Lessons I Learned in the Woods

Kyle and I decided to tempt fate and take a toddler camping in a tent. We have been tent camping for years and want our kid(s?) to have the same experience. Our favorite camp spot is one of the walk in sites at the Upper Manistee River Rustic Campground, near Kalkaska. No electricity, no running water (unless you count the handpump), no bathrooms (unless you count the outhouse) nothing but nature!

Here are some of my tips/lessons learned for anyone out there planning to do the same:

Bring or build some sort of changing table. Crawling around on a half deflated air mattress or on the floor of a hot-as-hell tent, while trying to wrestle a toddler into or out of a diaper, and avoiding all the sand on said tent floor…not at all a good time! Anything you can use to elevate the baby and give him that sense of that “if I don’t hold kind of still I am gonna fall” feeling will be a vast improvement over my experience on the floor.

Baby powder! Camping kids get dirty and sandy. They also get sweaty and grimy. Baby wipes don’t get sand off they only spread it around in what has to be an aggravating fashion for the poor dirty baby you are trying clean. Instead, take that dirty baby and rub baby powder all over him. This will suck all the sweat out of the equation, leaving nothing for the sand to stick to. Trust me, I’ve used it a number of times and it amazes me every time!

Try to stick to your routine, loosely at least. If nothing else, remember that babies get cranky when they are hungry and tired. Keep snacks handy, keep the tent open and aired out during the day so nap time isn’t miserably hot, and try to get some nutritious food in baby whenever you can. He needs the right fuel for all his adventures! Also, stay on top of fluids, especially if it is hot out.

If you are the type of parent inclined to let the baby fall asleep with you at the camp fire and then transfer him to the tent, here is a tip for you. As bedtime approached, we put Kaleb in his footie sleeper, and then put some more warm clothes, including shoes, on over top of that for being outside. That way, once he was asleep, all we had to do was remove the outer layer of clothes and put him right into the warm blankets. This prevented needing to strip him all the way down and dress him in pj’s, which meant he stayed asleep when we transferred him to the tent.

Clip fingernails before you go, and clip them short. The dirt won’t look so bad when it collects underneath them if they are nice and short already, also makes them easier to clean out. I did not do this and I was constantly fighting back a shudder as I saw those grimy little paws!

If it is going to be cold, bring a winter hat for baby to sleep in, especially if baby is going to have his own bed. I also put Kaleb in two sleepers, with a long sleeve onesie underneath…I was overly concerned that he’d be cold. Since we had him sleeping in bed with us, he ended up getting a little too warm and would wind up on top of the blankets by morning. But, I am thinking if baby is sleeping alone then extra layers are better than blankets, unless you want to spend the night obsessively checking on if he is still under his blanket.

Bug spray is a necessity, and Kaleb hated the aerosol kind I bought for him. This ties back to the changing table tip as well, because putting bug spray on a dirty, squirmy, cranky baby who just wants to go play…well, it’s bad enough as it is without adding in the challenge of being on the ground! Next time I will use a lotion kind and, if possible, try to find one that also has sunscreen in it.

Another bug spray related tip, once your tent is set up, spray around all the openings/zippers with bug spray. I spray it all over my tent, which may be a tad overboard…but it keeps those pesky skeeters away from your tent opening, and from feasting on your sweet little baby while he sleeps!

We used dry ice in our food cooler this year, and we will be doing this for all future camping trips! It was so much cleaner than bagged ice that melts in the bottom of the cooler…you’ve all experienced the random hot dog floating in the water at the end of your trip, ewwww! We got it at Meijer, right next to the “normal” ice. It kept the cooler cold all weekend and there was no mess to clean up at the end. We used one brick for the cooler, wrapped it in a paper bag, and away you go! Be warned, it is so effective that it will freeze anything sitting on top of it. A word of caution, don’t let baby play with dry ice…husbands, on the other hand, have a fabulous time playing with it.

Babies don’t understand “Mommy and Daddy need to set up the tent now, so you play nice and don’t wander off or fall in the river”. You are better off negotiating who sets up and who watches baby. Don’t try to do both, babies are fast and it takes a second for them to get themselves into trouble. You can not, for a single second, let that baby out of your sight, there are too many fascinating dangers at a campsite. Fire pit, grills, river, poison ivy patch, baby-snatching creepers lurking in the woods (that may have been my overactive imagination), you name it. Just plan to be on constant look out for potential hazards, and plan to have your eyes on that kid every. single. second. of your trip. If baby is young enough, you can use a pack and play. Once baby is walking…well, eyes open and heads up!

Make sure your first aid kit is stocked with hydrogen peroxide, Neosporin, gauze, every shape and size of bandage, cotton balls, and cotton swabs. If/when baby gets hurt you aren’t likely to have a sink to rush him to for clean up, so you have to prepared to be a full trailside medic. I also had tweezers, nail clippers, infant Tylenol, baby orajel, aloe vera, a bug bite medicine stick (or plain old calamine would have worked).

Don’t mess with a flashlight for in the tent, these are no longer the good old days where the only thing you needed light for after bed time was finding shoes to go pee! Go for a lantern, preferably one with a remote control. Keep the remote control by your bed. Keep the lantern in a corner where it isn’t going to blind you or baby when you turn it on. When it is 3AM and the cheddar brat you let baby eat for lunch has made an explosive debut in his diaper, you will thank me for this!

Most important tip I have for you: HAVE FUN!! Baby is going to get dirty, and he is going to looove digging in the dirt and the sand, finding interesting rocks and twigs and bugs and everything else outside. This is an awesome experience for a little one, try to let go and let him be a little dirt ball for the trip. You will return home and be able to scrub him back to your sweet smelling cherub soon enough. For now, it’s camping time, and that means it is gonna get dirty. Take pictures, encourage curiosity, get right down in the dirt with him. These are going to be some amazing memories, don’t blow it by getting all upset over some dirt.

Pretty wordy post, and somewhat pretentious of me to be sharing "tips" when I've only done this once. But, this is the kind of thing I scoured the internet for as I prepared for our trip, the first hand experience of someone who has done it. We had an amazing time and are planning to do it all over again as early as the 4th of July this year!