When I look back on it, I think this whole blog started because I was trying to find information on how to get a baby to sleep while camping. Thousands of books have been written about baby sleep, but if you want some advice on sleeping outdoors with your new tiny human, good luck!
Parenting is one big act of trial and error and if you’re going to fail, do it safely and with grace, but if I look at that another way it is one big act of adventure. Each day a new frontier…
So let’s talk about car camping and toddler sleep… especially in the 1-2+ year old age range. We are not experts, but we have some data points.
We returned recently from a red rock-filled week in Bears Ears National Monument and the Zion National Park area of Utah.
We camped for multiple nights. Up until now we hadn’t attempted a full fledged nap in the tent. We had relied on the motion of the car or in the backpack, but a ‘real’ nap time can be a beautiful time for peace and adult revelry. I wanted a few hours in camp with a beer in hand and no toddler demands.
The down low on our car camping set up:
- Enormous and amazing, North Face Wawona 6 tent. This tent has enough room for all of us to sleep spread out plus a dog. We can walk around in it. Luxury.
- Guava Lotus Travel Crib– our travel and camp crib. We love it. Yes, we put this thing in the tent just like we would in a hotel.
- Toddler sleep warmth, Morrison Big Mo 20 Degrees. We layer this with his fleece footed PJs and a hat, if it’s below forty.
- For car camping, we sleep on the REI Kingdom Insulated Queen Mattress. I mention this, because we have pulled West out of the travel crib on some cold nights to sleep on it with us. Room for all.
- Amazon Blackout Travel Curtain. I draped this over his crib partially for nap time so it wasn’t so bright.
We do bedtime pretty much the same when camping as we do at home. Usually, we do it later to let it get a little darker, but we do try to put him down before we go to sleep. This allows for adult campfire time.
As for the nap, it went pretty well. I used the blackout curtain to create some darkness and he slept in the tent for 1.5 hours, shorter than his usual nap, but good nonetheless.
And here I had worried and worried about how he would nap in the tent. Just fine.
I often find this as a parent, especially when it pertains to being outdoors, whatever we try it ends up fine, better than fine most days.
