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Child Sleeping Bags for Camping
By Hikerpro | July 6, 2009
The kids need to sleep well at night on a camping trip if you too want to sleep well. Your kid’s warmth and comfort depends on you and the sleeping gear you got for them.
However, children have different needs to adults when it comes to sleeping bags. The design of sleeping bags for children are a lot more simpler.
Manufacturers usually make use of cheaper materials to make kids sleeping bags. More are made of synthetic fibers than down. It’s fair to assume that if you’re going to invest in a high quality kids sleeping bag it’s not going to be something your children will grow out in a few years.
Price is not the determining factor why down is less preferred than synthetics. Less care is needed when using synthetic sleeping bags and when wet they’re easy to dry. This is important especially when your kids are in the nappy years. Down sleeping bags for kids are costly and it’s part of the reason why they don’t get many buyers.
For backpacking, weight is an important consideration. There may not be much difference in weight between down and synthetic sleeping bags for kids since they’re very small.
It’s inevitable that lower quality kids sleeping bags are more popular. Down may be overkill anyway since kids sleep warmer than adults. Even with bigger surface/volume ratio which causes kids to lose more heat, they sleep warmer because they have a higher metabolic rate.
Most non-rectangular kids sleeping bags have a hood, draft tube and draft collar. The hood is critical in really cold weather because you lose a lot of heat through your head.
One of the most popular sleeping bag for children is The North Face Tigger which is rated at 20 degrees and made of synthetic fill. The absense of cords to adjust the hood, your kid won’t be tangled during sleep.
A draft tube helps keep the warmth inside the bag by preventing it from escaping through the zipper. Draft collars enhances the bag’s insulation properties even further by prevent heat from radiating above the shoulders and out of the sleeping bag.
You’ll find that kids sleeping bags are also made by REI, Deuter, Lafuma, Big Agnes and Slumberjack among others.
There’s a huge range of kids sleeping bags that can be found in the market from cheap baby-fat types to ones that have everything including shaped hoods, pad loops, draft tubes and more. In general, kids sleeping bags are cheap but it cost as much or more than the adult version depending on the level of sophistication.
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