Camping with Toddlers

In my experience, it all starts with the habits they have at home. Both of my daughters were moved to their own room at an early age. They were accustomed to the isolation and containment of a crib. We've taken them both about the time they turned two and it was a disaster on both trips. Neither handled the freedom of a tent well at all. They kept getting up in the night to explore and to wake up whoever was sleeping.
I imagine if your child sleeps with you or even in the same room as you it might be an easier transition. It might also be that they were two before we tried, where if you started earlier in life they would be more accustomed to the new/more stimulating environment.

My parents brought us kids from before we could really walk. Though they used a porta-crib for containment. Not exactly a lightweight option.

I will say with both my sons, the first camping experience (with them as babies) was exhausting. Afraid they would touch the hot fire or fall off a rock or wander away. They didn't sleep well at night. They were filthy the whole time and didn't like much of the food. But… you can't take the second step without the first. They found the overall experience enjoyable and we found it enjoyable on subsequent trips.

Things that were useful: sand toys that they could play in the dirt with, books, books, and more books, a nice stove and a big pot to disinfect things (pacifier, bottles, entire child), lots of snacks and fruit, easy to prepare meals that they like.

We started taking my son hiking and car camping in a big family tent at the age of 8 months. He actually did really well and slept the entire night.

Fast forward to this spring and summer and he is almost 2 years old and it's a different experience completely. That could also be because we have a 6 month old daughter, but she isn't too bad.

Our son wants to run constantly, exploring everything. He has so far been very good at not trying to touch the fire but it's always something going through our minds. He doesn't want to go to bed, even when it's dark out. When in the tent he jumps around for hours and thinks the sleeping pads and sleeping bags are about the most fun he's ever had.

Tips I can offer. Keep your kids well fed and hydrated is a priority, as is keeping them warm. If your kids have fair skin like mine, keeping them from getting sunburnt is key to a good experience as well.

Bring more clothes for the kids than you think you will need because they will find a way to get filthy, wet, poopy, etc. Costco brand wipes are the greatest things ever.

I'd go into the experience with the expectation that it's going to be a lot of work and that it simply won't be enjoyable like it is when you're kid free. It takes years but from what I've been told if you start young and put in the work, your kids will eventually love the outdoors and the experience with them will be very rewarding.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your kid is going to touch the fire and he/she is going to get a blister, that's how he's going to learn not to touch the fire, might as well get it over with and then you can relax…..and with any luck he will learn to listen to what you have to say, but my experience tells me that last parts really not gonna happen.

Glad to see you getting them little guys/gals out there early in life.

There is a big difference between touching fire and getting a blister and falling into a fire and receiving life changing injuries. We typically have pretty decent sized fires going. A friend of a friend had their almost 3 year old fall into the fire and receive 3rd degree burns over much of their body. This is a child that already touched fire and "learned" that they could be hurt by fire and had been fine around fire for several trips before the incident. The parents thought that their daughter had learned their lesson and they relaxed.

Older children learn from their mistakes but from experience small children just don't have the mental capacity and reasoning in many cases to understand the danger that fire, falling off cliffs, playing with rattle snakes, etc pose. We try not to be helicopter parents, and as they get older we are less and less so with them. At this point in time we sacrifice some of our fun and relaxation for teaching the kids. I totally agree that kids rarely listen and learn best from experience which is why we take them outdoors despite it being a big hassle most of the time.

The size of the fire is also a factor in addition to the age of the child. We tend to have big, fairly hot fires when camping since we camp with two or three families. A small fire isn't nearly the hazard that a larger fire presents. With small children I'd rather be safe than sorry but as always, to each their own.

Eric

yep, life's full of risks, makes ya wonder how any of us old timers survived it all.

Used to be that by not over dramatizing the risks, the dumb ones in the gene pool got weeded out….seems that"s not happening so much anymore…

Nothing personal, but I may not be able to use insight on how to raise kids from someone obviously younger than my own children, all who have there toes and fingers, none on drugs or in jail and all with good jobs who camped hiked and hunted since the womb… been there done that…..

Kerry,

Good to hear that your kids, which may or may not be older than I am, nice assumption though, were able to make it to adulthood safely. Food for thought, I've never been in a life threatening car accident, but I still wear my seatbelt each time I drive and buckle my children into their carseats for obvious reasons.

They also didn't use carseats in your day, and thankfully darwin took plenty of children out of the gene pool before those damned legislators forced society to embrace the weak. If only we could go back to the good old days when only the strong and intelligent survived.

