Volkswagen California & Camping With Babies

[soulstyledevon]

So this year, our first son arrived.
My wife and I love travelling, especially our California trips and having a little one brought a few dilemas.
The amount of extra stuff required for a baby had us thinking, how do we still manage to camp with this little person and carry and store everything we need. Steriliser, bottles, crib, pram, food for baby and lots of other things needed to keep him going. In a small van like a Cali we knew that we would need some extra space.
So we decided the van would not be big enough and invested in a new tent.



Having owned camper vans for many years i had forgotten how awful tents were. Its was to cold for him, took far to long to erect and take down and seemed a lot more noisy than being inside the van. It was generally less comfortable than we were used to.
We managed one sleepless (parents will know all about sleep deprivation) night and returned home from Wales and immediately sold the tent.

Back to the drawing board. I figured we would be better to sleep back inside the van. Diesel heater and our creature comforts much needed. So we bought a pop-up crib called, Koodi. This now sits downstairs on the main bed and baby and mum sleep together in the warmth. Dad upstairs in the pop top. Result, baby loves it and sleeps great again.



The other thing we needed to buy was some storage. After a lot of research i decided to buy a Quechua Base Seconds. This is used to store stuff from the van. We arrive at our campsite, build the Quechua and transfer our storage boxes, pram etc into it.
It is absolutely brilliant...!!!
I can build within a few minutes and take down in around 5



Its definitely a lot harder travelling/camping with a baby, but with some planning and minor adjustments it is possible. We have just returned from France and managed 6 nights camping at two different sites and 4 nights in a guesthouse and 4 nights in a hotel to break up the camping. We have now adapted and learnt a lot over this trip and another to north devon recently.

The great thing is we are back camping and enjoying travelling again. Our son had his first disastrous camping trip at 3 months old, but now at 8 months old we have sorted a system that is finally working.
If anyone is in a similar position and wondering how to tackle things, let me know. If i can help, i will, if its something we struggled with or came across.

Soul

 

[Ignazio]

Great: one Beach (after two t4 California coach), me and wife, and three little girls: 5,5 years old, 2,5 and 8 months. We made it, in France two weeks. It's hard but so beautiful. They're learning camping art, and love to live it together. Good look, at least one more baby to keep high the challenge…;-) ciao from Italy.


Inviato dal mio iPhone utilizzando Tapatalk

 

[soulstyledevon]

Great: one Beach (after two t4 California coach), me and wife, and three little girls: 5,5 years old, 2,5 and 8 months. We made it, in France two weeks. It's hard but so beautiful. They're learning camping art, and love to live it together. Good look, at least one more baby to keep high the challenge…;-) ciao from Italy.


Inviato dal mio iPhone utilizzando Tapatalk

Kids love camping. I have took my niece and nephew in the past and they love sleeping in the van, eating and cooking outside and being on a big adventure. Big kids love it too

 

[Lewis]

Great post @soulstyledevon - reassuring to hear that things are going well. We're hoping to use the rear parcel shelf in the Ocean as our baby bed.

I am quite scared of what we'll do with an awake baby in the middle of the night in the Cali. Just got back from Centre Parcs today and our little madam decided last night she'd like to be awake from 12:30-3am - in a lodge it was just about bearable but I do worry about a confined space. Need to have a plan of action so mummy doesn't have a meltdown on our first trip!

 

[soulstyledevon]

Great post @soulstyledevon - reassuring to hear that things are going well. We're hoping to use the rear parcel shelf in the Ocean as our baby bed.

I am quite scared of what we'll do with an awake baby in the middle of the night in the Cali. Just got back from Centre Parcs today and our little madam decided last night she'd like to be awake from 12:30-3am - in a lodge it was just about bearable but I do worry about a confined space. Need to have a plan of action so mummy doesn't have a meltdown on our first trip!

That was the good thing with the Base Seconds. We stacked our boxes, baby car seat and pram in there and also set out the table and chairs from the Cali. So thus we had some extra living space. Baby goes to bed at 7pm, mum and I would sit under the awning and then into the shelter once it got too dark/cold and left baby to sleep peacefully inside the van until we were ready to turn in.

