Taking Toddlers and Babies Camping

This post is long overdue, but I felt it was important to get it down eventually! But let me say this right off the bat. If you are someone that can't handle your kids getting dirty, stop reading right now and go do something else. Anyhoo...
Last month we took the girls camping for the first time. To say I was intimidated was a bit of an understatement. I am not much of an outdoorsy type, unlike my husband who would be totally happy going all John Muir. We didn't camp all that much when we were kids, mostly because my dad wasn't that into it. But of the few times we did go, I have wonderful memories of those experiences.
As I prepared to take my girls, I discovered a lot of those memories hovered around the campsite experience itself. The cooking, the eating, the camp fire. When our friends who have a little boy about 9 months old invited us to camp with them at Big Basin in their tent cabin I was definitely interested, especially since Big Basin was exactly the place I had camped with my family as a child.
I started emailing friends that had taken their kids camping and doing a bit of internet research on camping with toddlers. The friends I talked to had a mixed experience. The first night was terrible for most of them with very little sleep happening. So I decided that we should do two nights when initally we were only going to do one. And after all, why do all that packing and planning for one night?! And well, I thought to myself, we can deal with one night of little sleep. Been there done that! (In the end, sleep ending up being fine. Took her a while to go down but once she did she was out! So don't let the sleep question deter you!)
 So the packing list began. And oh my. What a list! And here it is for you, kind reader.
-Camera!!
-Jeans: seriously, why would you deal with anything else?
-long sleeved and short sleeved shirts: the days started out quite cool but by the time the afternoon rolled around it was quite warm so definitely plan on layers. Bring extra clothes for diaper mishaps or if the dirt is out of control. Onesies for babies, and extra jeans and shirts for toddlers. This camping is dirty business.
-Fleece sweatshirts and PJs. We ended up not sleeping in the cabin with our friends, mostly because I had zero idea what callie's sleep would look like and I didn't want to wake up their little man too much! I was very glad I was able to find some fleece pjs in early september since we were sleeping outside in the tent and it obviously got a little chilly! But I admit it felt funny buying fleece when we were dealing with 90 degree weather in september in California!
-Shoes with good tread. This was my biggest challenge! Callie has a lot of shoes, some of them even athletic type shoes but they all were geared towards urban living not hiking in the woods! After a great deal of searching I settled on a pair of merrel shoes  that had a good solid tread on it. They were a little more expensive than I usually spend on shoes for Callie, but I figured it was worth it if she could keep her footing. I ended being very thankful for that because she ended up taking quite a few tumbles while we were there.
-Socks: bring extra. You never know where toddlers will find water sources! REI and other stores like that sell special socks for hiking/kids but really you don't need them. Just use your normal socks. Carters and Target brands are just fine.
-Towel: our campsite was directly across from the bathrooms and showers. This was part of the reason I was open to this camping experience in the first place! The funny thing is I never used the showers. Everytime I tried, one of the girls was flipping out and it was either shower or risk not being able to go hiking before naptime nightmare began. Any anyway, it's camping. If there is one time to be stinky this is it! So in retrospect, this item isn't a necessity, but if you think you will use showers then obviously bring one.
-Hats: bring warm ones for the morning/cold and sun hats for the afternoon/hikes. One of my favorite pictures of the trip was one of me and Lucia in our matching Sharks' hats:)

-Books/Toys/Stuffed Animals: if any of these items are part of your bedtime routine, for the love of all that's holy don't leave home without them! Don't think to yourself, we will be camping they won't want to do the normal stuff. Wrongo Dongo. Routine is crucial for kids, much more than for you and I. They are going to be pretty out of their element anyway so bringing anything familiar is key. I actually wish I had brought more toys for Callie. There was a lot of downtime when we needed to clean up meals or get cleaned up to go hiking and it was hard to keep her entertained.
Tent and Beds: DUH. Unless you are staying in a cabin, bring a dang tent. When you think your tent is big enough when it was just you and your sweetie. THINK AGAIN. No really. Think again. And find a tent that is at least twice as big. The amount of shit that you will have in your tent is unreal. For little beings they come with so much stuff!! We ended up finding a nice roomy tent at Mel Cottons that was used as their rental tent, so it was a smokin deal! $50!

And yes, that is a lot of timbuk2 bags. But they are amazing!! 