I don't expect you to need my advice and for that matter don't really care what you think in regards to my parenting but others here with small children may take something away that saves their child life altering injuries. We're talking about infants and toddlers in this thread, now if the discussion were surrounding older children with greater mental capacity then sure, I can embrace a hands off approach to parenting.

Hands off after about 4 y/o is how I was raised and surprise surprise, I don't do drugs, have a college degree, a good job, pay my taxes, provide well for my family and in general am a pretty good father and husband. That being said if my parents hadn't saved me from falling off a 100ft+ cliff as a toddler or saved me from getting ran over by running into the street or drinking drano, etc etc I'd be dead.

Justin,

How old is your kid?

I've been through a 10,8,5,3 year old camping and backpacking.

Keep them well fed and most importantly hydrated, makes a huge difference. A little dehydration can lead to crankiness

Keep them warm. Layers are best, so they don't get too cold or too hot.

Depending on how old they are, they may stay in a sleeping bag. My three year old is just staying in her bag this summer. Prior it was climbing into mom's bag, or dad's of she wasn't around.

Depending on how cold it gets at night, sleeping with a hat will help a lot. Most kids, including my five year old currently end up way out of their bags, quilts, etc and get cold. I usually brought a poncho liner type quilt to put on top of them.

Treats while hiking helps. The older the kid, the longer you can go between treat breaks.

Put some weight on them (obviously not much) in a tiny pack so they get used to the notion of bringing what they need with them.

Don't strip their stuff to the absolute minimum. Let the kids bring a "comfort item", whether that be a stuffed animal or a book to read or paper and pencil to draw with. Don't expect kids to appreciate the great outdoors on its own terms for an extended period of time.

Relax your usual rules about desserts and let them have extra s'mores so they associate backpacking with good things happening.

Like everything else about parenting, YMMV.

@Ben H., I hear you on the books, he's at the age where he just carries his favorite one around 24/7. The sand toys are a great idea as well, and mercifully UL.

@Eric, I really appreciate the thoughts on fires, especially the part about being vigilant. Our son might is, like most toddlers, curious and clumsy!

@Herman I bought him a Kelty Woombie for car camping, still scratching my head about actual BPing. I'm thinking of buying something from Tim Marshal, I like the prices and quality, I have a few of his quilts in my quiver.

@Mike Gunderloy, thanks for the reminder to keep is stress-free and enjoyable for him!

They work well for hands, face, and anywhere else they get dirty.
Smores will sell them on camping for ever.

umbrella
heavy duty trashbags
rash ointment
wash rag
a buddy

Some days, you will be stuck hiking in warm weather no matter how careful you are. The umbrella has saved me many times and I consider it indispensable with my kids. If youre smart, you will focus on areas that offer splashing/swimming, and rash ointment will save you on these types of hikes. kids soil clothing and make trash, bring a doubled up trash bag of some kind so you dont worry about urine smells entering your pack, etc. bring a couple good wash rags for good thourough streamside washing, wipes are good too but they dont do this job well. bringing other toddlers makes them easier to deal with, funner for them, lets you relax more so partner up with another family if possible.

Start by setting up the tent and sleeping in the back yard. The first time just spend a few hours after bedtime in the tent. If they sleep, great. If not, go back in the house and put them to bed. Do this a few times and gradually they will be able to settle down much better when it is time to go to sleep, and you won't have to experience the learning curve out in the woods.

PS In my experience if you start when they are a toddler then they will be fully adjusted by the time they are 10 :)

I have twin girls and we took them car camping for the first time when they had just turned two. They ate a lot of dirt but had a blast. We had Kelty Kids backpacks to take them on our hikes and that worked pretty well.

When they were just 2 1/2 we gave them their first Camelbak – the “Skeeter” model with a 1L bladder (about half full)…

They loved having their own Camelbak and it certainly kept them hydrated. The other thing we gave them when they first started camping was their own headlamp. It really made them feel “grown up.”

Backpacking? I took them on an overnight on the AT with two friends and their daughters when they were four…

All the comments here are good. You could also take a look at-
Babes in the Woods by Jennifer Ast and Cradle to Canoe by Rolf and Deborah Kraiker.

Do a search and you can find some good examples of reappropriated adult down jackets for sleeping in, or simply being layered from head to toe in fleece.

I'd love to see a new kid rating: snacks/mile or perhaps it really starts with snacks/feet…

Have fun!

A favorite stuffie toy is a somewhere between a great idea and an absolute requirement.

