I recently became an (older!) parent. Not wanting to give up adventuring, I thought it would be useful to share tips and kit folk have found useful when taking their kids on trips. It may not be possible to do quite the light-weight, carry less by knowing more trips we could do pre-baby, but there are some really useful bits of kit and information out there that helped in some ways.
My little one is now 10 months old and has been camping three times, canal boating, on foreign trips to France and Portugal and various day trips. Here's some of the stuff we have found useful so far, please add anything you've found useful and approximate age of child for which it's relevant to this thread.
For any child on formula milk, we have found JosephJoseph folding kitchen scales a brilliant (and compact) way to measure the correct amount of water given that there are very few flat surfaces to put bottles when camping. (Thanks to C_Claycomb, who gave these to us as a house warming present a few years ago!)
Again, for children on formula milk: Nalgene bottles can hold boiling water without melting. We would fill the bottles with boiling water (so we knew the water and the bottles were both sterile) and use it to make up milk during the day. Please note that there is still a risk with the actual milk powder not being sterile, so be careful about accidentally putting dirty hands into the milk powder when scooping it out and that sort of thing. The official line on this is to only make up milk with boiling water so that it sterilises the powder, but we ignored that and just used common sense and care - it's your call.
Another one for formula milk (boy did I wish breast feeding had worked out!): Milton is a great way to sterilise bottles when camping. Take a plastic bucket and use a permanent marker to mark the level of water you will be using (I think it was 5l). That way, you only have to measure the water once, at home, then you can use the mark on your bucket while camping. At the bushmoot, I changed the water each day, but if water is in short supply (as it was on a 10 day camp we did later on) then you can just throw another milton tablet into the same water each day. A cloth over the top of the bucket will reduce the number of insects that get into the water.
If you're taking some kind of bowl for washing up, consider using it as a bath for a small baby as well.
Slings. There are loads on the market, and they are a great light-weight way of carrying a baby. Now our little one is on our backs, I have found a baby hawk carrier really useful.
When flying, it helps small babies to be sucking on a bottle of milk on take off and landing so their ears can cope with the pressure changes.
Most flights these days allow you to carry a couple of items such as pram and car seat as extras in addition to your normal allocation of luggage, it's worth checking!
And that's about it from me so far. Looking forward to ideas from you guys for when our nipper gets a bit older
My little one is now 10 months old and has been camping three times, canal boating, on foreign trips to France and Portugal and various day trips. Here's some of the stuff we have found useful so far, please add anything you've found useful and approximate age of child for which it's relevant to this thread.
For any child on formula milk, we have found JosephJoseph folding kitchen scales a brilliant (and compact) way to measure the correct amount of water given that there are very few flat surfaces to put bottles when camping. (Thanks to C_Claycomb, who gave these to us as a house warming present a few years ago!)
Again, for children on formula milk: Nalgene bottles can hold boiling water without melting. We would fill the bottles with boiling water (so we knew the water and the bottles were both sterile) and use it to make up milk during the day. Please note that there is still a risk with the actual milk powder not being sterile, so be careful about accidentally putting dirty hands into the milk powder when scooping it out and that sort of thing. The official line on this is to only make up milk with boiling water so that it sterilises the powder, but we ignored that and just used common sense and care - it's your call.
Another one for formula milk (boy did I wish breast feeding had worked out!): Milton is a great way to sterilise bottles when camping. Take a plastic bucket and use a permanent marker to mark the level of water you will be using (I think it was 5l). That way, you only have to measure the water once, at home, then you can use the mark on your bucket while camping. At the bushmoot, I changed the water each day, but if water is in short supply (as it was on a 10 day camp we did later on) then you can just throw another milton tablet into the same water each day. A cloth over the top of the bucket will reduce the number of insects that get into the water.
If you're taking some kind of bowl for washing up, consider using it as a bath for a small baby as well.
Slings. There are loads on the market, and they are a great light-weight way of carrying a baby. Now our little one is on our backs, I have found a baby hawk carrier really useful.
When flying, it helps small babies to be sucking on a bottle of milk on take off and landing so their ears can cope with the pressure changes.
Most flights these days allow you to carry a couple of items such as pram and car seat as extras in addition to your normal allocation of luggage, it's worth checking!
And that's about it from me so far. Looking forward to ideas from you guys for when our nipper gets a bit older
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