Children’s bed across captains chairs

[Scjones]

This all slightly reminds me of Grannie Jen’s view on roof boxes (I think) - ‘if you need one, you’ve bought the wrong van’.
There is an element of truth there. Beach?

We had the cab bed hammock thing. It worked very well for us with a 3yr old in it. She really liked it. Our baby son was then in the boot which worked great as a cot with the seats up. This meant my wife could get down in the night and sit on the bench and feed the baby when needed. I’ve still got it if anyone wants it!?

We love having the pop top and the Cali in general. It is just my son sleeps outside in a pup tent which is fine in good weather but pretty miserable in heavy wind and rain. If both kids can be persuaded to sleep in the pop top then no issue but having another option is good too

 

[ThomasHJ]

We have used several solutions the last couple of years (our kids are now 4 and 6). We tried an inflateable matress in the front seats which worked well but the seats needn't be turned. We also made a nice bed that we could place over our feet in the downstairs bed, allowing our youngest to sleep over our feet. But he was much younger (smaller) then. As your daughter is 9, that may not work. (see below). The bed was light weight and could be stored under the matress. For more photo's and explanation check here.

What we have done succesfully recently (when there was a storm) is the following.

We swivel the seats and move them towards the bed as much as possible, allowing our mattress (Sea To summit SIM) to be moved as well and to rest on the front seats. This extends the lower bed, allowing our son to sleep at our feet (or heads if you wish) perpendicular to us.

 

[icic]

Hi all,

I’m wondering if anyone has a good solution for adding a kids bed across the two captains chairs in VW Cali Ocean when facing inwards. I’ve done loads of research tonight, looking at various products on the market like the Cabbunks (awkward to fit and makes use of pop top difficult), various ebay bunk options (look like seats need to be forward) and the cab hammock (lots of issues setting up and not very comfy apparently).

I think some people put a booster seat laying sideways between the seats for support and just stick a memory foam mattress or self inflating mattress across the seats - does this work well for kids and any recommendations if so?

My daughter isn’t very tall (a small 9 year old) and it is mainly for when very windy as she gets scared up top. Would mean my son could sleep up there instead of the pup tent on cold nights too (he is currently refusing to sleep up top when his younger sister up there).

Ideally not take up too much storage so perhaps mattress could be used up top when not downstairs.

Any thoughts? Anything new on market?

Sorry you got that reply about the search function. We have the cabunk, it’s fantastic, our son loves it so much and prefers being in it to the bed. He’s says it’s very comfortable. One you get the nack it’s very easy to set up. for a while we would set up the bunk with the lower and upper bunk. However we removed the lower bunk and just have the upper, as a result we can get the bunk up in under 2 minutes, as there are less straps, even that quick with the doors closed if it’s raining or a quick stop over. This leaves a big space under the bunk on both seats, which we use to put clothes and anything else we need stored when we put the big bed down. We find we can both sit on the bench with the table up very comfortably while he sleeps in the cabunk. In addition a thetford toilet can fit between the bunk and the bed when down, so you can stay in the van on quick stopovers, You can get up on the bunk into the roof if you spread your weight, but never feel too comfortable doing that, but we find that with the 3 of us we are comfortable all being downstairs. As for packing down it goes down into a very slim package, even more so if you remove the lower bunk. It’s stows across the van behind the front seats. We cant recommend it enough it’s a great piece of kit

The Picture is when we first got it, we don’t use the ladder anymore, and we removed the bottom bunk, the top is the same