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Camping holidays with a baby

Hi, I have mentioned this in another area but just wondered if any of you had any advice. We are hoping to go on a few long weekends camping in the north of england this summer and will be taking our two children with us. We have camped before, last year, but not with a young baby. George is almost 7weeks now, he will be about 3 - 4 months on our first trip. I wanted to know if anyone else has taken such a young baby and has any tips with regard to things such as keeping the tent cool on a night and not getting too stuffy. Any others tips welcome also. Thank you for looking.

Replies

  • Thanks for the reply all advice is welcome. Our tent also has the seperate bedrooms with fly screens and your right it is harder to keep cool when camping as tents do get hot.

  • They're not the greatest but you can buy battery powered fans from Mothercare. We took one with us when we went caravanning in Italy a couple of years ago. Our LO was a bit older at 17 months but it seemed to do the trick for him!
  • hi we took our lo camping when he was 5 wks, but that was end of march so didn't have a problem with the temperature!
    what we normally do to keep tent cool is have all doors / flaps open in the day, with just the mozzy nets across , to let as much air through as poss. also pitch under a tree if you can, to keep the sun off, or on a pitch which gets the morning sun rather than the evening sun so it's cooler when you go to bed, cos i'm guessing you'll be up pretty early anyway!
    we'd never had a dummy before but took one for him in case he decided to play up, only needed it a couple of times and it worked. tho that of course is a personal choice.
    we also went for a short walk in the evening just before bed (after bath and feed) cos the fresh air sent him to sleep easily, and he seemed to sleep better when he was worn out from that.
    also for keeping cool, take a parasol (like a buggy one or something) and stick it in the ground next to him for some shade.
    and be on guard for any dogs on the site, if there are some make sure your lo isn't right by where they walk through or whatever.
    do you breast or formula feed? so i know what to suggest about that!
    hope that helps a bit, feel free to let me know if there's anything else you want advice on.
    susie xxx
  • Thank you very much. I formula feed my son. When we do camp we always get electric hook ups so I can take my steriliser and a fridge. I am also planning a buying his milk ready made he is 7 weeks old and has 6oz bottles so the cartons are very useful. he also already has a dummy. I am sure I am over reacting especially as we are only camping an hour from our house and I think my sister in law and family are coming with us with their touring caravan.
  • Hey Sam&daniel, where do you go camping? We've just bought a caravan and can't wait to start getting out and about in it! Don't worry, I won't start stalking you! lol
  • I've just come back from camping this weekend with my lo - he's 5 months. We were camping wiht pretty basic facilities too and managed ok.

    We took jars of food and cartons of milk, and I took tubs of the cereal powder (1 for each day and 1 spare) ready for just adding water. We also pre-sterilised all the bottles we have (8) and all spoons so we didn't need to sterilise as much stuff. We managed fine with cold water sterilising and one of those smallgas powered stoves for boiling washing up water. We packed all cole's stuff in one of those stacky boxes which doubled as a bath for him, and a washing up bowl.

    We didn't have a problem with it being too hot in the tent, it was hot when we were out and about but Cole was fine in his buggy stripped to his vest - and even though it was cold at night he was fine wiht an extra layer over his babygrow and 2 doubled over blankets on top of his sleeping bag.

    We decided not to worry too much about bedtimes and stuff, we shifted bath to mornings cause it was easier and at bedtime just put Cole in pj's, fed him and put him in the pram while we were out and about till about 10pm then put him in the travel cot. I was actually surprised about how well he adapted to a totally new 'routine' and environment.. I really think it helped that we don't have a strict routine so it wasn't a totally drastic change.

    Hope that helps.
  • it sounds like you're pretty well prepared!
    i was only bfing once a day when we went and the rest formula, the cartons sound great i didn't think of them so this is what we did if you want an alternative -
    we took a cold water steriliser tank and some tablets, just filled it up from the campsite tap and it also doubled as a washing up bowl. we use the tommee tippee bottles, and so we got some of those powder dipensers that go in them, so oh sterilised the bottles, boiled water, poured it in the bottles and put the powder thing in each whilst i changed and dressed skyler. we prepared enough bottles for 24 hrs each morning. then in the evening i washed up while oh bathed skyler to make it fair.
    also great are the phil and teds travel bottles. you have the powder in one compartment the water in the other and twist and shake when you want it. there's a bit more info on them in the bottlefeeding forum...
    have a nice time image xxx
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  • What a useful topic! We are considcering camping in the summer so I will bear all these things in mind!
  • Hi, thank you again for all the suggestions I am feeling much more positive about the trip. I know what you mean about the bedtime thing, when we went last year with our eldest son, he was about 20mths at the time, I tried to put him to bed at his usual time, he spent 2 hours up playing in his 'bedroom' at first I got stressed thinking that if he started to cry after 10:30 we would be kicked off the site. This was due to the rules saying no excessive noise after this time.LOL My husband just said that my son was on holiday too and that it did not matter when he fell alseep as he would sleep as long as he needed, and he did.
    Alioli, we have booked a camping birthday party weekend at the farm in Thornton in Craven near Earby, for my eldest sons 3rd birthday. We are also thinking of going to Windermere we checked out a site called Park Cliffe, which takes tents and caravans and has electric hook ups, and then also either Bentham, or Carnforth.
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