We Come On The Sloop John B. HRH's Graco Travel Lite Crib And Me.

No parent in their right mind would take a sailing trip with an eight-month-old baby.

Sadly for Her Royal Highness, she does not have any parents in their right mind. She has a family that is nuts for sailboats and blows the whole year's savings on an annual Caribbean vacation. We charter a yacht in Tortola and then island hop, creating our own itinerary according to the whims of weather and crew. I was a crazy enough new mom that staying behind was unthinkable , but not crazy enough to go unprepared. I studied articles about air travel with babies and I signed her up for swimming lessons. I researched which SPF creams were most water-resistant and healthy for baby skin. I calculated the benefits of buying jarred baby food and diapers at home or at our destination. I went shopping for waterproof cameras, flotation devices, and a few pieces of serious gear. We needed the right gear to make this vacation as safe and comfortable as possible, while still traveling light enough for the cramped quarters of a sailboat and a manageable load at the baggage claim carousel.

My final shopping conundrum was of how to contain HRH while we were on board the 50-foot-yacht that would be our lodging. My curious little crawler was too old to hold in my arms all the time, but too young to take naps on the high bunks or be allowed to play free range on deck. A Pack'n'Play would be perfect as a travel crib and place to play alone, but the one we owned was much too large for a sailboat's tiny floor spaces.

Awwww. It's a baby Pack'n'Play.

About 20 percent smaller than a regular Pack'n'Play, the Travel Lite crib was a perfect fit. Packed in its travel bag, it weighs only 20 pounds. The dimensions are 29.3Hx22.8Wx32D, and it rolls on casters. It includes a bassinet insert for babies weighing less than 15 pounds and a mattress for the floor of the crib. Ours was sage green with a checkers and toile du jouy pattern, festooned with ruffled skirting, and had a canopy gusset on one end with two white bears dangling from the edge. It uses the same mesh walls and collapsing mechanism as a full size Pack'n'Play. It does not include a music box or storage pockets hooked over the side.

Although it comes with all kinds of fussy trims, I felt these went against the concept of traveling light. They also offended my eyes with their badly constructed cheesiness. Fortunately, they are easy to remove. I stripped those things from the bed and left them at home, along with the bassinet insert my daughter was too old for. Carrying it through the airport and to our destination was as simple as toting any other 20 pound duffel bag, and set up is easy ... well, easy once you know how to set up any Pack'n'Play. If you haven't done this before, it's a matter of opening it up like a big, boxy umbrella, locking the sides in place, and then pushing down on the floor until it locks as well.

The mattress is thin, and if you press down you can feel the metal rods of the Pack'n'Play floor. It isn't safe to add extra cushioning to an infant's bed, but I placed a square of thick cardboard cut to fit beneath my full size Pack'n'Play mattress. This didn't make it any softer, but it evened out the bumps and seemed to make HRH more comfortable. I didn't bother to do the same with my Travel Lite, but if I planned to use it on a regular basis, it is a simple solution to keep baby comfortable without waving a red SIDS flag.

Batten down the hatches. It's time for a nap.

To my everlasting delight, the Travel Lite just barely fit in the narrow corridor outside my bedroom on the yacht. My 29 inch long baby just barely fit inside the crib, but she doesn't mind snug accommodations. For fourteen happy days and nights, HRH napped, played with toys, and tried to get her sea legs inside the tiny play yard. After we set it up, it was light and sturdy enough to move several times a day. Once, I even convinced several hands to heave-ho the thing into an inflatable dingy so HRH could play while Mommy read a magazine on a chaise lounge in peace. This experiment failed horribly, but more because HRH knew when she was getting cheated out of a perfectly good opportunity to eat sand than any failing on the crib's part.

Graco suggested a 35-inch height limit for your bundle of joy. A 35-inch-long child would have to lay at a perfect diagonal and avoid rolling over, so I believe the manufacturer's suggested height limit is a joke. We had no illusions of using this at home, but if we bought it when she was younger, the crib would have made a great traveling companion. For the limited use we did get out of it, I think it was well worth the money. I don't know what I would have done without the miniature Pack'n'Play on our trip.

Unless space is at a desperate premium, a regular sized crib or Pack 'n' Play is a better value for home use. At eighty dollars, the Travel Lite crib is not cheap, but still a good option if you plan to travel often with your newborn to six-month-old, if you want to use a bassinet while your baby is very young, and might your only good option if you are brave enough to plan a sailboat trip with a baby.