Camping With Babies

\”Are YOU Ready?\”

I’m a huge advocate for taking babies camping. Both of my babies were out in tents before they were 3 months old. Not alone, or in extreme weather, but out with the rest of the family, enjoying the fresh air. Both times I found the babes were soothed by nature and neither time was the baby a drag on the camping trip. Well, maybe a small drag if we’re being honest, but I was barely recovered from pregnancy and delivery, so no one was going to be hiking into primitive camp spots anyway.

How do you do it without killing the cute little things? I was a teensy bit worried the first time we went camping with Boy #1.  But, I figured the worst things that could happen, were the things I was already worried about at home. Can I keep him warm, dry and fed? Warmth was fine in the tent, we were camping in mild weather.  At night we had lots of blankets on the bed, and a couple sized just for holding with baby. Dry was easy enough, we went in the tent when it rained. We also went with disposable diapers for camping, which made diapering a breeze.  (Camping can be considered practice for bugging out, and while I would take cloth diapers for a bug out, pleasure camping requires that we switch to plastic. Otherwise camping would strongly resemble our every day life, with the washing and drying of diapers, and neither of those activities was high on the list of things we wanted to add to the camping-with-baby experience.)  Keeping baby fed was also a breeze because both were good nursers. For older babies who like finger foods, fruits are easy, as are crackers. If you feed formula, make sure you have a way to make hot water, even for the midnight feeding. (That’s a tall order right there, a rocket stove would probably do it best, you’d likely need two adults awake in order to successfully make a hot bottle in the dark, but I’ve never had to do it.)

Plan to have the baby in your arms, or wrapped to your body. Fire, bugs, rocks, snakes, bodies of water, all of these are dangers if you put your baby down while camping. While some tummy time in sunlit grass while surrounded by adults is great, that’s only 20 minutes of the day. Find a style of wrap or carrier that you like, and plan to have it on hand. Camping with a large group of family or friends can also be helpful, providing lots of eager arms for baby holding time.

Other essentials? The biggest winner with my eldest was a hammock. Hubby strung it up in some shade near our tent, and the baby loved rocking in it with the sounds of the river and the birds and the wind coming together as a fine lullaby. Baby friendly bug spray, you can usually find deet-free options if you look for them. Make sure your car emergency kit and camping first aids kits take baby into account.

Get those babies out into nature. It’s good for everyone involved.

- Calamity Jane