10 replies to this topic

[tobnac]

Hullo all.  Mrs Tobnac and I are festival veterans, but 2011 will be our first with a wain.  He'll be exactly a year old when we come to EoTR - does anyone have any general tips on festivals with a sproglet, and advice on EoTR in particular?  Cheers!

[perfectpassion]

Is he a Lykke Li fan?

Edited by perfectpassion, 19 April 2011 - 08:27 PM.

[wackojackohighcliffe]

Please make them wear earplugs/earmuffs. Saw too many toddlers on shoulders in the crowd at the Garden Stage whose hearing you could almost see getting damaged.

Oh and enjoy it

[marooned]

Fellow Scot ????? - nothing you won't have heard before BUT, EOTR gets cold quickly - as a steward I lost count of the number of 'wailin' wains' who were dressed for the September Sun, only to fall victim to the after eight temperature drop at Larmer Tree Gardens....

[tobnac]

No, not a Lykke Li fan as far as I know.  He mainly likes anything with harmonica in it.

I think he's too small for earmuffs so will avoid going too near the front.  I'm resigned to this being a very different festival experience from before!

No, not a Scot, picked up wain from my dad, who's a Geordie. (though I'm now told it should be spelled wean).  Good point about the cool evenings, will def bring ample ruggage.

Thanks all for comments and keep em coming!

[clareandguy]

HI - we had our daughter using the Peltor Kid ear protectors from the age of 6 months, and they worked fine. I would really recommend buying early, and training your kid into using them - if you try to get him to put them on for the first time at the festival, you are certain to have a weekend of picking up discarded ear protectors. We found that getting an older and admired child to model them worked really well as a way to convince her that they were cool.
If you have a buggy with large, inflatable tyres, capable of handling dodgy terrain (ok, mud), bring it- the ear protectors have a magic way of sending a kid to sleep, we've found. If not - at around 1 year old we used a back-carrier quite succesfully. I remember getting to see quite a lot of complete sets with a sleeping girl on my back - unlike between age 1 and 2 1/2 when there was a lot of interrupted listening thanks to independent mobility, and lack of attention - overcome(we hope) by EOTR last year when Django Django were the first band that she was transfixed by for a whole set.

EOTR itself is lovely, and I can't think of a better festival to try out with a kid for the first time - we've been twice and seen nothing even vaguely resembling unpleasant behaviour.
CAn't think of anything else at the moment, but will post more if something does occur.

[perfectpassion]

Great to hear someone giving sound advice about ear protectors   As someone with many musical friends with poor hearing, and remembering how sensitive my kids hearing was, I get very upset to see kids being forced by parents to listen to tooooo loud stuff

[Yokel Again]

Little piece on the Guardian re; kids at festivals with abit of advice, and plenty of reference to EOTR. (Plus, the typical 'kids at a festival?' debate in the commments):

Linky linky

Looking forward to taking our little one.

[thedailygrowl]

The main thing is to lower your expectations about what you will be able to do, and especially what bands you're going to see. We've had kids every year at EOTR apart from the first (when we had none) and each year I scan the impressive line-up wondering what I'm going to see. Usually not that much.

Festivals are a very different experience when you've got kids. Before they arrived, we generally hurried between stages, filling all our time with watching bands. Now we explore pretty much every other part of the festival too. There are things on for kids all day from films in the morning, craft workshops, circus skills, music for kids etc (though at only 1, yours may be too young got a lot of that). There's also a good little playground tucked away in the corner of the site. And bedtime stories at the library in the woods is always good - they have a decent selection of kid's books.

[Yokel Again]

Anyone got any more tips? Particularly re: keeping a very little one warm at night either out on site or in a tent?!

Only a few weeks to go - eardefenders purchased... now on the look out for some warm clothes etc etc!

[thedailygrowl]

Yokel Again, on 25 July 2011 - 10:12 AM, said:

Anyone got any more tips? Particularly re: keeping a very little one warm at night either out on site or in a tent?!

Only a few weeks to go - eardefenders purchased... now on the look out for some warm clothes etc etc!

We've previously put our babies in their usual gro-bag sleeping bags, then inside and kids' camping sleeping bag, which are really warm and usually come with a pillow attached. That should do the trick. For the older kids, an age-appropriate sleeping bag should be fine. Having them sleep on airbeds will protect against the cold ground, like it does for adults too.