VW T5 and a newborn

[Sweetpea1989]

Hi all!

We are keen campers/wild campers. We now have a little one and have hired a VW camper so hopefully we can still get the experience with the little one. Is there any tips or advice anyone can give me? Valuable equipment, sleeping solutions etc. She will be 8 weeks old.

Experienced campers but complete novices when it comes to VW camper vans.

Thanks!

Think very carefully about what you need to take with you regarding the baby.

Will you have electric hookup or are you just using the leisure battery?

Electric hook up means you can use domestic plug in equipment (I think some sites may have limited output though so you may not be able to use high powered items such as a hair drier.)

The leisure battery is used to run things like the fridge, pump for the sink taps, internal lighting - it will run out if you never move the van - if you go for a bit of a drive each day it should be ok.

Are kitchen utensils supplied with the van? Useful things that may be omitted are tin opener, sharp knife, bottle opener, corkscrew.

Do you need sunscreen, sun hat, wooly hat, torch, insect repellant, anti histamines, basic first aid kit?

That’s good advice I didn’t know that the leisure battery didn’t power the sockets, I won’t worry about a hair dryer but if needs must the shower blocks have them.

With regards to odds and sods we have well equipped camping boxes with the essentials which we will take. Plus we’re only heading to Yorkshire/lakes so won’t be a million miles away from a supermarket.

You may want to take a small tent to throw stuff in for storage rather than cluttering up the van - it also makes going out for the day a little easier if you don't have to pack everything away and are returning to the same site - some sites may charge a little more for that.

We are seasoned T5 owners (it’s our daily family vehicle too) and have been taking our children camping in it since they were babies, 7 weeks old onwards and were away for a month on one occasion with them - both under 2 years old.

We have never used electric hookup, 15 years ago we only very basically kitted out the van we had then so have just got used to not having it and have never struggled, use decent coolbox and regular supermarket and refreeze ice packs as and when at some campsites (or ice cubes from a bar in plastic bag!). We also don’t have a pop up roof, it’s only with 2 children that we have invested in a driveaway awning to store all the extra bumpf that comes with taking 2 children camping (originally for their car seats and double buggy at night!). One young baby was fine just with the van.

Our bed is a full width bed and when they were small I used the carrycot from the pram or a Moses basket down the side of me and worked really well, I know others that have narrower beds folded front seat down and put carrycot on there. We have also used a travel crib under the side window which worked well and also one child sleeps across the front seats which is good. If breast feeding that’s simple, if bottle feeding we used Milton in sealed bucket of water for sterilising, tucked under the van so out of the way. I have always been fine with using the communal sinks to bath baby but may not want to do that at the mo so would be worth taking something (plastic box, washing up bowl etc) you could use to bath baby. Baby bouncy chair is well worth squeezing in if you can. Also factor in where you are going to store the buggy at night - may be able to store on front seats??

I thoroughly recommend it but most of my friends thought we were bonkers taking them so young!

Brill that’s great advice @hophop26 I don’t think we will take a buggy as it’s not good on rough terrain and have a couple of slings that do the trick for walks. I might take a sleepy head for night time and a foldable bouncer for hands free, I’m breastfeeding so that makes things a bit easier and we have a tent that we can throw up to store bulky bits in.

Sounds like your did a fab refurb of the van with loads of happy family memories to go with :)