Gear

first appologies for my spellings!!

i travel with 2 small children 2.5 and 9 months, i used a littlelife pop up travel cot with both (still with youngest) and woundering weather its worth it, they both roll around alot in their sleep and i find myself taking youngest in and out alot (at home he sleeps through) thought about buying bigger see if it helps at all or not?

how has others got in with or with out travel cots and which kind have you tried?

We've used one of these for our daughter over the last couple of years :

http://www.littlelife.co.uk/html/travel_cots/arc-3-travel-cot.html

She does sleep happily enough in it and the netting has been a blessing in mosi country! I don't know if that's the model you have but it's pretty good in function although materials could be better chosen and the finishing isn't great. I think it's been updated since we bought ours. It's certainly leagues better for travel than the pop-up 'umbrella' cots.

I'm not sure it was available on the UK market when we bought the littlelife, but if I was buying now I'd take a close look at one of these:

http://www.ubergear.co.uk/Vaude-Baby-Tent.html

Vaude's heritage in tents means that they've achieved something similar for much less weight and (quite probably) better made.

Thank you,

i have been looking at these, but woundered just how much space they can take up? what tent do you use to (if dont mind asking)

i have TNF VE25 and so far have had some critisism on here for my choice, just seeing what is working for others?

Nice John

Your training her to be an astronaut already are you ,looks like a rocket capsule ...

I've seen an account from a Belgian couple of walking the GR10 with a 6 week old (yes 6 WEEKS) and they just seemed to put the little bugger on a self inflating 3/4 length mat.  But this is a great thread as I was asking about tents to accommodate our impending arrival the other day.

 Here's the article I mentioned

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/babyonboard.html 

Six week olds don't move from where you put them! That's easy... it's the wriggly things they soon become that you have to worry about!

Actually I've never used this travel cot inside a tent; she's slept in my lightwave t2 between me and my wife without difficulty. The travel cot has been used for travel/backpacking around Italy and to our relatives in Canada and hence pitched mostly indoors.

thanx stuart will have read, but i had just thought about the mat as that is what the rest of us use, and he has spent a night or two on one and been ok?

We had a travel cot given to us, but it tended to take up quite a bit of room in the tents sleeping compartment. In the end we just opted for a small self inflatable mat between myself and the wife. It seemed to make night time niggles easier to deal with as well.

We also used baby grow bags for the kids to sleep in, with a warmer top added when camping. They can roll about to their hearts content then, without ever losing or getting caught in their bedding.

Even now, both kids still prefer a self-inflator and sleeping bag over their normal beds! 

We took our first family camping trip with our 18 month old son last month and he slept in this in one of the tent pods.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/3676046/c_1/1|category_root|Toys+and+games|14417629/c_2/3|cat_15701449|2+for+15+pounds+on+Toys|15052090.htm

My wife sowed on a zip and a panle over the hole so he couldn't crawl out. He loved it and slept great the whole trip. We looked at the other options but it came down to £15 (incl the tunnel) versus £80-100.

My only tip is if they're toddling age make sure they are tired the first night so that they're ready to go to sleep.

i have done till now but finding more of hinderance than a help to be honest, but also very handy for traveling to family too.

found helps rolling children to stay in one place better and maybe keep warmth in to but otherwise not to convinced on practicality.

Oké again:

I think travelcots are too heavy. It's easier and lighter to use a Self inflating mat or a closed cell mat and stashing some bags around the little onde so it cannot wriggle itself from the mat. No bags available? You can make a sleeve with which you can convert your mat into a somekind of cot. Several options...

Here is a thread about that method:

http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/forum/forummessages/mps/UTN/28292/URN/5/dt/4/srchdte/0/cp/1/v/100/sp/

Hi Zuma,

I liked your suggestion before - as per the linked thread - but never got around to sewing the thermarest conversion kit. Now she's old enough to manage without. I never pitched the travel cot inside the tent... but I never left her in the tent alone to sleep.

Hi John,

Good to hear, saves some weight! Our youngest daughter had to manage herself form birth on. Ofcourse we helped her back on her mat when she got awake, just us sleeping on at such moments wasn't an option  .

 After a couple of nights with not too much sleep we managed to stack our gear, which we didn't use in the evening and night, around her mat in the right way. So after a couple of nights experimenting we had a set-up that was sufficient to keep her from wriggling of the mat. What also helped was using a fleece blanket wrapping it around her bag and stuffing the sides of this blanket under her mat. So her own weight kept the blanket kind of in place.

If it hadn't worked out this way I would have made this sleeve, I had the design but it wasn't necersarry...

Friends of mine let their first baby sleep in between them in their hilly nallo GT4. They also carried a cot, A Nomad that was, but they used it as a place to keep the baby while they where busy with whatever that they couldn't watch after their child constantly (cooking, difficult passage on hike).