Not sure how we would deal with a crying baby in the night. We are quite fortunate that he's a good sleeper.
Honestly, he slept brilliant in the Cali I think he loved it, plus mum was right next to him to give him his dummy if he started crying. Usually he goes straight back down again once he has his dummy.

 

[gregspam]

I'm all for keeping it minimal, even with a baby - makes setting up and packing down much less work. Here are a few things I found helped:

Cot - The rear part of the downstairs bed makes a perfect cot, so we've never found the need to bring anything extra. If the baby cries, it's all double glazed and well padded back there, so the noise won't bother your neighbours too much We drape a blanket across the gap between the roof and the seat back to keep it dark. That way we can happily sit in the main area eating dinner or having a drink while the little one sleeps. Come bed time we bring the bed down and sleep up top. When they get a bit older, it's brilliant seeing their smiley face poke up from behind the seat in the morning. We wild camped a few times with the roof down and I made a custom mattress and bed base that sits across the rotated front seats, which folds in two when not in use. This allowed us to sleep on the downstairs bed. Admittedly the extra mattress takes up a fair bit of space, so we only take it if we know we're going to need to keep the roof down.

Steriliser - For young babies, we found either a cold water steriliser or boiling bottles in existing pans we already take did the trick and keeps it simple.

Car Seat - These are generally big space hogs and you don't want them hanging around in the main living area when you set up camp. If you choose carefully though you can get seats that aren't too huge. We found we needed to avoid the rotating ones that are generally bigger and one piece. We now have a Maxi Cosi 2-way pearl and the base sits neatly in one footwell with the seat in the other. With the front seats rotated there's still space to store other things back there so everything is out of the way. If little one needs to eat (ours is now a toddler), putting just the car seat on the rear bench and pulling the slide out table close up makes a good high chair substitute.

Pushchair - These probably take the most amount of storage space so I've always avoided taking ours away with us. For young babies, slings worked well for us and for toddlers a backpack carrier folds down to be reasonably compact and store in the boot or between the front seats. We often take our bikes with us on the bike rack, along with a child bike trailer that also functions as a buggy or sports stroller. This is stored in a purpose-made heavy duty waterproof bag on the rack. When we go for runs or long walks around cities we take that in preference to the backpack carrier, but it can live outside folded down/packed away.

Play area - Quilt on the floor to play with toys works well. Potty by the heater outlet in the morning is nice to make sure the little one isn't chilly first thing on cold mornings. Needless to say the potty is small and compact. Now ours is a bit older she has to be a bit more careful not to bang her head on the table and upset our food!

With all of this we've found everything fits in the van quite comfortably with no need for extra pop up tents etc. We've just come back from a week away where we took two bikes, a balance bike, a bike trailer, a kiteboard, a couple of kitesurfing kites and an inflatable SUP, all while keeping the main living area free and not needing extra outdoor storage. Saying that does make it seem like I'm reserving space for the grown-up toys rather than the child's!

Probably not to everyone's taste, but might appeal to those who want to keep it lean and mean. We tend not to stay somewhere longer than a night, two nights max, which might explain our approach. We've got a second one on the way soon, so will need to think a bit more about how that will work in the coming months! When they get a lot older, a motorhome will certainly have appeal as the space in a Cali is finite...

 

[soulstyledevon]

Must admit we took to much stuff on our trip to France. We can definitely slim down on a few things for our next trip.

I would recommend swivelling car seat as we found it helped with feeding and makes life easier getting baby in and out of seat.
Just make sure you get ISOFIX seat. We have the NUNA seat and it only takes seconds to fix onto the 3 seat bench in the Beach.

Agree on pram. We took our full size pram and it was a right PITA. Gonna have a look for something smaller and more compact for the next trip. Not a fan of the sling carriers. Very hot and uncomfortable for parent and baby when it gets hot. Much prefer a buggy. Also helpful if you end up at a restaurant or somewhere which dosent have baby seating.

Got to say, going forward we will probably take and use the Quechua Base Seconds. Just because it's so easy to erect and take down. The benefits of having the extra storage/living space is brilliant

 

[Jimcrow]

Waterproof seat covers are a must. Roof box may help for a long trip but like gregspam we like to travel minimally and have the ability to stealth park up if needed. Our little boy, now a year old had his first trip at 10 days old and has had in excess of a trip a month since! For him van living is normal.

