Do camping and small children mix?

[Hilary]

Right, the situation is this - we have been offered a brilliant deal on a big tent suitable for our family. We are very tempted to buy it as ds1 starts school in September so suddenly we will need to holiday in peak times and can hardly afford a holiday in low season as it is.

Do any of you have experiences of camping with young children (4 and 2) and have you got any tips or must-haves?

Thanks,

Lucy124 I agree about the duvet thing, I took all our duvets on holiday and it was so cosy. Agreed it is more bulky but we actually put ours at the bottom of the boot and by the time everything is chucked ontop they sqaush to nearly nothing!

lucy, re the camping fridge, I would like to get one but worry about it draining the car's battery - is that a problem ever? (There is one at Lidl this week for 60 quid.)

You need something called a rectifier. The car/camping fridges have a lead with a plug that goes into the cigarette socket on the car. The rectifier takes the cigarette plug as input then has a normal 3-pin plug output so it can run off the mains.

Then you need to get (at a camping shop) a lead for an electric hook-up. Has a round plug one end and a normal socket the other end. Then get electric hook-up pitches (usually need to book) at campsites. We kept the fridge in the car all holiday and ran it off the car when moving then off the mains back at the campsite with the lead going from the hookup into the car. These fridges are surprisingly noisy.

Can get rectifiers and hook-up leads from camping and caravanning shops.

My DP would laugh so much if he knew I was giving electrical advice here!

Thanks, Lucy! I think the one in Lidl had a rectifier with it then, there was a picture on the front of a black box with wires both ends.

If you need a hookup do you get parked amongst the caravans or do they have tent hookups too? I would love a fridge...you can get very tired of cheesy milk!

V impressed with the electrical tips!!!

Loads of great ideas here already not much I can add, we have had some fantastic times camping with DD, now 2yr old - funnily enough our first camping trip was to North Morte Farm (see lots of posts below), when she was about 6m.

Turned into a disaster - got there on Friday eve, DD started being sick on journey up(for a while thoght it was just baby sick then realised it was more serious). Our first night 'camping' was actually spent camping in Barnstaple hospital, in an isolation ward - the rota virus (sp?) had struck!!! You don't take that many spare clothes camping with you, do you? As a result, after a number of 'hits' by about midnight I was down to my swimming costumne until one of the darling nurses took pity on me and gave me a hosptial gown!!!

Other than that one-off the camping has been great fun, we went to Exmoor recently and had a fantastic time. I think its worth starting early, then they get used to it - trying to get a 2yr old to sleep in a tent if they have never been in one before can be timeconsuming on that first night when you just want to crash out! IME from night two onwards its fine!

Lucy 124 - we got a fold up high chair as our main highchair for that very reason. It straps onto a normal chair when at home then makes a freestanding chair/table on site, also good for visits to relatives or for snacks in hotel bedrooms. No idea where we got ours from - Argos? Mothercare? I think a few places did them.

We go camping lots and I am looking forward to taking baby. There is a campsite I would recommend for new campers, just for a weekend to see how you get on with camping. It's Billing Aquadrome Nr.Northampton. About 1.5 hours from London for those of you in South. Lots & lots of facilities. I seem to spend about 8 w/ends up there in Summer due to my DH love of fishing, which it offers a lot of.