But bringing toys? The wilderness is FULL of toys. Sticks can be piled up, sand and dirt can be drawn in, rocks can be stacked, thrown, and splashed into puddles and lakes.

All those things you've been saying, "Don't do that in the house. . ."? Let them do while camping.

I've seen NPS films theorizing about the cultural significance of little deer and antelope constructed from bark and found in GCNP caves. Religious fetishes? Hunting talisman? Good grief! They were obviously (to me) toys assembled to amuse the kids.

You can do far more with little kids than you imagine. BPL's own Erin Mckittrick wrote (among other books), Small Feet, Big Land about traveling into some truly remote areas with their toddler and infant.

http://www.amazon.com/Small-Feet-Big-Land-Adventure/dp/1594857369

The next summer – a year ago – they passed by my house on a 800-mile, human-powered shoreline trip "at the speed of a 4-year-old" which took all summer. I've never seen anyone in that family shiny clean and smelling like cologne. But, man!, their kids are completely at home in a tent, a yurt, on the beach, or in the mud.

I love this thread. With two girls age nearly three and 1 1/2, we're constantly thinking about how to make this work for us. Have a look at this story and thread as well:

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=80294

We're pretty proud of getting out into the outdoors with our girls, but we've certainly cut some corners to get there. Our two main moves have been: ending up in a cabin that we could rent (the norwegian tourist association has an amazing network of cabins available to the public. You just pay online and go.) We also brought a off-road pram/buggy.

This means that most of the hiking is on dirt roads, but we're able to do 4 or 5 kms walking and carrying the girls.

At the cabin, we could relax and let the girls go explore. A safe-ish place, no cliffs or anything. Stinging nettles the worst threat. Also, we did our cooking on gas in the cabin.

Sleeping in a tent. We've been putting them to bed in the buggy, and then transferring them to a tent when they sleep.

We haven't really cracked this one yet. Several times we've brought a tent with us in the buggy, and then had one adult and one child in the tent, and one adult and one child in the cabin. Otherwise they just wake eachother up/keep eachother awake.

Anyway: we're not able to do the whole thing with tenting and going where we want. We're lucky to have access to a network of cabins. But I'm really happy with the compromises, they make us able to get out into the outdoors again!

We took our oldest son camping pretreat consistently since he was only a few months old. Not too difficult at that time since he only wobbled around.

But once our 2nd was born, camping became more complicated, especially since our oldest was now a toddler.

And then the third came along… (Sigh).

Anyway, here are some of the things we made sure of:

1) several times a year, we did a quick (spur of the moment) single overnight at the (very) nearby Pational Park. We would just go there for dinner and breakfast. We only went when the weather was nearly perfect, and the mosquetos weren't too annoying.
2) we never worried about separate sleeping bags, except for our oldest son who wanted his independence. The girls alywas nestled next to us so we mates our sleeping bags together. For car camping, bringing along a bed comforter is fine.
3) The entire point was to make the trip a TREAT for them. If the weather was going to be a problem, it wasn't going to be worth it for them. I personally love being in the outdoors, rain or shine. But many folk don't like it due to their memories of miserable times when they were a kid.
4) just this past spring, I took the three on their first overnight backpack trip up to the AT. Again, I knew the weather was going to cooperate. They loved it – a lot. So we finally managed a 3 day backpacking trip into Dolly Sods this past June, all carrying their own packs. While our oldest was pretty experienced by now, this was a first for our 8 year old. I did end up strapping her pack to mine for the last mile or so of the trip. Regardless, they had an absolutely wonderful time.

I'm sure they will have miserable camping trips sometime in their future, but it'll all be s'mores & stars on my watch.

Rereading my previous post, I realize that I was pretty negative. So I wanted to mention that it does get better. About age 4, I felt like my oldest was capable of handling all of the things shes struggled with a couple of years prior. I was right and it was awesome. She had a great time. She told me when she was tired and ready to go to sleep. We went back to the tent where we sang some songs. She crawled into her bag, I sat just outside the tent where she could talk to me if she needed something and she quickly drifted off to sleep.

So while I feel better knowing that poor sleep with a toddler was not something unique to our family, I do want to say that it does get better. My oldest daughter now loves camping, even when it's just pitching a tent in the backyard. Down the road I'll try again with the youngest and I'm sure it will be a great experience as well.

My wife has no interest in backpacking so I'm hoping that as I make sure the outdoors is as enjoyable as possible for my little ones I'll one day have a couple of awesome hiking buddies. So far I feel like we're off to a pretty good start.

