I've just got home from holiday. We went camping and hiking with our one year old daughter. A lot of people thought it would be next to impossible doing this with a small child, but we had a lot of fun. A few impressions...
The Aletsch Glacier - impressive!
We went to Switzerland and decided to pitch our tent on a camping site we knew from a previous holiday. Our goal was to do some hiking and this way we knew the terrain, so as not to embark upon unknown adventures.
Camping with Lily was a lot of fun. There weren't a lot of things she wasn't allowed to do - besides jumping in the garbage or trying to eat grass. That resulted in happy and relaxed parents and a happy and relaxed child (a bonus!). The only problem we encountered was that Lily wouldn't sleep in the tent during the day time. Too light and too hot... That of course resulted in a tired child at the end of the afternoon. But it also meant she went to bed very easily in the evenings, and fell asleep almost immediately every night.
She learned to open zippers and at the end of our holiday she could let herself in and out of the tent.
We'd bought her a Didrikson's waterproof suit. Perfect for those rainy days when she wanted to crawl, but the ground was humid, cold and everything was really wet.
We received a Deuter child carrier from a colleague of mine and bought a rain cover to go with it. The first two walks were really hard but after that you adjust to the weight of your child and it becomes easier to carry. Lily is used to being carried around and she loved every bit of the walks. She could easily sleep in the Deuter and the rain cover proved to be very effective on the rainy days.
What is cuter than a sleeping child...
I guess that if your child isn't used to being carried, sitting a whole day in a child carrier can be a bit of a challenge though...
Lily and me on the Swiss border with Italy (Albrunpass) - yes, those are the shorts!
On the camping we used our tried and true Ergo Carrier (also received from a colleague) to carry Lily around when we had some cooking or other chores to do. I guess this would be something I'd never thought to buy but it's the one item that I couldn't live without anymore. We use it a lot at home as well, to carry her around and get some work done. We didn't bring her pram and actually didn't miss it at all.
So all in all a very relaxing and fun holiday! I guess the bottom line is that like always the idea of what you can and can't do with a child is mostly a mental barrier that you create yourself...
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