If you are doing car camping like we were/are, you really don't need a backpacking style tent. They are a lot more expensive. The backpacking tents that would have been about the same size were going to cost us around $550-$600. Now, if you really want to save space in your car and don't want to lug a heavy tent around, then go ahead and get a backpacking tent. One of the things that really helped us was to have a little light hanging from the top of the tent to work as a night light for Callie. If you don't have a battery powered lamp, you can use glow sticks. They have a nice little loop that is perfect for hanging and it lasted most of the night. Yes, you don't NEED 25 of them, but you will be surprised at how entertaining they are to a toddler especially around the campfire when you just want to enjoy your hot chocolate and smores. Plus you can use them for Halloween. We used an inflatable toddler bed that has "rails" on it for callie to sleep in. It is great for traveling!

Not the greatest shot of the bed, but you get the idea...

We have used it twice since and it is perfect! We bring sheets from home to put over it for a little more security for her.
For the baby, we brought the pack and play but quickly realized it was pretty silly. I would try to get out of bed as fast as possible to get her into bed with me to nurse so she wouldn't wake up Callie which is a little like trying to do ballet on a waterbed. A pack and play is useful if you have a non-mobile kid for in the campsite. It is nice to just stick them in there with a few toys and prep dinner.
Camping Chairs: one for everyone! We actually ended up buying Callie one at the store at the camp headquarters. She loved having a cup holder for her water/milk/hot chocolate.

Special cup: I bought a special camping cup for Callie. She is still talking about it!
Diapers and wipes. Again. DUH. But what might not be duh, is when you think you have enough wipes. Pack more. Trust me. If you are not at a campsite where there is a place to dispose of your trash, bring a container/wet bag like these from planet wise.
Toiletry items: bring your normal stuff, but just the basics, because the car is getting pretty full at this point! Comb, toothpaste, hair products, etc. Within reason. No need for makeup or anything crazy. It's camping people!
Hiking backpack/baby carrier. We brought the Ergo for Lucia which was invaluable as always.

Our friends brought a pack for their little man and I sorely wished we had brought one for Callie! 

But we did not bring a hiking backpack for Callie and I really wish we had. We had some VERY long (in time not distance) hikes on this trip.
Waterproof blanket: Like this one is a nice idea. It was nice to be able to plop Lucia down and let her play there. I'm not sure you need it with an active toddler who will just crumple it up anyway!

Screen House: again, not really a necessity unless you have problems with bugs like I do. That is why I don't usually camp:) We used an old one we had which we promptly left in a trash can before we left. We had gotten decent use out of it, but this one looks pretty good.

The screen house was the perfect place to feed daddy some smores

And to watch your toddler smoosh her face into it and laugh hysterically! 

First Aid items: I almost didn't bring anything. I thought "She'll be fine. She won't get hurt." Then I looked at her and remembered, oh yeah. This is Callie we're talking about! The number one item: foaming neosporin. This stuff is amazing! I keep it in my diaper bag now. I am sad to say that we had to use it the first day. Callie was climbing a tree stump and slid down scraping up her belly pretty badly.

 Poor thing was so upset! Other items to include would be bandaids, compresses, sunscreen, bug spray and venom kits/epi pens if you are allergic to bees like me.

Food
This was where I focused a lot of my energy, because I think the fun of camping is the time around the campfire and a lot of that time involves food! And like I kept telling my camp mates when they were shocked by the types of things that I had stashed away in the cooler, "I don't rough it!" I scoured the internet for recipes that would be easy to prepare while camping but that didn't involve freeze dried beef stew! That did mean, however, that it took a bit more prep time on the day before we left, but it was definitely worth it while we were camping. For your toddler, bring lots of snacks that you already know they like. You will just be annoyed if you spend valuable car space hauling a snack they won't eat. For us that meant, triscuit minis, rice cakes, bunnies and dried fruit. Also bring some backups for dinners if they are picky. A box of mac and cheese went a long way to cheer up a grumpy girl.

The first night, I wanted something we could just reheat and eat since I knew we would be spending a good amount of time getting the tent set up and getting Callie adjusted to her new surroundings. So the night before we left I made a batch of my minestrone and put it in a gallon ziplock bag. All we had to do was heat and serve. Sliced up some bread and got out a bottle of wine and voila! Awesome dinner.

Here's me. Roughing it. 

For breakfast, it was your typical fare, eggs, potatoes and sausage. I found this lovely little contraption at REI to hold the eggs. It was genius! No worries about your styrofoam egg container falling apart in your cooler. I even dropped the damn thing and no broken eggs. The breakfast plan was lumberjack foil packets. We learned that this would work beautifully over a campfire/bbq but on a campstove the bottom got too hot too fast. But it was still pretty tasty! When I think of campfire breakfast, I'm pretty sure this is the image that will always come to mind for the rest of my life.

