Nico thinks 65 degrees is sweater weather. Maya once wore mittens to school when it was 58. These are Miami kids, born and raised, and for MLK weekend at Long Pine Key the forecast low was 47. Dana looked at that number on Thursday night and said, "We need a plan, because I'm not doing this twice."
We've had cool nights before. Our first January in the Everglades got into the low 50s. But 47 in a tent is different, and it's the kind of cold that sneaks up at 3 a.m., not at bedtime. Here's what we did, what worked and the one thing I got wrong.
Before bed: warm them up, then keep it
A sleeping bag doesn't make heat. It holds the heat you bring into it. So the whole evening was about getting the kids warm and dry right before they climbed in.
- A hot, filling dinner. Chili and hot dogs at 6, while there was still light.
- A warm drink an hour before bed, not right before. Hot cocoa at 7:30, so there was time for the last bathroom trip.
- Movement. I'm a PE teacher, and I'm not ashamed of this part. At 8:15 we raced to the bathroom and back, then did twenty jumping jacks by the tent door. Nico counted to twenty-five because he likes the higher numbers.
- A full change of clothes. Fleece pajama pants, a long-sleeve shirt, a fleece on top, a beanie, and socks that hadn't been worn all day. The clothes they wore around camp all afternoon carry sweat and dew, even when they feel dry.
The bags, the ground and the warm-bottle trick
Our sleeping bags are basic Coleman rectangles, the kind you can find at Walmart. In my experience they're comfortable down to about 50, and below that you're adding help.
The kids are short and the bags are long, which leaves a cold pocket of empty space down by their feet. We folded the bottom foot of each kid's bag under itself and tucked it beneath the pad, so their feet were near the end. Then a fleece blanket over the top of each bag, because extra layers on top are cheap and easy to kick off if they get too warm.
The ground is where the cold really comes from. The kids sleep on foam pads, which aren't fancy but don't hold air, and air turned out to be the problem. Dana and I were on a queen air mattress, and by midnight it was a giant cold pack. I woke up around 2 with a chilled back and the start of a decision about air mattresses that I'll get to another day.
The trick that worked best was the warm bottles. About 20 minutes before bed, I heated water on the camp stove until it was hot but not boiling, filled two hard plastic water bottles with screw lids, checked each lid twice and wrapped each bottle in one of my wool socks. They went into the foot of the kids' bags to warm them ahead of time. When the kids climbed in, the bottles were already there. Maya kept hers by her feet. Nico hugged his like a teddy bear and was asleep in eight minutes.
We cracked the tent's top vents, too. A closed-up tent on a cold night collects every breath as condensation on the walls, and by morning it drips on your face. A little airflow costs almost nothing in warmth.
The 3 a.m. wake-up, and my mistake
At 3:10, Nico was crying quietly that his feet were cold. Dana got to him first. His bottle had worked its way up near his chest, but the real problem was his socks. In the chaos of bedtime, I'd skipped his sock change. He went to bed in the cotton socks he'd worn running through wet grass at dusk, and by 3 a.m. they were cold and clammy.
We swapped them for dry ones, moved the bottle back to his feet, and he was asleep again in about ten minutes, wedged between Dana and the tent wall. Maya slept through all of it with her headlamp still on her forehead and a library book open on her chest.
My phone said 47 at about 5:30. The sun hit the side of the tent at 7:15, and the kids ran straight out to stand in the one patch of sunlight on the site, like anoles on a warm wall. Dana stood beside them in two hats, holding a café con leche in a white enamel mug, and announced that she had survived.
What we'll change next time
The kids' dry socks will go inside their sleeping bags at dinnertime, so the change can't get skipped. I'll bring a third bottle for Dana, who has requested one in writing. And we're done with air mattresses on cold nights.
The rest of the plan worked. Both kids now say the cold night was the best part of the trip, which is either proof we got this right or proof that kids remember things differently than parents do. Maya drew the frosty breath clouds in her journal. There was no frost. She drew it anyway.
