We just returned from an amazing 4-day trip to
Warren Dunes State Park in Michigan. While everything was still fresh in my mind, I wanted to share a few tips I learned last week about camping with a toddler.
1.) Baby wipes are your friend. There wasn't really a place to bathe our toddler at the campground, and it was far too cold for most of our trip to do so in the great outdoors. So he took a lot of mini-baby-wipe baths. I had wipes everywhere--in the camper, in the car, in my purse, near the fire, etc. And we needed lots of 'em.
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| The arrow snacking. |
2.) Pack diaper rash cream. What goes along with a lack of baths? Diaper rash. Fortunately I had packed it, but I don't always do that when we're away for a few days. I'm so glad I did, because we battled a rash throughout the trip.
3.) Plan for a variety of temperatures. I knew ahead of time from weather.com that our trip was going to start out warm and end cool. I didn't plan on a 50-degree swing in temperatures, though, and all of us could have really used some warmer clothes (especially pajamas). In the pic to the right, our 16-month-old is wearing a size 6x kids sweatshirt, which was the smallest we could find at a nearby store!
4.) There will be a lot of snacking going on. From 3 p.m. on, our son wanted to eat pretty much every hour until bedtime. This was fine with us, because when he was snacking, he was contained in his high chair and not wandering to different campsites or teetering around the fire. (We love this
portable high chair.*)
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| The arrow skipping his nap. |
5.) Forget the schedule. I'm a schedule person, and our son is usually on one. But while we were camping, I found it best to just let sleep happen whenever. One day he didn't take a nap. One day he took two. One night he went to bed right on time. One night he stayed up really late. Doesn't matter. He was happy.
6.) Consider day trips. We have always done this when camping, even before our son was born because we like to use our campsite as a home base for exploring other areas. But I think it is even more essential with a toddler. I think he enjoyed relaxing in the car on the way to various destinations, staying warm inside some places, etc. Everyone needs a break from the campsite, and few little mini-trips will help.
7.) Figure out where the closest retail store is in advance. Without a doubt, you'll forget something or need something. We almost traveled 30 minutes south looking for a big box store when there was one five minutes north. I should have looked that up ahead of time.
8.) Get a site somewhat near the playground. Most campgrounds have a playground. It's a nice option when you need to kill 20 minutes. For us, it came in really handy when my husband was trying to pack everything up--I took our son to the playground so he was out of the way.
9.) Cancel the noise. The campground was full most of the weekend, and therefore pretty loud at times. I was so glad we had electricity and our son could listen to his lullaby music at night and during naps.
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| The arrow snuggling by the fire. |
10.) Find a travel guide/magazine/brochure for the surrounding area. I did some research in advance and had written down some numbers and addresses. But it was really helpful to pick up the local tourism magazine once we were there for a more robust info source. Remember, camping = no internet. Which is one of the beautiful things about it, in my opinion, but it also means the answer to every question might not be at your finger tips.
If you're looking for more helpful tips on camping with young children, you might enjoy some of my other posts:
Are you an outdoorsy family that loves to spend time in nature with your kids? These posts might also catch your interest:
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I continue to reflect on our time camping up in Michigan a few weeks ago. I posted a full trip report 
The arrow is way too old for baby food these days, but he is crazy about these squeezable pouches. At home, I use them as a treat at restaurants, but they were particularly helpful when camping because they were easy, didn't need to be refridgerated, and didn't create dirty dishes. Plus, it was a good way to ensure he still got some veggies in each day even though our eating habits were a little "off."
and I remember flipping through them while pregnant and thinking they had this cute, retro look to them. And then they sat on his bookshelf. When I was packing up for our trip, I threw them in the toy bag because they were small. He LOVED them and they occupied much of his time around the camp site and on the train to Chicago. I'll definitely be packing them for our upcoming flight.
