Dreading early wakenings on camping trip- tips please

[Louloumum]

Calling happy campers with families. We have a 1 and a 3 year old and I'm dreading them waking up as soon as it gets light when we do our first family camping trip in August. Anybody got any proven blackout solutions for us? Thanks!!

In my experience, they're so shattered from all that fresh air and running around, they sleep better and longer than they do at home!

misshardbroom has a good point, DD (3 yrs old) slept all the way through til 8.30am, didn't even stir. Was amazed as it was bright at 4ish and the noise of the birds was deafening!

If you keep them up later do they sleep in later? Or are they the kind who just wake up same time anyway but grumpy?

We've always been amazed at how well our ds's (3 and 1 too) sleep. IME it's even better when it's raining - the white noise I think!

We always point their part of the tent north west (only works with a large tent) so they don't get the heat and light first thing.

In our long gone festival days in a 2 man tent we used to put a wet blanket on top of the whole tent and got at least a couple more hours kip when everyone else was forced outside!

When our children were little they stayed up until after dark when camping, then slept in later the next morning - I agree that they sleep really well in a tent (which is more than I can say for myself).

One of ours tends to wake up earlier than the other, but my DH is an early riser, so DD1 and DH sleep in one part of the tent so they can get up quietly and go out for a walk, while DD2 and I fester for another couple of hours in the other room, waking if we're lucky to the aroma of frying bacon...

Would echo comments about keeping them up later. We abandon all attempts to put them to bed at their normal time, and let them run around until they are utterly exhausted or until it is dark, whichever happens first. This avoids a fight when putting them to bed and usually means that they sleep in later.