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Any kind of adventuring with kiddos takes a little extra planning, but the magic that is added involving kids in the outdoors is so worth the effort! In this episode I go over some of my favorite tips to help make camping with a kid more enjoyable and some gear that makes them more comfortable. I hope all of you parents and future parents find this episode helpful!
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Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!
Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. And combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discussed here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential, and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for hiking podcast. Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the fit for Hiking podcast. I am so excited to be sharing with you some tricks and tips for taking your kiddos camping. I actually just came back from a camping weekend um, with a big group of friends. Um, we went to a really awesome area of Colorado that I love and we try to do a big camping trip every year if we can just kind of get everybody together. It's so fun. But now we have some kiddos in the picture, so things have definitely shifted a little bit. And anytime I post camping with Junie, I get some questions on Instagram about what does this look like? Can you share like some details? Some tips? Um, because it definitely can be daunting when you think about the camping experience and then adding a little kiddo into the mix, whether they're kind of more of a newborn or a toddler. And our experience has kind of shifted over the years. Our daughter, just for reference, is about two and three months, two years, three months old. So we've done a lot with her over the last. This is our third summer now with her, and we started taking trips with her camping when she was even just like two months old. However, at the time we did have our camper van, so the dynamic was different and we recently sold the van. Um, now we're back to tent camping. So for a couple of years we were doing long trips with her in the van. You know, we go, we do like a long weekend. And then we started getting a little bit more courageous. We did like a three week trip. And then last summer, we did a six week trip with her up to Canada and Montana in the van. And we were working from the van and, um, you know, staying in campgrounds and dispersed camping with her. But we were in the van, so that definitely made it quite a bit easier. And now this summer, we are tent camping with her for really the first time. So I wanted to share what this has look like for us and what I always bring. General tips what you can be prepared for as far as like the baby phase versus the toddler phase. All of the details. Because it definitely is possible to still enjoy getting out and camping when you have little, little kids. And I know oftentimes, um, you know, people will go camping with their families, but usually they wait until the kids are older and more self-sufficient because it feels less daunting. But if you don't want to have to go, you know, five plus years without camping, here's how to do it with a little kiddos. Okay, so let's talk about baby phase versus toddler phase. In my opinion, it's actually quite a bit easier when they are a baby baby, you know, like 0 to 1, because they are going to be able to sleep pretty much anywhere. They'll sleep on top of you, you know, like in a carrier, you can just kind of bounce and walk around camp with them and they're going to sleep pretty much anywhere. Yes, you might still be dealing with like a lot of wake ups at night, depending on how good of a sleeper your baby is and you're going to have to balance, um, you know, breastfeeding, slash pumping slash, you know, putting your milk if you're pumping and storing milk, bringing enough cooler space for that. However, it is, in my opinion, a little bit easier when they are a baby because they're not running everywhere yet and you can keep them contained. So when they are in the toddler phase, like juniper is now, it just becomes a little bit more exhausting. Like you're not just able to chill around the campfire anymore. They are up and everywhere and they want to explore everything, which makes it really fun because you're kind of seeing nature and the campground through their eyes of them wanting to check out every little flower, every tree. They want to walk all over the place. If they hear water, they want to go see where that's coming from and just know it's not going to feel quite as relaxing as it will when you have a new one. Like I said, when you have a newborn, you can just put them in a little chest carrier and like, stand around a campfire and bounce them around, or just hold them while they sleep on you while you visit and hang out. And when you have a toddler, they are going to be all over the place. So whether you're solo or with a partner, you know one person is always going to have to be with them because there are a lot of potential sources of danger. Like anywhere in life, you're not going to want your toddler just going off solo. So you need to make sure that you're ready, energy wise, to chase them around for the weekend. Also, if you're someone who kind of resorts to doing a little bit of screentime when you need some downtime, that is also a component that you need to be ready for, because most of the time when you're camping, you're not going to have access to any sort of service. And so if they are kind of reliant on