We've been considering how our toddler will sleep when we go away next week. He will just turn 2 years and still has his cot bed at home and travel cot when we go away to grandparents. It's quite a long travel cot so it's not a problem for him - it just means we have to take it camping too. We have a foam mattress that we cart around with us to make it more comfy but have decided not to take it camping but to put his ready bed (never slept on it before) inside the travel cot even though it is longer but the same width. Anyway the upshot of this is that his super dooper vango nitestar is going to stay at home as I think he will stay tucked up in the ready bed sleeping bag much better than the mummy bag. He will have his duvet and a probably cellular blankets / sheets as well inside the ready bed bag. I was wondering if he could do with some thermal underwear. He has a fleece sleepsuit but it may be too small so might have to have pj's on instead.
Our grandson (aged 2) slept quite happily in a readybed over the Witsun Bank Holiday this year. Its been so long since our children were that smalll that I cannot remember what we used to do with them.
Sounds like one heck of a lot of stuff to carry around for a two year old! By the time mine were two they had a sleeping bag (Vango Nitestar) and a self inflating mat each and seemed perfectly comfortable on that. Vest, ordinary long PJs, socks and a fleece blanket to snuggle. None of them ever got cold. A good sleeping bag is worth ten times the amount by volume of home bedding.
Is this your first camping trip of the year? Then my advice is to go in heavy handed with the "big boy" way of sleeping and take the ready bed and the Nitestar to go inside it and forget the rest. By the age of two most kids can climb out of travel cots, so why bother?
My daughter (19 months) slept in pjs with a vest on, in a baby grobag, inside a readybed, and she was fine - that was at whitsun in the lakes, and it wasn't particularly warm. We had extra blankets with us but didn't need them. I doubt you'd need thermals for him, maybe take a jumper or fleece you can put him in for an extra layer just in case - that would at least make sure his arms are warm if they're poking out of the blankets.
We tuck our 3 year old into his Vango sleeping bag on top of the airbed and fleece blanket, another fleece blanket over the top, all nice and warm with his favourite cuddly..........................................Next morning we find him half out of the sleeping bag on the groundsheet..............................I think you'll find we're more bothered than they are.
If you still fancy the thermals, John Lewis have them in their childrenswear department down to toddler sizes. I bought them for myself (size age 13 - me I'm 36!) recently and wore them at whitsun. I was really glad of them then! It was a tad chilly at night. As for my boys, they were fine - warm as toast! I'm the one the feels the cold!
Thanks for that. I probably wont get him the thermals but neither will I be ditching his beloved travel cot. Since he has never even slept in a proper bed at home I think it would be incredibly cruel to adopt the new tactic when camping. What can I say, he is loved!
It probably doesn't matter what I plan because he'll doubtless make his own mind up. He's been playing in his nitestar this week and loves it until he rolls over in it and he yells 'mummy, I'm stuck!' Can't blame him, I don't fancy the mummy-style bags either!
Thanks for that. I probably wont get him the thermals but neither will I be ditching his beloved travel cot. Since he has never even slept in a proper bed at home I think it would be incredibly cruel to adopt the new tactic when camping. What can I say, he is loved!
It probably doesn't matter what I plan because he'll doubtless make his own mind up. He's been playing in his nitestar this week and loves it until he rolls over in it and he yells 'mummy, I'm stuck!' Can't blame him, I don't fancy the mummy-style bags either!
I shouldn't worry too much about doing something totally different when you go camping. He'll feel it's very different anyway, so why not go the whole hog and ditch the travel cot? Obviously, I'm not telling you what to do (you know your own kids best), but if it was me, I'd use the opportunity to leapfrog into the 'big bed' thingy. How special he'll feel having a bed the same as mum and dad while he's camping!
One word of warning - you need to be prepared for him to not go to bed at his 'normal' time while you're camping. It probably won't happen, and if you worry about it you'll be very stressed. (speaking from experience here!)
Now I don't worry about getting my 2 to bed at anywhere near their 'normal' time, and miracle of miracles, after the first couple of nights, they sleep loads better (read much later) than they ever do at home - even if they stay up late!
Apologies if you already know this - I just remember the first time I took my 2 camping when my youngest was only 20 months and t'other one was only 3 and a half!
Our travel cot gained the title of Most Useless Object on our epic seven week trip round France. We were on the fifth week by the time we realised that we were only using it for holding the folding chairs at night! Our eighteen month old daughter had decided that she wanted to sleep in a corner of a trailer tent bedroom on top of her sleeping bag wearing only a nappy. (She`d have had the nappy off too if it hadn`t been for the sellotape.) Fortunately it was warm, and by common consent we donated the travel cot to the campsite when we moved on. She didn`t fall off the TT bunk once, so we whisked the sides off her cot bed the day we got home. I don`t think she even noticed. (She did, however, find a way to break through the sellotape eventually.....)
In my experience of camping with kids( three, all started camping at months old) everything is so strrange that one more strangeness passes unnoticed so you can grab the chance to make this work to your advantage. As Gilyan says, it`s practically impossible to keep to home routines on a campsite so don`t even try or you`ll drive yourself crazy with stress. Let him stay up till he falls over asleep, then he won`t notice what you put him to sleep in! There`s few things more stressful than putting a toddler down at his usual bedtime then expecting him to sleep while the campsite noise is still in full interesting swing. He won`t, even if you manage to make everything else an exact copy of at home.
It`s not a question of being cruel or not loving your (or my) kids. It`s more a question of saying "Hey look where you`re going to sleep! WOW!!!!" It`s good to take the favourite Thomas pillow case, blanket and stuffed animal, of course. These things matter.
Interesting comments. Thank you. I'm not so fussed about his routine, it's been pushed out by the lighter evenings and wanting to go out and about. Most nights he is asleep by 8.30 and goes thu till around 7.30. I do like the idea of letting him roam around until he drops! I think this is the best course of action to get him to nap anywhere. I suppose the thing that concerns me is that I don't want a screaming tot in the middle of a campsite. He's soooo not a whingy child and so the times were he does get a bit out of sorts I end up resenting him because I'm not used to it!!! If I let him wander around until he flops he is likely to go through that awful hyper phase first and I can't stand this (esp when I just want a half hour to sit outside the tent with a cold beer!!).
The travel cot will probably end up in the car with us. We're staying at grandparents 2 nights before we go off camping so we'll need it there and we'll def need to use it in a few weeks as we are going to a wedding and I need to know that he is confined to his cot whilst I'm outside the house sipping champers (by a super scary river) and not investigating the grounds by himself (and I'm unlikely to pick up the sound of him getting out of a bed and leaving the room on the monitor).
BTW, the ready bed is the same width as the travel cot and the extra length folds up at 90 degrees so it takes some of the length of the cot away but is perfectly flat . It would be a squeeze but at least it wouldn't let him have too much dead space to keep warm.
We were away this weekend and my eldest 2 (6 and 5) took their fleece suits off, they slept in vest and pants in their sleeping bags and the little one (26 months) slept in a vest and pullups and fleece sleepsuit on top of her sleeping bag. They all ended up huddled into coarner of the sleeping pod so we are just going to get some foam mats to cover the floor of the pod and let them sleep wherever!!
Hi Essexmum. That's a lovely image - all the kids huddled together. It's a good argument for us having another one! I can't wait to have a tent full and they can all look out for each other!
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Topic: thermals for a toddler
