Calling all parents:

Have any of you been crazy enough to camp with your children (<6 months) in temperatures below freezing? My family and I have been planning a trip to the Grand Canyon for months now, but recent forecasts are putting lows around 25 this weekend. We've camped with our 4 month old daughter down to 40 degrees, but never lower. I'm sure we could have all sorts of layers ready, share a sleeping bag with her, etc etc. Yet I still worry about keeping her head and face warm in those temps.

Is this just an overall terrible idea, or is it really not all that bad?

…on how much experience you yourself have in camping below freezing. Have you done it enough to have experience with adversity in freezing conditions?

What age do kids start shivering?

Personally I wouldn't feel comfortable taking a baby that young into those kinds of temps, although others might.

Nor would I. I think babies are not going to sleep well if there face is cold. Of course I wouldn't want to risk smothering them by covering the face either. I just don't like the idea for any child before they can speak for themselves to tell you what's wrong.

I don't think it's a bad idea. I think proper layering of course would be key, and use a good pad. Speaking of infants and camping, I got in some deep water with mom when I set up the shot below, to the left is a steep grade with jagged rocks. I'm sure you all recognize the location.

Caleb, that is a sweet shot!

Although I have plenty of experience camping in temps well below zero, my girlfriend does not. I think that we have come to an independent opinion to bail on the trip. I'm not opposed to experimenting with camping in these temps with our daugther, but not sure that I want to commit to a 3 day road trip with VERY expensive lodging nearby as the bailout option.

This might be an excuse to get a wood stove.

At that temp i would bring the baby in the bag with me. That way if you are warm they are warm. I would go skin to skin and use a warmer bag then required

I did that when campingwith our six month old when lows were at freezing. It worked well and i still slept pretty good.

I dont co sleep at home but for camping it works. The biggest risk is leaking diapers getting there sleeping bag wet.

I use to bushwhack in those mountains :)

Try a yard camp, to see what temperatures work

Ive camped with my kids down to about 30 when they were under a year old. I've never found them to require more than I required. If your face is warm while sleeping, theirs will be too. The problem arises when you don't want the baby out all day in windy/wet conditions so mom has to sit in the tent or car all day with her. If you two are willing to put up with the inconvenience, and you're helpful to mommy with this kind of stuff, I don't see any reason you would have to bail. Just a little less time around the campfire for each of you is all, you do have a bit less fun though.

I've never had children, but I have friends who have done some remarkable trips with theirs.

Take a look at Erin and Hig's blog and especially about last fall's two month trip on the Malaspina Glacier in Southeast Alaska.

http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Journeys/LifeOnIce.html

My favorite passage... The Logistics: How did it work out?

Everyone survived (and even enjoyed the journey). The Titanium Goat tent (and it's amazing stove) saved our a**. The diapers held out. The rickshaw was an idea perhaps more clever than functional. And solar power is a difficult thing to rely on in a sleeting November.

When our second daughter was about six months, we spent a week camping in near freezing temps. She was still nursing, so we kept her in our shared bag, and she tended to burrow under my wife. She was fine, and is still fine!

We've done it several times. It's fine, but it's challenging. The only thing to do is bundle the child up and have them share your sleeping bag and pad as others have suggested. My only worry is about suffocation: just be cognizant of their location in the sleeping bag. When hiking or hanging around camp, I'd probably keep them in a Baby Bjorn type carrier to ensure they get enough of your body heat. I think that it's great that you're doing this ... it's tough ... and at times borderline enjoyable, but waaaay too many people put their passions [like camping/backpacking] on hold b/c of children - take them with you! We've had our kids in a lot of places you'd never find children; it's just about being prepared, slowing the pace, and at times, lowering your expectations.

And with that, I leave you with this [not my video or child], but very funny:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGhTZFzb43A

"Skin to skin" is a myth and every living human being is warmer with dry insulation on (clothing) even inside a shared sleeping bag.

It's simple physics. Unless your body temperature is colder than the temperature inside the sleeping bag (highly unlikely unless you are dying or dead... or it's over 98 degrees outside, in which case you are both dumb and probably dying if you are inside a sleeping bag), you are shedding heat, and more insulation slows that down.
Physics also applies to infants :)

Edited by dasbin on 04/10/2012 02:43:52 MDT.

We've done a three day two night group car camping trip with a 2 or 3mo old (I don't recall exactly- he was born in July and we camped in the fall) where the temps got down to the low 30's. We've always had our babies in our bed with us so it was natural for my wife to have the baby in her bag with her as well. Nursing was difficult though, for her to be that exposed (both her and the baby were clothed). I told her they need to make nursing shirts so she could whip it out to feed the baby w/o losing all the layers of warm clothing, and later we found out that they already make stuff like that.

The unexpected problem we had was with the older kids scooting out of their bags during the night. The older boys slept in the all boys tent with a couple of adult chaperones, and I also had my 2 and 4 yr olds in my tent with me and my wife. We all had kids occasionally scoot out of their bags, to be found curled up and shivering on the bare tent floor. I ended up unzipping my bag and using it like a blanked for me and my 2yr old since he wasn't going to make it through the night in his bag.

So, as long as you have a good wide bag with lots of girth, I'd say just go for it and take the baby in the bag with mommy... Wear layers, because when shuffling around to switch sides to nurse on during the nights (assuming you guys nurse) will suck in a lot of cold air.

BM

edit- he was 5mo old, turns out we did the trip in Dec. found some pics with dates... And the days were warm- t-shirt warm, so it's not like the baby was freezing 24hrs a day... Dunno what daytime temps you expect, but it's less stress if you know you only need to worry about keeping the baby warm through the nights, rather than the whole day too...

Edited by Ultra_Magnus on 04/10/2012 12:02:14 MDT.

Skin to skin is less about staying warm and more about knowing the babies temperature. Babies lose heat faster as they have a larger surface area to volume ratio. Even if you are warm enough with the same clothing they may not be. So if you are skin to skin you can monitor there temperature better rather than worry about it or constantly checking.

Oh modern society, how you forget history so easily.

Inuit have been doing this for millenia, as have the people of Himalaya and any other cold or mountainous region. Even in an igloo, temps only rise to right around freezing.

Just keep wind off a baby's face and bundle them up well. Fur ruffs (like on any non "technical" parka) are phenomenal at breaking up wind patterns and keeping still air in front of a face. Supposedly natural hairs like coyote are best but the nylon stuff on many baby jackets would probably work well enough.

Also you may want to limit the distance you hike so in case of an emergency a short bail distance isn't a huge safety concern.

Well people have been doing this for thousands of years but that doens't mean it was alway a fun experience. You want to enjoy this not survive.
My family took babies camping in fairly cold weather. Of course we were normally using a pop up camper back than because we had too many little ones to backpack very well.
Sometimes a baby would wake up crying for unknown reasons. In Colorado we could never tell if it was cold or altitude making them fussy. This happened a couple times. Normally we'd drive down to a lower elevation which solved both problems than go back up later.
I'd suggest a test trip car camping. If the baby is unhappy you have options.

How far down are you going into GC? Its warmer the further down you go. I went there last month and the forecasted low for the rim was in the 20s but 2000 ft down at Horseshoe Mesa it never got to freezing.