screens, that is going to be tricky. So another reason why doing a ton of screen time is not always the best option. You want them to be able to enjoy and explore their environment without always resorting to screens. And I'm not like super anti screen time. We have her watch a show, you know, for a little bit each day, but we try to avoid doing excessive amounts of screen time so that we can go camping with her. And she's not freaking out because she doesn't get to watch her show. Um, okay, so let's talk about must pack items. So this obviously will vary based on like what you use every day at home. And these are just kind of our bare bones. Like we gotta have these things just to help a camping trip go smoothly. And some of this you might be feeling out for the first time. So, um. one recommendation I would have is that you might want to go somewhere not super far away from civilization, kind of close to a store, so that if you realize, oh crap, we forgot this, you can run to town easily and get it. And it doesn't feel like, oh, now we're just stranded in the middle of nowhere and we're super stressed about this, so must pack items. What we do is we bring a pack and play because our tent is really big. We have a nice big family sized tent and there is room for us to sleep and then have a pack and play either at our feet or at our heads. And this has worked really nicely because Junie gets really good sleep and she's used to sleeping in the pack and play when we travel. Um, and we don't have to worry about, like, rolling over onto her or anything like that if we're all three. Kind of, like, cocooned in the tent together. Um, so we bring a pack and play if the tent allows for that. If it does not allow for that, then you're going to want some sort of ground pad. Or if you have a big enough ground pad where you're sharing and you guys are sleeping right next to each other. And then you also have to kind of decide based on whether where you're going, do we need a hardcore sleeping bag for our child, or are they going to be okay in just like a footy pyjama type of onesie with some blankets? So far this summer, we've been able to get away with just doing a onesie and bringing her blankets and she is totally fine. We haven't needed a sleeping bag for her because it's been fairly warm, like 50 at night where we've been camping, and she actually doesn't even use her blankets like she just sleeps on top of the blankets in her footie pyjamas. Um, however, if you're going somewhere really cold or the temperatures are dropping or you have a little baby, there are these really awesome sleeping bags slash onesies now that you can buy for your little ones, and you're going to want to look at like the age range for them to make sure that it fits with their age. Um, however, those are really cool. They basically are like sleeping bags, but you're zipping them up over their legs, so they are kind of in a little onesie, and you don't have to worry about their heads getting underneath the sleeping bag to a point where they could potentially be at risk of suffocating at night time. So that's something for like little little ones, especially under the age of one. Um, I definitely would recommend something like that if you are sleeping in a tent in cold conditions. Um, another thing that you might want to consider is a sound machine. If that's something that you use at home, juniper can kind of take it or leave it. But I do find that having a little bit of white noise, especially if you're somewhere where it's kind of loud or you're with a big group camping and you're putting them down, and then everybody's hanging out for a while, you might want to sound machine in the tent, blankets, always bringing some extra blankets, whether you're putting them down on the ground by the campfire. And they can kind of like roll around if they're little or just sit there and play with their toys if they're a little bit older. Um, and then blankets for inside the tent, especially if they're in a pack and play. Snacks and food, whatever. They're typically eating at home, trying to bring similar things so it doesn't feel super weird to them. Obviously you're camping. You're not going to have access to all the same foods or a highchair or whatever they're typically eating in, but we try to bring as many of the same snacks and things that we can store in the cooler that she is used to eating. Um, and especially if you are, you know, still kind of in the breastfeeding phase or they're still only having milk, make sure you have, uh, plenty of ice to keep the bottle cool and store your milk if you need to. Um, another idea is a baby play tent, and this is something that I actually don't have personally, but one of my girlfriends has brought this when we've gone camping with them for her baby, and it has been so awesome. And I would love to get this for whenever we have a second, kiddo. So basically it's like this little small tent, um, that has a, you know, it's fully covered and then it's like a mesh netting on the sides so that you can see into it, you can see what they're doing. And then you you put a bunch of toys in there as a nice, fluffy, uh, floor so that they can kind of roll around on their back or crawl and it's going to be nice and shaded for them. So it's a really good option if they just want to kind of have a moment to, like, play and roll around. But you don't want them on the actual ground because it's really dusty or dirty. You don't want them putting things in their mouth. Um, that's a really cool option. And I will link, um, the one that we have been