Camping with little toddlers?

[countrymommy]

We went camping for the first time with our toddler this weekend.  We've done lots of camping and even with an older toddler before, but this was the first time with our new one.  He is 17 months.

Where does your little one sleep in the pop up?  Ours is used to his crib and we found somewhat of a solution - albeit not ideal.  We made down one of the dinettes and put his playpen on top of it.  He never actually slept in it.

He ended up getting sick and we called the weekend short to get home and let him (and us) get some rest.

Looking for ideas of what you do for toddlers while camping.

[campingdrummer]

Well, pack and plays usually fit right where the dinette sits, so that is a great option.  Our dd hates her pnp though so what we are doing is cutting a foam matresss to fit in the floor area of where the dinette sits and then building a partion the height of the dinette seats and that area will become her crib!
I see lots of people with the expandable fences/gates for their kids, they use them outside, probably work good for a small dog too!  We use a little blow up pool, she crawls out a lot though.  We are thinking of getting an AAR just so she can't "escape" us so easily.

[kimrb266]

We started camping when our twins were 18 mos and our other was almost 3.  We put the twins on one of the bunkends with a bedrail to prevent them from falling onto the floor, well, it worked most of the time.  In the events when they did, we put the kids' suitcases on the floor to break the fall.  Our 3 yr old slept on the dinette.  Things worked out for us in our 03 Santa Fe CP.  As the kids got bigger, we graduated to the 05 Niagra and now put them on the end where the couch will break their fall.  They haven't fell out yet.
 
We never had our kids contained in within a fence, we kept an eye on them and they enjoyed throwing rocks and riding their little  bikes.  
 
I hope this helps.

[countrymommy]

We started camping when our twins were 18 mos and our other was almost 3.  We put the twins on one of the bunkends with a bedrail to prevent them from falling onto the floor, well, it worked most of the time.  In the events when they did, we put the kids' suitcases on the floor to break the fall.  Our 3 yr old slept on the dinette.  Things worked out for us in our 03 Santa Fe CP.  As the kids got bigger, we graduated to the 05 Niagra and now put them on the end where the couch will break their fall.  They haven't fell out yet.
 
We never had our kids contained in within a fence, we kept an eye on them and they enjoyed throwing rocks and riding their little  bikes.  
 
I hope this helps.

Were you ever afraid of them rolling off the other end of the bed between the bed and the canvas?

[AustinBoston]

I couldn't imagine going 18 months without camping.  :eyecrazy:

We took our oldest DD (now 21) camping when she was less than 6 months old.  Our second DD had been camping by 9 months (maybe sooner - it was 19 years ago), and DS (now 15) was born in the spring, so we probably took him camping even younger.

That was in a tent, before we had a pop-up.

Austin

[stateparkgrl]

Our Starcraft has a pull-out stove that creates a perfect size couch on the inside when pulled out. We just use a bed rail, and the two year old grandson sleeps fine. Plus, he can crawl over the end and poke us in the nose at 5am when he is ready to get up!

Louise