Is the hiccapop Blackout Tent worth buying?

Any parent will tell you that traveling with a young child is difficult for several reasons — none more troublesome than getting the baby or toddler to sleep without the comforts of home. Hotel rooms and other short-term rentals often aren’t optimized for the finicky demands of the 3-and-under crowd. 

For parents hoping to extend their child’s sleep, adding blackout coverings to windows usually isn’t practical. But when the room needs to be as dark as possible, there is now a solution: The Blackout Tent from hiccapop, which is designed to fit over a pack-’n’-play crib. 

The features of the Blackout Tent are well thought through and highly practical. And at the end of the day, by making sleep easier to attain, it solves a major problem for parents who have children with sleep issues, so everyone feels happier and more well-rested on vacation. 

How BestReviews tested the hiccapop Blackout Tent

The BestReviews Testing Lab prides itself on using products in real-world scenarios. To test the Blackout Tent, we took it on more than 10 trips with a toddler who was a year old when we started testing and 3 by the time we finished.  Our toddler test subject doesn’t sleep easily, especially in unfamiliar settings like when traveling. 

We used it in particularly sunny environments, such as the California desert, where it’s especially difficult to get a room to pitch-black conditions, and in Airbnbs that didn’t provide curtains that could get a room dark enough to take a nap. 

We tracked how much more likely it was for mid-nap wake-ups to occur, how long it took to get her to sleep and how likely it was that she would get herself back to sleep after waking. 

What is the hiccapop Blackout Tent?

The hiccapop Blackout Tent is a useful tool for parents who want their kid to sleep, especially when traveling. It fits over a pack-’n’-play to provide a dark environment. Its exterior is breathable and also has a slot for a fan to keep air circulating through the tent. It makes sharing a hotel room easier, as parents won’t have to go to sleep at the same early hour as the child, and essentially creates a contained room for the child to sleep wherever. 

It comes in a highly portable form factor, so traveling with it isn’t a burden. Easy to fold down into a small carrying case, it weighs less than 7 pounds in total. 

Assembling it is as straightforward as setting up a small tent. No need for strain or struggle with it because it’s compact and simple to maneuver. 

In addition to the breathable material with added ventilation points, it also has a slot for your baby monitor. 

How to use the hiccapop Blackout Tent

The process to get started is simple: Remove the parts from the carrying case and execute the following steps:

1. Lay out the fabric while ensuring the color-coded parts are visible.
2. Put together the tent poles and, once finished, lay them across the fabric in an X shape. 
3. Secure the corner feet by fitting each yellow buckle to its corresponding corner.
4. Raise the poles to create the tent’s structure. It should look like a dome at this point.
5. Connect the white and teal hooks to the poles in the center so the fabric hangs as intended. 
6. Attach remaining hooks.
7. Place the tent over the pack-’n’-play.
8. Add camera and fans (not included) to designed pockets so you can keep an eye on your child and ensure ventilation.

Additionally, you can put a white-noise machine in the room or under the tent, to create the optimal sleep environment. 

Once set up, you can put your child into their pack-’n’-play for sleep, and the contained environment will be comfortable and make a difference in the length and quality of sleep.

Benefits of using a hiccapop Blackout Tent

Your kid will sleep. It’s really as simple as that. Isolating as many factors and providing as dark of a space as you can will make a difference, and even the toughest sleepers will be able to get a nap while traveling. 

On average, our test subject slept for at least a half hour longer during nap time and had significantly fewer false starts for sleeping through the night. This was especially true when she was younger; however, as she outgrew the pack-’n’-play, it lost some of its effectiveness. 

There aren’t many of this product type on the market. But if you are comparison shopping, check out the Slumber Pod, which is a similar product.

Drawbacks of using a hiccapop Blackout Tent

We found that it’s tougher to get taller children through the gap in the tent and into the pack-’n’-play, and it can be difficult to gently set them down after maneuvering the child through the opening. 

The older the child got, the more abrupt and disoriented they were when they woke up, which led to some post-nap crankiness.

Bottom line

The hiccapop Blackout Tent is fairly priced, and it works on even the toughest children. So if you like to travel but your kid doesn’t like to sleep, this is an ideal product.