I think you could easily go that route.
My dd has an inflatable bed with a sleeping bag attached to it. She loves that! and my son has the Reglo cot like PB&J was talking about. It came from Walmart. Both are for Grandma's house and both kids love them. Maybe those will help. Its tricky I know!
Good luck!
I just yesterday bought a blow up toddler size air mattress that includes a zip on sleeping bag AND the air pump for $30!!!! I got it at Kmart is a Eexcel brand. I haven't used it yet but I can get back to you in a week and let you know what I think. My daughter is 3 and I wanted something very portable and comfy and this looks very promising.
He sure tall!
I hope you find a solution for travel. When we traveled my friend made some...things...for the kids to sleep on on the hotel floor. She got a bunch of towels the same size, like at the end of summer when they have all the beach towels on sale, then sewed them together. She made a small pillow for each one. They were several inches thick too. When it was time to go we rolled them up like a bedroll and they went under the seats of her van.
They washed pretty easy since they were normal towels and they dried outside in one day. They were sort of too heavy to go in my dryer. It was an old gas one that took several hours for just a normal load.
That worked really well.
When I was traveling with the kids I bought the thicker Kindergarten nap mats and sewed a huge pillowcase like cover for them. I added an attached piece of fabric they could cover up with if they wanted to. It was pretty comfortable too. It folds flat and does not have to have the cover taken off to be put up.
There are many ideas for traveling out there for sure. BUT at home he's plenty old enough to start sleeping in a regular bed. It can be straight on the floor if needed for a while but the younger he's put on a bed the easier it is.
In my child care center we had a whole closet of camping cots. They are a wooden base with a canvas "bed" on them. They fold the opposite way and get really small, so small they are comfortable for military guys to carry on their backs.
Here's a link to a picture of one, it's on ebay but it's the same as the ones we used. The kids never got too tall for it since it was for an adult. It was also very comfortable. The 4th picture shows how it looks folded up.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/vtg-folding-wood-canvas-cot-hunti...
Here's a better version. It's light weight metal so no splinters and aluminium is lighter to carry than wood.
http://www.amazon.com/Rio-Adventure-Military-Style-Cot/dp...
Friends of mine got a little tent-crib thing for their child to sleep in so its enclosed and fun for the child since the child was also too big for pack-n-play and too little for bed. Something like this-
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3372657
Back in the dark ages, my parents used to ask for extra pillows and build a barrier in the bed with the pillows. seemed to work for us. They used the head board as one side and place the pillows on the sides.
In hotels we pushed (if possible) one bed up against the wall and then stuffed blankets into the crack and shared the bed with our toddler.
I recently bought a toddler cot made by Regalo for a family vacation. We really liked it. It was inexpensive, low enough to the ground for my two year old to climb on and off easily without tipping it over, and it folded up relatively small. I didn't worry about him rolling off because it dips in the middle from his body weight and the design. We've used it a few times since then and it's held up well - we even checked it for a flight and it came through undamaged! We did end up using a regular fitted toddler bed sheet on it as the one it came with wasn't very soft. A thin blanket or padded waterproof pad under the sheet makes it a little more comfy, too.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000H1MRJO/ref=mp_s_a_1?pi=...
