Tips for Camping with Kids: The Overnight Trip

After a spectacular failed trial run, we did it. We managed to go camping with our ten-month-old and two-year-old. Yes, it is possible to camp with babies and toddlers.

The planning for our one night trip to Chena Lakes surpassed any trip planning I had ever done. It was more complicated than packing for a remote canoeing trip down the Fortymile River, a backpacking trip up Kesugi Ridge, or a month long backpack through Italy. Adding a baby and a toddler to the baggage makes a trip twenty minutes from home feel like an expedition to Antarctica. Here’s what I learned.

1. Choose the right location. Wilderness backpacking with the wee ones could be a living hell. The prospect of carrying diapers, wipes, toys, and the baby in addition to all the usual gear is frightening, but a family friendly campground with lots of options can be heavenly. We chose Chena Lakes Recreation Area which offers bike trails, swimming, sandy beaches, canoeing, and even a playground with swings and a slide. One of the beaches is even designed for small kids. The roped off area is no more than two feet at its deepest. Cedar could walk out to the rope and back on her own. It wasn’t a remote wilderness experience, but it’s perfect for the toddler set.

2. Go on a weekday. This is probably difficult for most folks, but getting little ones to sleep in a crowded campground is difficult enough without the almost twenty-four hour daylight that we enjoy in Interior Alaska. Late night generators, shouting kids, and slamming outhouse doors can make it even harder. On weekdays campgrounds feature less of all three. At Chena Lakes on a Thursday night, we had the beach to ourselves all evening, and there wasn’t noise to distract anyone at bedtime. We also didn’t have to feel guilty about being those people—the ones with a crying baby and a toddler who always talks at volume eleven.

3. Bring absolutely everything. Seriously. Everything from our living room came along. We had sand buckets, shovels, books, teddy bears, and favorite blankets. We had a tricycle, a bike and trailer, and camp chairs. We even brought a potty. Helping a 24 pound two-year-old, who has occasionally fallen into the toilet at home, use an outhouse is a little nerve wracking. Back in our days as cabin dwellers we used to have hypothetical discussions of what one might retrieve if it fell down the outhouse–five dollars? twenty dollars? a wallet? jewelry? Parenthood has introduced a new option–your firstborn?

4. Buy the huge cheap tent. The tent isn’t for sleeping. When you’re introducing a crawling ten month old to camping, stopping her from eating rocks and dirt is a major consideration. We treated the tent as a giant play pen. It was only the place she could crawl without us constantly having to say, “No” and “Yucky.” In our backpacker past we used an expensive super lightweight two-person tent. For our current purposes we bought the cheap Coleman six person monster. It was perfect. Coral could push her Little Tikes truck around, roll her ball, and play with her sister without being eaten by mosquitoes or being tempted to eat baby-choking rocks.

5. Run no errands the morning of the camping trip. I should have known this. I went to fill the propane tank in the van’s kitchen the morning of the trip. It had a leak. I waited three hours as it sat hissing in the propane dealer’s parking lot before I could drive it home. In the future, if the thing we’re planning to pick up the morning of departure is something we can go without, we will go without it.

6. Pre-pack and label meals. Usually, we pack all the ingredients and cook on the trail. On this trip we learned that little ones make any kind of food preparation difficult. I thought I made it simple enough by planning on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner, but after running around all afternoon and swimming in the cold water Cedar was hungry and bordering on tantrum. I couldn’t spread the jelly fast enough. Next time I’ll make the sandwiches in advance use gallon sized Zip Locks to sort breakfast dinner and snacks. Everything will be in there—food, utensils, drinks. When someone says, “I’m hungry,” all I’ll have to do is pull out the bag and hand over the food.

7. Divide and conquer at bedtime. TJ slept in the tent with Cedar and I slept in the van with Coral. Since they couldn’t see each other, they didn’t get each other riled up. Cedar listened to her bedtime story and passed out. Coral nursed and was out cold on the pull-out bed after twenty minutes.

8. Let them wear themselves out. Usually bedtime for Coral is 6:45. She went to sleep at 9:30. It was better than struggling to get her to relax at her normal bedtime. They just played and played and when they looked like they were going to fall over we stuffed them into their jammies and put them to bed.

9. Try just one night. It’s difficult to put so much planning into just one night, but for the first trip one night is enough. No matter how smoothly it all goes, as parents camping with babies is going to tire you out. We’re going to build up to two nights.

Was it fun? Cedar and Coral had a fabulous time. Did TJ and I have a good time? Hmmmm. At the end we were exhausted. It didn’t help that we forgot sugar for the coffee. Looking at the bright blue sky of a 9:00 pm Alaskan evening from the campground at Chena Lakes, I remembered the camping trips of our pre-kid life, quiet, full of long hikes, and views from high places. With kids it’s a different kind of camping, but everything else has been different so far too. I think we need to keep practicing and think about the fun question later.