I have twin boys who are almost 6 and have camped with us. My question concerns my 9 month old daughter who will be camping for the first time this summer. I am interested if anyone has any helpful hints for camping with a baby. Mostly, where do you put the baby for bed time? Sleeping with mom and dad is really not an option because I would be a nervous wreck. We are buying a pop up tent camper.
Answer:
Playpens and highchair seats
We have taken our youngest boy (now almost 4) camping since he was 4 months old. I tent camp with my husband and our other son who is 13. I always brought one of those playpens that fold up real small. We would put it outside during the day and bring it in the tent at night. It worked really well, kept him close enough to the fire for warmth but he could not get burned. Another item I used that worked extremely well was one of the highchair seats that strap on a regular chair.
They have a tray on the front and he would play with his toys and eat his food there. We strapped it into a tall, folding patio chair. The worst part of taking him was when he started to grow out of the playpen and highchair but didn’t know enough to stay close to camp. He also was always dirty because he would roll around on the ground. But that stage went by fast. He now is big enough to stay fairly clean and stay close to camp. Last Labor Day he did get it in his mind to jump in the river when we were getting a bucketful of water one night. So we do keep a good eye on him. He really loves to camp and over this past winter has asked many times when we will be going again.
Camping with 4 different babies…
Over the past 14 years we’ve gone camping with 4 different babies and have never had a problem. We take a fold up crib which the baby sleeps in during the day outside if weather is good, in the pop-up (kind of cramped) if rainy. At night, baby slept with mom (who breast-fed, so nights were actually quite “quiet” for the rest of us).
We used portable crib
We also used a “portable” crib when the kids were small when we took them camping. As far as them getting dirty (oh, and did they get DIRTY!) we would just dunk them in the lake before it was time to eat. It didn’t seem to hurt them (the dirt or the dunking) and now my sister and her hubby who has twins that are 2.5 years old now and has been camping with us for the last couple of years does the same. Works great!!! At bedtime we just moved the crib into the tent and all was well. The crib kept them off the ground so they didn’t get cold and helped to keep them contained.
Photo by lightcap.