We have the Kolcraft John Lennon playard. We use it in the living room for our 3-mo-old to nap in. We have been using an additional mattress -- Kolcraft portable crib mattress. But I have read that this is unsafe to use any additional mattresses -- that you should use the original thin pad that comes with the playards. Especially since the additional mattress does not fit exactly into the playard. Some safety sites say not to let your child sleep unsupervised in a playard at all -- but to put them in a portable crib or a real crib. I want to be safe, but I don't want to buy a portable crib (about $80) if the playard we already have (about $120) will be just as safe and comfortable for our baby to sleep in when we travel. Does anyone have any recommendations about playards vs. portable cribs? Does anyone have any thoughts about the mattress? It sounds like we should just get Laura used to sleeping on the playard mattress. So far she's pretty adaptable at sleeping just about anywhere on anything. Thank you.

Priscilla
Mom to Laura 09/14/02