 

[NZCol]

Less is more. We did the baby on the rear shelf thing then migrated to a travel cot in the roof and then a toddler in the roof and a modified stair gate across the gap.
Take as little as you possibly can, car sets can usually be snuck in behind the rotated seats sideways.

 

[soulstyledevon]

Here is one of my dilemmas.
See pic below.

When it was just my wife and I. We would place the Volkswagen coolbox behind the front passenger seat and leave it there through our entire trip.
Now we have the rear seat further forward to allow for more bootspace and the coolbox goes in the boot. However, we can't make the bed downstairs because the multiflex needs to slide back to the rear, but the coolbox already locates in the sliding rail where the multiflex needs to be...???
If it locates in the centre rails, you can't open the fridge in the day, because the multiflex above won't open with my bedding on it and thus cannot open the coolbox.
Following...???

So, we need to rethink where the coolbox lives and possibly invest in a smaller unit.
I did wonder if it's possible to install some kind of sliding rails to the rear to mount the cool box and pull out when we needed to get in to it...?
Along the lines of the slidepods kit, but just for the coolbox.

 

[soulstyledevon]

http://s14.photobucket.com/user/soulstyledevon/media/D0D4A2D6-5B5B-44CC-A59F-EAFF0465A278_zpsqv0f40ql.jpg.html][/URL]

 

[gregspam]

You have a Beach whereas we have an SE so hard for me to comment. You have the luxury of a wider downstairs bed than we do, but the flip side is we have a section of the van in an SE/Ocean reserved for everyday living, including a fridge. We tend to store food, nappies, potties and other frequently accessed stuff in the under sink cupboards. Clothes go in the wardrobe so that main 'living area' always has everything you need easily to hand. The boot is reserved for 'toys' and things that are relatively infrequently accessed

I guess using the beach in a similar way requires a bit more thought and fine tuning especially if you have the nice full width bed. Maybe some Beach owners can chip in with ideas, I'm sure I've seen something on here before about slide out fridge for the boot.

 

[soulstyledevon]

The Beach has good storage, but it's always stocked with everything we use for camping. Plates, cutlery, flashlights, teabags etc etc.
The boot on our last couple of trips was full with baby gear. Pram, cot, steriliser and food maker etc. We are starting to slim it down.
I have to watch carefully what my wife wants to take and what we actually need.

The seat will stay forward for travelling going forward as we want baby up close to make sure he feels part of the trip.
Need to look into the cool box situation as it's definitely staying in the boot or I might look into something smaller to fit in-between the two front seats.
That my biggest obstacle at the moment.

 

[cleve]

Glad you're enjoying your cali again. Just remember it does get easier! Here's a thread I posted a while ago about travelling with young children with some tips. We did a road trip this summer nappy and pushchair free now our youngest is 3 which was quite refreshing but still wouldn't be without our mft euro select box for extra storage!

https://vwcaliforniaclub.com/threads/camping-and-travelling-with-young-children-some-tips.7890/

 

[soulstyledevon]

Glad you're enjoying your cali again. Just remember it does get easier! Here's a thread I posted a while ago about travelling with young children with some tips. We did a road trip this summer nappy and pushchair free now our youngest is 3 which was quite refreshing but still wouldn't be without our mft euro select box for extra storage!

https://vwcaliforniaclub.com/threads/camping-and-travelling-with-young-children-some-tips.7890/

Cleve, great thread. Made me laugh as we have gone through similar things.
The drive away awning thing, it was like us and buying another huge tent, then realising what a PITY they are

I see you have the Quechua base seconds. Absolute brilliant aren't they. We had a party at ours last weekend and erected it in the corner of the garden for the kids to play in.
My wife timed me to take it down. Packed and back in its bag, just shy of 3 minutes, I swear I could do it faster

 

[cleve]

The Quechua base is brilliant although be warned we are now considering selling it as we managed with just the Quechua beach tent for storage this year! I'm sure it will continue to be an evolving process as the children get older. Can't imagine us managing with just the cali as they become teenagers in years to come!

 

[Stuart]

Here is one of my dilemmas.
See pic below.

