Camping with a baby - are you feeling brave?

I'm not really a camper but my husband loves it and so does my extended family. So I decided to put my childhood aversions aside and am now trying to get into it. However it was with mounting trepidation that I began packing for our camping holiday this year. It is probably important to note two 'small' issues at this point in the story. 1. I have only really been camping three times (this being the third) and 2. this will be the first time we go camping with a baby.


When we arrived at Dragon Peaks (Drakensburg) I was pleasantly surprised at just how civilized it was - a nice pool, many clean ablution blocks with hot water, a games room, a shop and many other amenities. Suffice to say that my, mountain-climbing-sleeping under-the-stars, brother was not all that impressed that you didn't need to hike for a day to get to your campsite and that there was running water and electricity piped to each site. I on the other hand think that your bar fridge, toaster and electric kettle are camping essentials and that if you can't wash your hands you may as well call yourself a heathen and just give up on cleanliness. So for all you hard core campers rolling your eyes at me for taking all this gear I'll just say what my husband’s standard response was to any guy who teased him about it - 'if it means Emma will go camping again it will be worth all the extra space and effort'. Then as an aside, that I'm pretty sure he hoped I wouldn't hear, he'd add 'but if we need to bring anything more next time I'm going to have to buy a trailer'. To be fair this is true as you can see from the picture below - every inch of the car is packed and Josh is in danger of being swallowed up.

Tucked into his hiddy hole amongst all the gear.

As we pitched our tent we discovered the first big difference camping with a baby makes -  only one of us could work at a time. This meant that is took twice as long to set up as usual and with all that gear that’s a long, long time. Finally about 2hrs after we arrived (and after we had watched everyone else frolic of to have a swim) we had made camp and were both exhausted but before our bums had not even reached the seat when our boy needed dinner so it was up and to work again.

That first night we struggled to get him to sleep but he finally went down in his little pop up tent (really just a pop up mosquito net). We collapsed into bed thinking it must be terribly late, only to discover it was only 8:30. That's when the storm began. I've never heard anything like it, maybe because usually I'm under a solid roof between four walls, the thunder was so loud a big clap actually set off my uncle’s car alarm. Our son, amazingly, slept through the entire ruckus like a deaf beetle curled up in his little nest.

The lake outside our tent with the family constructed fire wood log path.

We awoke the next morning to a lake just outside the front of our tent. This is when we discovered that, apart from the obvious muddy draw backs of having a drenched campsite, we could not put our son down to play anywhere as the ground was either a puddle, a mud hole or a combination of both. He got so frustrated with being passed around the family that eventually we put out black plastic bags and a blanket for him to play on. To be fair camping with family is loads of fun and with all my extended family around there were lots of hands to help out with Josh.

Say ahh for the food - All the family helps out with getting J to open his mouth.

The Girl Sqaud coming back from bathing J.

The next three days brought more of the same, rain, rain, rain, thunder, rain, rain. Fortunately one of my aunts had decided to rent a chalet instead of camping. Thank goodness we had somewhere to retreat to when it got too bad and we had had enough of wet, muddy feet.

We did have one nice morning which we seized with both hands and went off for a hike. If was actually really fun to take our son out into nature in his backpack being carried around like Lord Muck. He loved every minute of it, especially the waterfall. In fact he was so mesmerized by the gorgeous surroundings, which is understandable in the Drakensburg, that he refused to breast feed. Thank goodness for light and portable breast pumps - thanks Medella. I have to admit that there could not have been a more beautiful and unusual setting for expressing.

Lord Muck and Daddy checking out the view.

Expressing beside a babbling brook how peaceful. Although straight forward breast feeding would have been easier.

However keeping baby things clean became more and more of a challenge in our mud hole and our son got the sniffles and had an unnervingly raspy sound in his chest so after 3 nights, I'm sad to say, we decided to leave. We were due to leave on Wednesday morning but we weren't sure it was smart having our son in the cold for another night so we packed up hastily on Tuesday evening and began the trek home, only slightly earlier than planned. I was actually pretty impressed that we made it that long with a baby, all that rain and a mommy who hates being muddy.

My advice is if you really want to brave camping with a baby then make sure its not rainy season in KwaZulu Natal when you go. It might well be Christmas holiday time and you will be blessed with beautifully green scenery but, like the warnings on those silly log rides at amusement parks say - You will get wet.