“I was surprised how easy this was to unfold!” Nuna PAAL travel cot review

Providing both a travel cot and a safe playpen for your baby, the Nuna PAAL is a functional piece of baby equipment that is adaptive to your little one's needs. From newborn you can use the bassinet setting, providing a safe and familiar place for baby to sleep wherever you are. When baby gets older the travel cot can be used with the mattress on floor-level.

When it's playtime rather than bedtime, this travel cot can be used as a compact play area, thanks to the zip-open door and mesh side panels. To make life easier for parents the mattress cover and even a mosquito net are included, and the PAAL is so easy to fold up and down with the click of a button, easily fitting into the sturdy travel bag provided.

Our hub editor Stephanie Spencer tried out the Nuna PAAL for herself, here's how she got on...

Testing the Nuna PAAL travel cot

As an expecting mum-to-be I'm trying to get as prepared as I can and, for me, a travel cot was an important bit of kit to have prior to baby's arrival. We travel quite a lot, mainly for visiting family and friends at the weekends, so I know this will continue after baby arrives.

The Nuna PAAL ticked a lot of boxes for me as it is compact, can be used as the child gets older so has good longevity, and Nuna is a tried and trusted brand so I expected it would be durable and well-made. My first impressions were that it was packaged well, not a lot of uneccesary packaging which I appreciated. It arrives folded, but with the bag separate, so it was ready to go.

Having four nephews and nieces, and tested products for Mother&Baby over my four years with the brand, I'm experienced at wrestling with the set up of some travel cots, and I've tried brands that are easier. Nuna in my experience are definitely one of the easier ones, and I was impressed with the PAAL unfold in particular. Most other travel cots I've used in the past have a central area you have to push down on to make the frame click into place, which can be tricky to reach and hard to tell when it has clipped into place correctly. With the PAAL there's a clear button on the side to push to unlock the mechanism, then you simply unfold the cot, and push up the slider until you hear a loud click.

There are also handy labels so from the minute you first unpack it you know exactly what to do without having to look in the instructions. Now, I'm 7 months pregnant so my strength isn't great at the moment, and I did struggle to push the slider up all the way into the lock position on my first try - but I'm sure this was just me! My husband did it on his first go. To fold the travel cot up again firmly press the unlock button, then the frame is released and it can be folded. This was really lovely and easy to do (but not too easy that a toddler is able to do it, I tried with a friend's child and when in the pen he couldn't reach it, and even when he spotted it on the outside he couldn't press it firmly enough that it would unlock).

There are two height settings for the mattress, a bassinet height which you can unzip to remove and then you can place the mattress at floor level instead. The bassinet level feels really secure and a great height for having next to the bed, perfect for visiting friends and family when baby is still young. I'd perhaps like it to have another height setting, as to go from bassinet straight to floor feels a bit of a jump, but the mattress itself is firm and easy to put into place at either height setting.

The included mattress cover feels lovely and soft, it is machine washable, and the attention to detail on this is fantastic - there are actually velcro areas that match up with those on the mattress, to ensure the cover stays in place. Then on the base there are more velcro areas to help secure the mattress.

I was also impressed with the covers on the zips, and the clips to keep these secure and prevent children from playing with them or accidentally undoing them. The zip cover for the bassinet in particular is very neatly covered, I had to look for where to open the zip! All sides are mesh so baby is easy to see wherever the cot is postioned, whether at the bassinet level or floor-level.

As expected from Nuna the materials all feel very high quality and the thought that has been put into the design is clear. Additional features include a mosquito net and a zip-open door so that the floor setting can also be used as a playpen, and so that your child can crawl in/out rather than you having to lift them in and out. Or you can zip up the door to make it a secure space. I did think that perhaps there could be a toggle or some way to roll up and secure the zip-open door when it was open, though I suppose you could just tuck it under the mattress.

The mosquito net is a thoughtful feature for a travel cot when you're likely to be using it abroad, or indeed in the garden in summer if using as a play/napping area.

When it comes to packing the travel cot away fully, again I braced myself for a battle, but was pleasantly surprised by how easy the PAAL was to pack away. There are two velcro straps to secure the mattress around the main frame of the travel cot, which are easy to secure into place.

From there, you have the travel bag, and there is no wrestling needed to get the travel cot into the bag. This stage too was much easier than I'd expected, there is enough wiggle room for the cot to slot in nicely and zip up, and the bag itself again feels great quality, a thick fabric with leatherette handles. The mattress cover and mosquito bag also fit into the travel bag so everything can be stored together. It could perhaps be improved with a small pocket for these to slot into, rather than them going into the main body of the bag, but again this is a minimal improvement. Once in the bag it is compact and easy to store, it's small enough to fit in one of our wardrobes and easily fits into the car boot for journeys.

Overall, I'm really impressed with the PAAL - the fact that it goes from bassinet to a playpen is brilliant, I can forsee it getting a lot of use over the coming years. While it is more expensive than some other travel cots, I think for the longevity, quality of the product and the ease of use I would happily pay extra for this. I'd much rather have something that can be taken here there and everywhere and survive the journey, than a cheaper travel cot that I dread unpacking. I would definitely recommend it to other parents.