When it was just my wife and I. We would place the Volkswagen coolbox behind the front passenger seat and leave it there through our entire trip.
Now we have the rear seat further forward to allow for more bootspace and the coolbox goes in the boot. However, we can't make the bed downstairs because the multiflex needs to slide back to the rear, but the coolbox already locates in the sliding rail where the multiflex needs to be...???
If it locates in the centre rails, you can't open the fridge in the day, because the multiflex above won't open with my bedding on it and thus cannot open the coolbox.
Following...???

So, we need to rethink where the coolbox lives and possibly invest in a smaller unit.
I did wonder if it's possible to install some kind of sliding rails to the rear to mount the cool box and pull out when we needed to get in to it...?
Along the lines of the slidepods kit, but just for the coolbox.

We've got a Waeco CF26 which fits below the multiflex and is bungee'd to the RHS legs of the multiflex to stop it sliding around. The multiflex always stays in the rear position, and the bungee has enough slack so that the fridge can be pulled out and opened.

A rail system would definitely be better than the bungee cord if only I could find the time to make something!

 

[Flood51]

Great to see this new forum subject "Cali Kids" especially as we are new grandparents and had forgotten the delight and challenges of a new baby.
They come with so much baggage ! Planning to depart is a logistical operation and all timing revolve around feeding times. Already ordered a Quechua Base Seconds, looks amazing and may make the awning with Comfortz sides redundant. Interesting hints on compact pushchairs and travel cots so thanks for the tips. We are the "Monday/Tuesday childminders so I can see it will end up Saturday-Tuesday out in the Cali. One things for sure about a new baby it gives you a renewed positive outlook on life, subject to the amount of sleep snatched the previous night of course.

 

[Borris]

So this year, our first son arrived.
My wife and I love travelling, especially our California trips and having a little one brought a few dilemmas.
Soul

What a great thread and what a lovely little chap.
We are building up the courage to take three of our grand children camping this year. I am thinking of buying a large awning to create extra squabbling space. We'll let you know how we get on.
Kids love camping and I am sure your little one will grow up with fond memories of the holidays with you, his family.

 

[Flood51]

I brought my daughter and SIL a Littlelife Cross Country S3 Child Carrier. It come with a sunshade and is adjustable in backpack length to fit rugby playing SIL or Shorter daughter. Comes with insulated bottle pocket, zip on nappy, wet wipe sack and handy mirror on a string to check on the little man. Not as hot as a sling and the sort of luxury grandparents should be pursuaded to buy

 

[Amarillo]

I brought my daughter and SIL a Littlelife Cross Country S3 Child Carrier. It come with a sunshade and is adjustable in backpack length to fit rugby playing SIL or Shorter daughter. Comes with insulated bottle pocket, zip on nappy, wet wipe sack and handy mirror on a string to check on the little man. Not as hot as a sling and the sort of luxury grandparents should be pursuaded to buy

View attachment 22099

The problem I have is finding a backpack carrier that packs sufficiently small to carry about in the van during an extended tour.

 

[Flood51]

The problem I have is finding a backpack carrier that packs sufficiently small to carry about in the van during an extended tour.

Agreed, eventually space does become a problem. We're hitching the Brenderup trailer for this years two week summer break. Rear camera makes reversing easier, but I understand sometime in the 90's they took it off the standard license and there's another test, personally I think it was unwarranted but beaurocracy reigns.

 

[soulstyledevon]

Here is one of my dilemmas.
See pic below.

When it was just my wife and I. We would place the Volkswagen coolbox behind the front passenger seat and leave it there through our entire trip.
Now we have the rear seat further forward to allow for more bootspace and the coolbox goes in the boot. However, we can't make the bed downstairs because the multiflex needs to slide back to the rear, but the coolbox already locates in the sliding rail where the multiflex needs to be...???
If it locates in the centre rails, you can't open the fridge in the day, because the multiflex above won't open with my bedding on it and thus cannot open the coolbox.
Following...???

So, we need to rethink where the coolbox lives and possibly invest in a smaller unit.
I did wonder if it's possible to install some kind of sliding rails to the rear to mount the cool box and pull out when we needed to get in to it...?
Along the lines of the slidepods kit, but just for the coolbox.

Just quickly read through the post and thought I would answer my own question.
The solution was a sliding rack. Probably seen it elsewhere on the forum. But so glad we did this...!!!

 

[soulstyledevon]

How times fly.
A couple of years later. Now with an Ocean.
Happy with my choices in Holland 2019