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Evening all,
I’m taking the kids, 7 and 3, camping (again) in a couple of weeks and after the last weekend we had, with glorious sunshine, the 10pm fall-asleep and 5am wake up, I’m wondering if there’s any way I can darken the sleeping compartment so they sleep a bit earlier!
Anyone have any suggestions on something I can buy/trick I can use to make it a bit darker regardless of how sunny it is/isn’t.
My kids are nutters and are 1000mph all day long so I don’t want them getting too tired through not sleeping or the next day they’ll be massively grumpy (like last time 😔 )
Any help greatly appreciated.
Sleeping mask? You can get fun ones with cat ears and whiskers and stuff to appeal to kids. My one doesn't have cat ears, nope, definitely not... 🙄
some decathlon tents have blackout material built into them. Excuse for a new tent?
This one IS a new tent!
Sleeping mask might be worth a try, but doubt the boy would keep it on...
Tarp over the tent?
Maybe use a portable barbecue in the tent. The soothing smell helps everyone sleep.
Please don’t do this.
Just let them wake up and keep themselves occupied .... Ipad with earphones.
Don't feel bad about this.... they will obvs love it and you'll no doubt be doing loads of outdoor family stuff later in the day.
Good luck, have fun
Eye masks for sure. our 6.5 year old has no problems using an eye mask while we have masks and ear plugs. We all regularly end up sleeping until 8ish while camping and just returned from a week camping feeling very rested.
Be less ambitious for day 2 to account for early afternoon sense of humour failure. If you're cycling to the campsite them this will also impact day 1. Better you have a less than stellar time than you dissuade the kids from further camping.
We bought blackout curtain lining and draped it over the kids sleeping pods - seemed to do the trick.
Thanks for all the ideas guys.
Where'd you get the blackout lining wwaswas?
Grab some camo netting from the army surplus?
Just don't close their bedroom curtains at home. They'll soon get used to sleeping even though it's not pitch dark, then it won't be such a change when you go camping. FWIW, we use neither curtains nor blinds at home.
Space blankets are inexpensive, light enough not to disrupt the way the inner tent hangs and opaque enough that they'll block a good amount of light; attach them shiny side facing out with little bulldog clips or pegs.
Decathlon sell the black out bedroom separately, https://www.decathlon.co.uk/air-sec-fam-84-xl-fb-room-id_8518789.html?
Calpol or Medised, with a Piriton chaser.
Please don’t do this. 🙂
Amazon or EBay are bound to have fabric you could drape over their inner tent.
Could you position a gazebo over their sleeping pod, adding sides if needed ?
We also drape blackout blinds over the inner tent. It's not 100% effective but certainly buys us some time of a morning.
We have a couple of Gro Anywhere blinds ( https://gro.co.uk/product/gro-anywhere-blind/) which are a bit dear albeit generally worth their weight in gold.
If starting from scratch I'd look for a fabric blind along the lines of Gro Anywhere rather than a space blanket because space blankets might be noisy if it's breezy, and are typically not very breathable.