My happy camper enjoying her breakfast

The plan for lunch was to make chicken tacos, but we really didn't need a full lunch. We had some cheese and crackers and that was really all we needed until dinner. For dinner I made my Veggie Chili which is an adaption of this recipe. Again, a really easy one for camping. I chopped up my garlic, peppers, onions and put them in a sandwich sized ziplock. Another one for the spices. Packed up the cans and beer. Then you basically just toss everything into a pot and let it cook! We added some soyrizo since it was on hand. I had made some cornbread muffins ahead of time to go with the chili but they got smooshed in the car, but it worked when we just crumbled them up and put it in the chili. That night I got to try out my platypus wine preserver. Worked like a charm and so easy to pack! If you are "roughing it", more so than we did anyway, this would work great! No bottle to worry about breaking and it lays pretty flat. 

Breakfast I brought a shake and go bottle of pancake mix. We got out the griddle and made our pancakes and finished off the bacon and frozen hashbrowns. Again, no real need for lunch. About then it was time to pack up and head home. 

Make sure you have lots choices for snacks/beverages. We had packets of hot cider, hot chocolate, beer and wine for the mommies and daddies, marshmallows, fixings for smores, etc. Don't forget a container of milk for your little ones. I put some milk in a tupperware so we didn't have to worry about it taking up too much room or cardboard leaking milk everywhere. We are serious coffee drinkers so we brought some ground coffee from our favorite coffee shop and this coffee system. It was a little tricky getting the ratios right, but it was so nice to have good coffee in the morning!

Preparation
Besides getting all of this CRAP together, the big thing you need to do is to get your toddler excited/prepared to go camping! We talked a lot about what camping meant: sleep in a tent, go hiking, collect rocks/sticks, see lots of trees, carry a back pack, smores. I picked up a couple of books about camping including Callie's favorite character, Maisy. Some other possibilities are Olivia, Caillou and George. There are some lovely picture books as well. I opted for S is for Smores by Helen James. There are gorgeous pictures for kids Callie's age and there is a bunch of text about each letter for older kids. Another popular title is When We Go Camping. Also, try to involve your toddler in the preparations. We all went to Mel Cottons to find a tent and a sleeping bag for Callie. While it was the equivalent of herding cats, trying to get everything done there, she had a blast checking out tents, climbing in kayaks and when it came time to get in her sleeping bag, she knew it was hers and was already excited about it. I also bought her a special pillow. In our case it was a sharkie pillow pet. I think it is helpful, like with any trip, to bring out something new/special to keep them interested.

Hiking
We did "hike" both days. I'm not sure a lot of people would call what we did hiking, but come on! Two year olds have little legs:)

Don't underestimate what has entertainment value to toddlers while hiking. I bought her a backpack that you can see in the picture above. She loved collecting fallen pinecones and a few rocks. We also found an old disposable camera that should have been developed before 2000 in our camping box, but we gave it to Callie and she had a blast!

A word of caution. Be wary of naptime. Both days, by the time we got done with breakfast and cleaned up we were getting dangerously close to naptime. Next time I might just say screw it to cleaning and just get our butts on the trail! 

Changes for Next time
I will most defintiely take the girls camping again! 1 month later and Callie is still talking about going camping. Next time I will bring some sort of hiking pack to carry Callie in. Taking her hiking was really fun and it was awesome to see the joy of discovery on her face but when she got tired she was a total pill! It would be great to toss her in a pack and head back to camp. I will also probably bring more things like toys to keep her occupied when we are trying to clean up and get going. I will bring a bug box for her to examine her treasuries more closely. Luckily Grandma Tere has already gotten her one for our next adventure. Next time, I know that we won't need the pack and play for the tent. Lucia just ended up sleeping with me/nursing anyway.

Final Thoughts
This is one of the happiest memories I have of us as a family.

This is by far the happiest I have seen my husband with my daughters. 

He is most serene and at peace when he is in nature, so for him to be able to share that with all of us was an amazing experience. Camping is an experience. Don't let all the preparation and shit that you have to bring dissuade you from this adventure. It was amazing and I would do it again in a heartbeat. To hear your child squeal with delight about trees and birds and the sky and the stars is priceless. She still every now and then talks about how "I go camping! I sleep in a tent!"