able to use when we've gone camping with our friends in the show notes. Um, because that's a really nice, really nice option if you don't want them out of sight, like you don't want to put them in the tent where it's potentially out of sight. If you have like a rain cover on or it's really hot during the day, or there's just like no way to keep them contained because the tent super big, um, is specifically for babies and toddlers. So it's a really, really nice option. And we've even used it for nap times because we don't want her going in like the super hot tent during the day, or being away from us where we can't see her. Um, another thing to bring is a carrier. If you plan to hike, if you have a little, little one, you know, anywhere under the age of one and you're bouncing them on your chest, then bring a chest carrier, you will definitely use it so that you can still, like set up your tent, bring or tear everything down, walk around and cook and hang out. Um, and have your hands free. Bringing a carrier is going to definitely help out, um, having some sort of toys or books we like to bring, because otherwise they're just going to be going crazy with like, all the nature things. And there's nothing wrong with that. Like, we always let Judy really explore her surroundings, but it is nice to have some options of things that she can play with so that she doesn't get bored and just start turning into a little terror. So having some quick things that you can pack, but you don't mind if they're getting dirty. Um, another thing I've started doing is downloading onto my phone, um, songs like wheels on the bus or old McDonald, or audiobooks. Um, because especially if your kiddo does kind of like that sort of Stimulation and they get bored with just like sitting around. Maybe they are used to a little bit of screen time and you're out of service having something like that on your phone for like when they're just maybe having a little bit of a meltdown or they just need a moment's, you can turn on something that's familiar to them and have that as a way to kind of break up the day. Um, plenty of outfits and shoes. You are probably going to notice that their outfits are going to get dirtier a lot faster, and you just want to make sure that you have plenty of outfit change options, shoes that you don't mind them getting dirty. Um, they're going to want to walk around camp in shoes if they're a toddler and they're on their feet. So make sure you don't forget good shoes for them. Um, and then means to clean out cups or bottles. So you want to make sure you have plenty of water. Because if you're leaving their cup out, especially during the day, which just kind of tends to happen when you're camping, you want to make sure you're cleaning that out so that they're not getting a yucky cup. So make sure you bring plenty of water to sanitize and clean out those sippy cups and or bottles, depending on the age of your kiddo. A diaper changing pad. So obviously you're going to want to bring like diapers and wipes, you know, the essentials, but you also are going to want something that you can lay them down on, whether it's in your tent or in the back of your car, or just on the ground, some sort of little pad, so that you don't have to just, you know, throw them in the car and do it, which we've definitely done before. No judgment. But if you want like a softer place for them to be where you're not going to make as much of a mess, bringing you some sort of little foldable changing pad in the diaper bag is a good way to go. Um, cooler for the milk and the food, always making sure you stop and get some ice. A portable monitor if you want to be able to see what's going on with them. You know if you're putting them down at like 738 and then you're going back over to the fire to hang out with everybody. Um, and you want to be able to see what's going on. Putting in a portable monitor that doesn't require, um, cell service is a is a really great option. And then a camping chair for your toddler. This definitely isn't a necessity, but it's kind of fun. We got junior her own little fold up chair, and it's small and it fits her nicely. And she can sit around the fire with us, and it just kind of makes her feel like a big girl. So it's not a necessity. But it is definitely something that's kind of fun. If you want them to sit around the fire with you. Um, hand wipes for disinfecting, they are just going to be so dirty. So if you are like OCD about dirtiness, just know that you're going to have to kind of let that go for the weekend. But you can bring some wipes to constantly be cleaning their hands, because if they're putting their hands in their mouth or wanting to eat and they're covered in dirt, that's something you're going to want to just stay on top of. And then sunscreen and a sun hat, naturally, unless you're super in the thick of some woods, you're going to be exposed to the sun quite a bit more. So you want to make sure you have good sun protection for your little one. If you have some sort of like, canopy or thing that you can set up at camp, uh, for the heat of the day, awesome. That will help to so that you aren't just in direct sunlight for, you know, an entire weekend. General tips for a successful camping weekend just to help it go as smoothly as possible. One is to have some activities planned to break up the day. So versus just like sitting at camp all day and like not really doing a whole lot. Um, maybe you plan to go to a nearby lake for the day, or maybe you plan to go for a hike, or go grab some ice cream and go for a little picnic? Um, in