Camping with Kids Part I (Tent, RV,Cabin, Teepee, Under the Stars, Etc)
Whether you are venturing out for the first time with your own kids or you are bringing along the grand kids with you for a camp out, this comprehensive guide should help you have a more successful camping trip. Happy, content, and well-rested kids, helps provide a more restful, relaxing, and less hectic camping experience for the adults.
- Camp at kid-friendly campgrounds-you will want to have plenty of options to fill their daytime hours, whether you enjoy hiking, swimming, biking, petting zoos, water parks, playgrounds, horseback riding, etc.
- Pack a bed (cot, pack and play, etc) and/or sleeping bag for each kid- You may think that since they sleep in your bed with you at home, they will do best sleeping with you while camping. While it may seem like a good idea at the time, sharing a sleeping bag with your little one–even the zip-together bigger sleeping bags– can make getting a good night’s sleep harder than it needs to be. For example, sleeping in a sleeping bag with a little one is very different from sleeping in a bed with them at home. For one thing, the air can be a whole lot colder. For another, sleeping bags are usually designed to keep one person warm, not two. Even if you bought the kind built for two bodies, imagine what it is like when there is a big body and a small body in one bag—there will likely be gaps, where the cold air can travel inside the bag and freeze you both out.
- Pack extra socks (they can double as mittens at night) to keep their little hands warm.
- Forego the Nap– If the nap doesn’t happen right away (after you lay them down), it probably isn’t going to happen (very easily, if at all). While it can work out that your little one falls asleep on a bike ride and you successfully transfer them to their “bed” for a few hours. Or other times they can be so tuckered out that they fall right to sleep after a busy morning of swimming. More than likely, being in a new place with lots of stimulating things to keep their little minds busy, will prevent them from giving in and taking an afternoon siesta. Rather than pushing the issue and frustrating yourself and getting your little one all worked up; just let them stay up. I can pretty much guarantee you they will crash hard, preferably earlier than normal, that night. You want bedtime, while camping, to be a cinch, not a two-hour ordeal.