Camping with young children, without buying twice

Children lose heat faster than adults in the same tent, so the sleep setup decides whether a family trip works, not the size of the shelter. A small child in an adult sleeping bag has a large volume of air to warm and, under about three years old, no reliable way to tell you it is not working. Plan sleep first, rehearse one night at home, and buy in two stages.

Why children get cold faster than you do#

The physics is geometric. For bodies of similar shape, surface area scales with the square of height and mass with the cube, so surface area per unit mass scales with 1 over height. A 1.0 m child next to a 1.75 m adult has roughly 1.75 times the skin area per kilogram of body mass. Heat leaves across that area and is produced roughly in proportion to mass, so the same air temperature costs a child more.

Two other factors push the same way. Children carry less subcutaneous fat for their size, and young infants shiver poorly, relying instead on metabolic heat production they cannot sustain. Wilderness Medical Society hypothermia guidance singles out infants and small children as a higher risk group for these reasons.

The practical consequence is that "they run about all day, they will be fine" is a daytime observation applied to a night-time problem: a sleeping child produces close to their resting heat output, in still air, at the coldest hours.

Cold hands and feet are a poor test, since peripheral vasoconstriction makes extremities cool in a perfectly warm child. Feel the back of the neck instead: warm and dry is right, cool means add a layer before anyone wakes.

Why an adult sleeping bag is the wrong bag for a small child#

A sleeping bag warms the air trapped inside it, and the occupant does the heating. Treat an adult bag interior as a rough box 1.9 m long, 0.45 m wide and 0.25 m deep: that is about 0.21 cubic metres, or roughly 210 litres. An adult body displaces perhaps 70 litres of that, leaving 140 litres of air to warm. A 15 kg child displaces about 15 litres, leaving nearly 200 litres of air for a body producing far less heat.

The bag also fails mechanically. The child slides down inside it, the hood will not close around a small head, and the empty foot section becomes a cold reservoir that never warms. A warmer adult bag fixes none of it. Workable alternatives, in rough order of cost:

• Shorten what you own. A cord or clip gathering the bag across at the child's foot level removes most of the dead volume; a fleece blanket inside takes care of the rest.
• Two adults, one child, one duvet. Two rectangular bags zipped together with the child in the middle works from about age one and is warmer than any of the three parts alone.
• A child-specific bag. Sized to the body, with a hood that closes, and about 20 cm of growth room, no more, because growth room is dead air.
• Under 12 months, no camping bag at all. Safer sleep guidance still applies: back sleeping, a firm flat surface, no loose bedding or pillows. A travel cot with a TOG-rated cot sleep bag to EN 16781 transfers straight into a tent.

The mat matters more than the bag in all of these cases, because a small body crushes insulation as completely as a large one. R-3 or better is the sensible floor for three-season family camping, and the arithmetic is in the sleeping pad R-value guide. A child on a bare air bed will be cold whatever the bag label says, for the same reasons adults sleep cold.

Sleep matters more than gear on the first night#

A familiar pillow, the usual story and the same order of events as at home do more for a first night than any tent upgrade. The variables that break children's sleep outdoors are light, noise, temperature and unfamiliarity, and three of the four are cheap to fix.

Light is the one people underestimate. At northern European latitudes in midsummer it is fully light well before 05:00, and a thin tent inner transmits plenty of it, so a darker inner or a sleep mask for an older child buys an hour that changes the whole day. A bright lantern at bedtime signals daytime: use a dim warm light, and give each child a head torch with a red mode for night waking. The headlamp guide explains the FL1 numbers on the packaging.

Keep the bedtime routine on home time rather than campsite time. A late night "because it is a holiday" is repaid with a 05:00 start and a difficult second day.

The family camping checklist#

The list covers the family-specific additions to a normal car camping load: sleep, layers, the medical bag and the boredom kit. It sits on top of the car camping checklist, which handles boxes, food and water.

What changes with age#

Ages do not just change the kit, they change the problem being solved. Under three, the problem is thermal and supervisory. From three to six, it is boundaries and boredom. From seven up, it is independence, and the fix is jobs rather than entertainment.

The two trip rule for buying#

Family gear gets bought twice for two reasons: people buy before they know what fails, and children grow. A rule that avoids both:

1. Trip one: buy nothing that can be borrowed. Buy only what is personal or hard to borrow, usually each child's mat and waterproof. Borrow the tent, the stove and the chairs.
2. After trip one, write down what failed. Not what was annoying, what failed: cold at 03:00, nowhere to change a nappy, no shade, no way to dry anything.
3. Trip two: fix only the top failure, borrowing again where you can.
4. Buy after trip two, and only what failed on both trips, in this order: sleep, shelter, warmth, cooking, comfort.

Two trips separates a real problem from an unfamiliar one. Most first-trip complaints do not survive a second trip, because the family has learned the routine rather than bought its way out of the problem.