the closest town, having some activities, I think just really helps. Um, your toddler or baby not feel like they're just sitting around at a campfire all day. And this definitely pertains more to the toddler because they need more like stimulation to keep them entertained and from having meltdowns. Babies can really roll with it, and they're probably not going to care too much either way. Um, number two is to be flexible with the naps. Napping is really tricky when you're camping, because you don't have that air conditioned space where they can go down, and if you are doing activities during the day, they might not be able to sleep during their typical nap time. Newborn babies, even all the way up to like one and a half, might do better with just kind of sleeping anywhere. That's great. As they get a little bit older, they might struggle with this. They're just not going to sleep everywhere. So maybe you have an activity where they're getting little car naps because you're driving to and from a trailhead. Maybe they'll sleep in the carrier while you're hiking. Or maybe you just need to be a little bit flexible, and they might not be getting the normal naps that they're getting. Um, what we've done for naps in the past is using that, um, little child tent that I was talking about. If you can get them to not be super stimulated by what's going on and actually take a nap, that's a great option so that they're not just in a hot tent away from you. Um, another option is turning your car on and putting them in the car seat, whether you're actually going for a drive or not. Um, that's sometimes something that we've done because Junie just gets so stimulated and sometimes she won't nap when she's around the big group because she feels like she's missing out. Um, so it's either car seat nap or in her carrier while we're hiking or using that little kiddo tent. Those are the ways that we've been most successful with naps, but typically she just isn't napping for as long as she normally would, and she just goes to bed a little bit earlier than normal. And then the final one is to be aware of potential danger while you're camping. So when you're picking a campsite, thinking about things like is there water nearby? If there is a stream or a, um, creek or anything like that, just know that you're always going to have to be watching your toddler because they're going to gravitate towards that water. So you've got to really be careful. Um, campfire, obviously that's a big one. If you have a fire going again, your toddler is going to gravitate towards that fire. So anytime you are near the campfire, you're going to need to be always aware of where they're going. And if they're walking towards the campfire or even tripping towards the fire, because they might be more used to walking on even ground. And when you're camping, there's going to be a lot more rocks and sticks and things like that. There might be dogs running around that could bump into them, and then they go into the fire. So just something you want to be very, very careful for, um, wildlife as well. You don't want them wandering off on their own, especially if you know that there is going to be wildlife in the area and even like dogs nearby from other campgrounds that might be wandering into your territory. Unfortunately, we've had like some not great experiences with other people's dogs, and Junie is so trusting with dogs because we have a super derpy and sweet golden retriever who lets her just, like, climb all over him. And so your kiddo is really trusting the dogs. You got to be careful with other dogs, maybe crossing into your campground and and not letting your kiddo just walk right up to them, or vice versa. And then nearby road, knowing like how close you are to cars and just constantly being aware like you are at home, there's always going to be potential risk factors and dangers, so you just want to make sure that you always have an adult, whether it's you or a partner or one of your friends who's camping with you. Always have somebody walking with your toddler, holding hands, staying close so that you can keep danger at bay. All right, you guys, I hope that this has been helpful. I will link some of my main things like I like I said, the little play tent, I will link our Osprey carrier that we use for journey, um, things like that in the show notes. Um, I also do have a blog about top outdoor essentials for your baby. I will link that as well. Um, I hope that this is helpful and just encourages you that you can still get out there. Um, enjoy camping with your little ones. It's such a special time. And yes, it does add a little bit of extra stress and you have to plan and pack a little bit extra, but it is so worth it, and it's really cool to just get them introduced to spending time in the outdoors with no screens, no service as early as you possibly can. So I hope this has been a helpful one. If you guys have any other topics that you are dying to hear about on the podcast, send us a message at the Fit Underscore for Hiking Instagram page. We'd love to hear from you. And if you love the show and you get a lot of value out of it, please give us a rating and review or share with it on your socials to, um, other people who you feel like might benefit from the show. It's the best way for you to help us out, get more word of mouth. Um, and we really appreciate it. All right, you guys, I will chat with you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this, be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at Pony Tail on a trail.com. Happy and healthy trails.