Description
This article is from the Outdoor
Activities for Young Children FAQ, by Gloria Logan
glogan@atk.com with numerous contributions by others.
62 TIPS ON SLEEPING: general
I am going camping in Yosemite with my 15-month-old daughter, Georgia,
and an understanding friend this weekend. This is a sort of trial run
to see how Georgia and I handle it. (I love to camp, but I don't know
how either of us feels about pine needles in diapers.)
Do parents who have camped with toddlers have tips? I'm wondering about
sleeping arrangements. Will she be okay in an adult-sized sleeping bag,
or do I have to worry about her suffocating? Any ideas for keeping her
warm at night? She refuses to wear a hat, although I suppose I could
sneak one on after she falls asleep. Do toddlers sleep through the
night in a tent, or should I expect her to be afraid and disoriented?
(She sleeps through the night at home, but she sometimes has trouble
going to sleep in motels.)
-----
I have only 1 datapoint - my daughter - so am not sure how well my
experience generalizes.
1) About cold at night - Do you use sleepers (those 1-piece garments
with feet)? Because they cover well and cannot shift to open up, they
are very good. If it is really cold, you could put in underware or
other clothes underneith. I would not be too paranoid about this,
since kids are fairly warm natured. Also, inside a tent is much warmer
than outside; your bodies heat the tent air.
2) For cold at night it is most important to INSOLATE her from the
ground. Be sure you have a really good insulating pad to place her bag
on (a person crushes down the bottom a sleeping bag, so it is NOT a
bottom insolator; it is a top insolator). The kind of pads I mean are
those you buy in backpacking stores. Get as large a one as you can
carry for her; she will roll and you don't want her to roll off.
3) Waking at night: My daughter always slept well. It seems that cool,
fresh air is good to encourage sleep in many kids. Since your daughter
is still in diapers, you will not have to worry about potty in the
middle of the night; that is difficult with a sleepy child.
-----
We car camp too. We put Laura (21 mo) in her porta crib in the tent.
We went down to the local second hand baby store and got several baby
sleeping bags that are really comforters with zippers. They work
great.
The biggest problem we have had are bugs. When Laura was still
crawling it was the worst, because she would be right down with the
bugs.
We still haven't solved the mosquito problem- we haven't had great
success with Skin So Soft, and we don't like the idea of more potent
bug goop.
Laura sleeps fine, as long as the tent doesn't beat against the crib
with every little breeze. Note that parents letting kids sleep with
them 'just for this trip' is an oft-quoted cause for sleep problems
after the camping trip is over.
Next month, Rachel (3 mo) gets to join us on her first camping trip.
She will sleep in her cradle.
-----
>We car camp too. We put Laura (21 mo) in her porta crib in the tent.
>
>We still haven't solved the mosquito problem- we haven't had great
>success with Skin So Soft, and we don't like the idea of more potent
>bug goop.
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children, child, kid, Outdoor Activities, backpacking, ski, canoeing, biking, camping, trailer
