So last weekend, when most people thought we were mad, we brought our little 10 month old to the new forest for her first camping trip.
We were ambitous and opted for 3 nights, but lucky we had the help of 2 of our friends that came with us, on what was their first camping holiday too.
We left around mid afternoon on Friday and took nearly 2 hours to pack the car! We realised that you potentially need a van when camping with a baby. We decided to ditch the buggy and cope with a hiking backpack to carry Isobel for the weekend. I was lucky to borrow this from a friend at work. This could have gone horribly wrong since we never used one before, but to our surprise she even managed a nap in it.
We really were not sure how to put Isobel asleep in our tent, but after speaking to a friend we discovered she had a baby tent for use indoors. It did the trick and fitted perfectly inside our tent just at the end of our feet. I brought a black out blind with me that never managed to stick to the windows but worked perfectly thrown over the baby tent to try and create a night time effect.The weather was absolutely amazing, our biggest problem was getting Isobel to sleep at her normal time of 7pm. I ditched the routine as she spent an hour giggling at me as I tried to put her asleep, so most nights her bed time was 9pm. She did end up sleeping better than in her own cot on 2 nights so that was a bonus and we even managed a lie in of 7.30am!
Planning her food was a little bit more tricky, so I brought a lot of puree jars with me just in case. We have a camping stove so we could boil water for formula, and my trusty flask was again used to keep boiled water stored. I also brought a litre of ready made formula with me, as a back up and this was so handy when away from the campsite.
Isobel really loved the weekend and rolling around on the picnic blanket watching everything around her. The campsite was a hive of activity with kids on school holidays. Isobel was easily entertained watching them fly around on their bicycles. She even made a little friend Angus, who came over to play with her and show her his toys, which was so sweet. Her first holiday romance 😍.
The weekend was defintely a success and we are already planning another trip soon. For anyone that’s as mad as us, here are the essentials for baby;
-Blankets x 2
-Heavy onesie for baby to sleep in
-Pre made food, snacks such as avocado, rusks, breadsticks, fruit.
-Pre made liquid formula
-Flask
-Hiking baby carrier if you like long walks
-Picnic blanket
-Toys, not essential, I had 1 or 2 favourites
-Baby camping seat, this was a big hit with Isobel
-Sunscreen & sunhat
-Seperate sleeping area safe for baby
-Baby changing mat (I again forgot it, and we had a few changes in boot of car on top of my raincoat)
Camping chair from Go Outdoors
Rolling around in her tent