Sizing for growth has its own arithmetic. WHO growth reference data puts typical height gain in mid childhood at roughly 5 to 6 cm per year, so a bag bought 20 cm longer than the child lasts three to four years, which is about the useful life of the fabric anyway. Doubling the growth room does not double that life, it just adds dead air to heat tonight.

The garden shakedown night#

One rehearsal night at home removes most first-trip failures, at no cost.

1. Pitch in the garden or on the drive in the afternoon, and let the children help.
2. Cook the actual camp dinner on the actual stove, outside in open air.
3. Run the full bedtime routine at the normal time, in the tent, with the real sleep setup and sleepwear.
4. Set an alarm for about 04:00 and check the back of each child's neck. It is the most useful data point of the night.
5. In the morning write down four things: who woke and when, what was cold, what you hunted for in the dark, what you never touched.
6. If it goes badly, everyone walks 20 metres to a bed. That is the whole advantage of doing it at home.

Run it once more in rain if you can, or spend ten minutes with a hose on the flysheet, which also tests the seams before a forecast does. Wet weekends are covered in camping in the rain, and the shade and seating that make one survivable are in camp comfort and furniture.

A safety perimeter that works with children#

Rules that ask children to remember an abstraction fail. Rules attached to a visible boundary work, because the boundary does the remembering.

• Give the kitchen a floor. Mark the stove area with a mat, a rope or a line of chairs, and teach one rule: ask before crossing. A visible edge is enforceable in a way that "be careful near the stove" is not. Stove choice matters too, since a low, wide burner is much harder to tip than a tall canister-top unit: see camp stove types.
• Hot things do not move. Pans stay on the table, handles inward, with one named cooling spot, and everyone says the same phrase aloud when carrying something hot.
• Water is arm's reach, not line of sight. For non-swimmers, the adult on water watch does nothing else, and buoyancy aids go on at the tent, not at the water's edge.
• Boundaries are landmarks, not distances. "Anywhere you can see the red tent" is a rule a four-year-old can apply. "Fifty metres" is not.
• Everyone wears a head torch from dusk. It makes children visible to adults as much as the reverse, and a guy line sweep at dusk prevents the most common camp injury.
• Nothing that burns fuel goes inside. No stove, no barbecue, no fuel lantern in a tent or a closed porch, ever, including for warmth and including a barbecue that looks finished. Cooling charcoal continues to produce carbon monoxide.

Common mistakes#

Buying the big tent first. Floor space is the most visible purchase and the least likely cause of a bad night. The mat under each child is the most likely.

An adult bag for a toddler. Roughly 200 litres of air, a body that cannot heat it, and a hood that will not close.

Trusting the daytime high. Inland sites on clear, still nights routinely fall 10 degrees C or more below it, and the coldest hour arrives long after everyone is asleep.

Packing clothes instead of layers. Six t-shirts do not equal one warm mid layer and a waterproof: see the layering system. And during cooking there is a cook and a watcher, who are different people.

Booking three nights for a first trip. One night that goes well produces a second trip. Three nights that go badly produce none.

Frequently asked questions#

What sleeping bag does a young child need for camping?#

One sized to their body, with a hood that closes and no more than about 20 cm of growth room. Published ISO 23537 ratings model adults of 60 and 70 kg, so treat any number on a child's bag as an indication rather than a measurement, and add a fleece blanket or a warmer mat rather than a bigger bag. Under 12 months, use a travel cot and a TOG-rated cot sleep bag instead.

Can my child sleep in my sleeping bag?#

Not well. An adult bag holds roughly 200 litres of air, and a small child has to heat nearly all of it while sliding down into an unheated foot section with a hood that cannot be closed. If it is all you have, gather the bag across at the child's feet with a cord, add a blanket inside, and put the child between two adults.

How do I know if my toddler is cold at night?#

Feel the back of the neck or the upper back. Hands and feet are cool in warm children because blood flow to the extremities drops during sleep, so they are a false signal. Warm and dry at the neck is right. Cool skin, or a child who has gone quiet and still after a restless start, means add a layer now rather than at the next waking.

How long should a first family camping trip be?#

One night, within an hour of home, on a site with toilets and running water. A single night has enough failures to teach you what to change and not enough to become miserable, and being close to home means an early exit is an option rather than a disaster. Extend to two nights once one night has gone well.

How do I keep children safe around a camp stove and fire?#

Give the cooking area a physical edge, using a mat, a rope or a line of chairs, and teach one rule: ask before crossing. Keep pans on the table with handles turned inward and one designated cooling spot. During cooking, one adult watches and a different adult cooks. Nothing that burns fuel ever goes inside a tent or a closed porch.

What should children wear to sleep in a tent?#

A base layer top and bottoms, dry socks, and a hat when the night is heading below about 10 degrees C. Everything worn during the day comes off, because damp clothing keeps cooling the skin all night. Add a fleece layer inside the bag rather than a heavier bag, and keep a spare set dry for the child who spills a drink at bedtime.