Description
This article is from the Outdoor
Activities for Young Children FAQ, by Gloria Logan
glogan@atk.com with numerous contributions by others.
31 GENERAL CAMPING: a fiberfill comforter with snaps
Well, on the sleeping bag front, one possibility is to look at Sears or
K Mart for the items I love, but don't know the name for -- it is
essentially a fiberfill comforter with snaps (or sometimes a zipper)
that can be used to turn it into a "sack" that you wear. Hmm, I'm not
doing very well explaining this, am I! Imagine you are standing up,
and have a blanket draped around your shoulders. Now imagine that
there are snaps down the front that pulls the part over your shoulders
in to big, loose "sleeves", and your feet stick out the bottom. One
of mine was called a "Snug Sack", but I don't know if they still go by
that name. I wore my first one nearly into rags, and got another from
my Mom for last Christmas. Every one I've ever seen is completely
washable, they run about $25 last I saw (but can be found cheaper), and
would do very nicely not only for a baby sleeping bag, but also for a
spread out "play mat", and at home, for a snuggly comforter for cold
nights. Both my kids used mine a *lot*, though never for a sleeping
bag outside (my son used it as one inside more than once though.)
Just another idea.
As for spit up, you are probably just going to have to live with it,
making sure it has had time to dry by opening up whatever it is the
baby winds up sleeping in. The good news is that the problem may have
faded.. my son was another "eat everything, and then some, and spit
up the extra" child (took us awhile to figure out!), and it faded
slowly between 6 and 8 months. I can tell by looking at the baby
clothes -- I never could get all the yellowish spit-up stains off the
clothes, so when I get to the sizes when he'd stopped, there are no
more stains! (By the way, this habit means you can probably throw out
nearly all the advice you get on feeding your child solids, as he may
continue the same pattern -- mine did. We read all this "...your
child will turn his/her head, look away, make faces, push your hand
away, or otherwise clearly signal you when he/she has had enough", and
couldn't find the slightest trace of it. We finally worked out a
system of how much food to start with, and when giving more was
acceptable (basically, after the initial meal was finished, we ignored
protests, and got him away from the table. If the protests continued
more than a few minutes, they were probably real, and we returned to
the kitchen. It was a pain in the neck, but better than both the
spitting up, and than the unbelievable weight gains that were beginning
to occur. We did all this under the advice and supervision of our
pediatrician, but I just thought I'd mention it...)
As for dirt, don't bother trying to get your child to crawl on a
blanket; it won't work. When sitting and playing, you may be able to
get him to stay mostly on a blanket, and might as well try. Eating
dirt generally isn't harmful, unless it contains things it shouldn't
(like lead, PCBs, or other harmful chemicals/etc). Some kids love it,
most sample, and then go on. My daughter was an eater of bark, but
neither of my kids really went for dirt in a big way.
-----
Get the expensive one with the sophisticated alpine backpack harness
(and the raincover/shade, too, if it's a late model -- the early type
covers are junk). Not the cheaper one.
>"What's wrong with that old Gerry backpack our friends picked up at
>the garage sale for $5?" "It's not a real backpack.
It sure isn't!
>"But we don't really need something with all those bells and whistles,
Yes you do. And remember you're gonna sell it when you're done with it.
The only thing I don't like about ours is it doesn't have a pocket
for the baby bottle, and it's short of cargo space generally for real
hiking/backpacking. I've always had to enlist my former climbing
buddies as Sherpas for overnight trips. Also, we modified the child
restraint straps to make it easier to get the child in & out:
fast-sliding ladder buckles, and we replaced the snap-lock plastic
buckle on the child's waist belt with a day-glo red one (to make it
easier to see when you're fumbling for it).
We've had lots of fun with ours.
-----
We took our ~1 yo on a camping trip once. Instead of a sleeping bag we
just brought the porta-crib - we had a large enough tent :-)
The big problem we had, though, was that she was used to waking up at
4am to cry. At home, we've learned to let her cry herself back to
sleep after we determine it's not something urgent. But when the
next camper is just 20 ft away, you can't very well let her go on like
that. I'd suggest that you find a nice empty corner somewhere :-)
-----
In response to backpacking with GERRY pack:
My wife and I used ours avidly and overall found it as good as the
expensive Kelty pack we borrowed from a friend. MY wife is hadny with
a drill and she just bought a hip belt from the local camping store and
drilled holes into the Gerry - very comfortable. The shoulder straps
were a little unpadded but that is easily fixed. The Kelty($119) pack
was heavy on top of everything else. We did 5 - 6 mile trips in the
steep mountains of North CArolina where we live without any probelms
from the Gerry - also a $5 garage find. good luck - try them both
out might be best solution for you.
ps We cut up an older north face bag for our girls sleeping bag and
then resewed it and used polarfleece to add some warmth.
-----
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children, child, kid, Outdoor Activities, backpacking, ski, canoeing, biking, camping, trailer