I have two girls age 3 and 1 1/2. We haven't gone on any extended trips mainly cause me and mom our exhausted after 24 hours(sometimes much quicker). It is a lot of effort, so be mentally prepared.

Our kids love running around the house, so hiking is a great outlet of energy. As long as the trail is relatively flat and not too long (they get cranky after about a mile). Our 3 year old still struggles with hills and trips. Bandaids are helpful. To little kids, there is something about bandaids that cure the pain of a minor scrape. Make sure the shoes fit right cause blisters develop pretty quick on their softer skin.

As far as in camp, our girls also love having their own camp chair and flashlight. They also love s'mores and marshmallow roasting. Regarding some of the above posts, practice good fire safety and stay away from cliffs.

Also, our girls now love camping. Well at least the three year old does because she can tell us so. We're still working on the 18 month old's vocabulary.

With 3 kids now…well, what I did when I had one child is much different than what I do now. When my oldest (who is 16 now) was 4 1/2, he was hiking 10+ mile days and going nearly every where I went. But with having 2 young ones now? Not so much. My middle son is 4 1/2 now and he hasn't hiked more than 4 miles in a hike. I just don't push him like I did the oldest. For one, I don't have that need to keep walking like I did 12 years ago. But as well, his mindset is different than his brother.

Each kid is different.

Kid 1 was tall, thin and had endless energy – but I had to watch him 24/7 when we hiked – he was on a tether system to me till he was 7. He didn't talk until he was nearly 6, so had he gotten separated from me, it would not have been good. I knew his Autism could be exploited and he made a great hiker. I often used a jogger stroller for him when we had to walk FS roads to trailheads, so he could go farther with me. But it was just him and I, and easy to plan around.

Kid 2 loves to build and do crafts. He loves plinking rocks in creeks and lakes. He has endless questions for me. He loves looking at rocks, birds, animals, flowers – and looking at guides about them. He likes hiking, but not the way his older brother did. He brings a joy to it though.

My youngest son is 2 1/2. He is super strong and big (he is nearly as big as his brother) but I have so many fears with him (he has severe food allergies). So while he would be an amazing hiker….I just don't take him far from civilization. He also has my husbands pale white-boy skin and burns awful at altitude. Sigh.

So for now I have found I feel most comfortable taking the boys to stay in cabins, on the edge of the wilderness. So my youngest can sleep safely at night. And not have to worry. I can clean them up, feed them well – and not have to spend hours setting up and tearing down gear, while trying to keep an eye on the youngest. I enjoy it, I sleep well at night, and we get out and have fun.

So do what you are comfortable with. And what the kids react well to. But don't feel like you are not doing enough, as long as everyone has fun, that is all that matters.

Thanks all, first camping trip went well!

Only hiccup was that he didn't want to sleep in his own sleeping bag the first night, second night went much better!

Thanks for the tips, looking forward to a overnighter BPing with him to see how it goes.

Car camping is easy, just do it, bring everything you can think of the first few times and then widdle down to what is needed. While they are carryable you can do any day hike you want. Once they are on there feet and too big to carry you have to scale it back.

For backpacking it is a lot tougher. With two kids 5 and 3 we went on a few short backpacks. It is managable if your kids are good day hikers. With the 50lb UL pack on your back you cant carry your kids when they are tired. Once you get to camp its awesome though being alone in the woods. Pick remote enough places that its different from car camping and ensure they allow fire and bring marshmellows.

What I enjoy more than hiking with kids is Canoing. You can do Adult sized flatwater trips with kids with no extra effort or sacrifice. I just did two nights on the Red Deer River through the Alberta Badlands with my 5 and 3 year old. Bought then their own paddles and let them play. Stop for a swim at lunch and at the end of the day. And you can bring all the gear you want which is good for kids who like to get wet.

So for me car camping with day hikes and canoing are what we do with the kids. I figure when my youngest is five I will do backpacking with them again but right now canoing offers much better backcountry experiences with much less effort.

We just took our 21 month old for his first camping trip and I agree with previous commenters…it was exhausting. We had 6 adults including ourselves on deck to help watch him but it was a load of work and nowhere near as relaxing as camping usually is for us.

Camping will keep happening but we'll ease into it. Hikes are frequent though, I bought an REI Piggyback on CraigsList based off suggestions from BPLers and it's been great for us. He truly enjoys getting in that thing and riding around.

That said, I look forward to my oldest hitting 4 or so when we can venture beyond the backyard and local trails. I can't wait to really immerse him in the outdoorsy stuff that I love so much.