Can you put kiddie carseats in a VW Camper Van?

[MrsCurly]

Even old ones?

How do you fasten children in?

How well do they take to travelling long distances? Cos clearly you can't drive when they are sleeping in beds.

How far have you taken your little ones and at what age?

(Still trying to work out our holiday plans......)
Thanking you in advance kind Mumsnetters.

Mr & Mrs C

Cant help you on the camper van issue ... Does it have normal seats and seat belts ... ie can you strap a car seat in ?

However we took ds on a six hour journey when he was five months old ... we got up at 4am and put him in his car seat and slept all the way. We were tired that day but it was worth it IMO.

We also went again when ds was 7 months old but left at 11am traffic was terrible I had lots of toys and books to distract him but it was very hard work !!! If travelling through the day I would suggest regular stops but this does add many hours onto the journey HTH

Don't know about seat belts in the van as we were planning to borrow a friend's van but they are away so i can't ask them.

Just wondered if anyone who had a camper van night know.

Thanks for the tips though.

Hi - we've used our VW camper a lot with the kids (they are 9 and 7 now). You can use car seats (although the ones I used were ones that I bought near enough 8 years ago so I'm not sure if the technology has changed). You just need to make sure the seat belts are the normal retractable ones and that the car seats fit according to their instructions (ie the release button isn't under pressure etc).

We've take the kids round Spain, France, Belgium and the UK (although not on the same trip!). We found the biggest help was the story tapes and getting them a walkman each. They listen to tapes for hours and hours. We have a portable DVD which we bought second hand, but frankly I hate it. It is good if you have a long and boring motorway journey but I get stressed about getting it nicked and to be honest if the kids don't have it, they never ask about watching dvds.

Other than that, lots of top trumps, sweets, fruit, drinks etc. I also let the kids have binoculars (just the cheap ones) so they can spot things (anything frankly!) from the windows - it's great being so high up.

We're off to the Gower Peninsula in ours on Saturday, and our next big trip (hopefully) is Morocco next Easter.

Where are you off to?

Amanda