Taking 2 Year Olds

[LGH]

Hello to all the parents of the festival, I hope you had a great time.

My wife and I have both done Glastonbury many times from 2013-2017, it's very special to us, we met there and got engaged there, now we have a little man who's birthday will fall on the Glastonbury weekend most years! 

Next year we are planning to take him and I've been trying to recruit some other parent friends we have made to join us, my question is how busy does the family camping area get and how quickly does it fill up? Would we be able to go on the Thursday and setup a camp for say 8-12 adults? Or would it be best to send a few people ahead on the Wednesday to do the setup?

 

[blutarsky]

Don't do it 🙈

[Neil]

Taking the kid is a joyful experience. Sorry, but I can't answer your specific questions, as I never used family camping as I was working there and used crew camping.

[LGH]

@blutarsky When the options are don't go, or go with a 2 year old, I'm going to try the latter! 😄 

Is that response from experience?

@NeilThanks, I'm sure when people are back in their homes I'll get some responses from folks who were in that field this year. 

[blutarsky]

1 minute ago, LGH said:

@blutarsky When the options are don't go, or go with a 2 year old, I'm going to try the latter! 😄 

Is that response from experience?

@NeilThanks, I'm sure when people are back in their homes I'll get some responses from folks who were in that field this year. 

I've taken a 1-year-old to a much smaller festival, which was fine, but only because I didn't feel I was missing out on much around the site while 'doing childcare'. It was muddy which didn't help as daughter couldn't go down, and getting around a small site wasn't easy. 

My primary reason for not doing it is I wouldn't want to have to miss out on 80% of what Glastonbury has, and don't personally agree with dragging a child around to everything I want to see. If we had our daughters there we'd be focused on doing 75% of stuff for them. 

I think we'd take them once they're around 10/8. Even then this would be with childcare for at least one night (my parents go). 

[Neil]

my son, now 27 went every year thru his childhood, and i reckon it was a great mind-expanding experience for him. kids are very open to new experiences, make sure you have ear defenders cos they tend not to like it too loud.

[Neil]

perhaps try some smaller festivals before doing glasto, to find out everything you'll need to take, etc.

[LGH]

8 minutes ago, Neil said:

perhaps try some smaller festivals before doing glasto, to find out everything you'll need to take, etc.

This is a good plan, we've got tickets to the downs festival in Bristol with a ticket for the little one too, but we may go without him. But it could be a good idea to see if we are prepared or not although we wouldn't be camping so not sure if it would be an accurate reflection. 
 

 

12 minutes ago, Neil said:

my son, now 27 went every year thru his childhood, and i reckon it was a great mind-expanding experience for him. kids are very open to new experiences, make sure you have ear defenders cos they tend not to like it too loud.

This is why I'm so keen to take him.

 

24 minutes ago, blutarsky said:

I've taken a 1-year-old to a much smaller festival, which was fine, but only because I didn't feel I was missing out on much around the site while 'doing childcare'. It was muddy which didn't help as daughter couldn't go down, and getting around a small site wasn't easy. 

My primary reason for not doing it is I wouldn't want to have to miss out on 80% of what Glastonbury has, and don't personally agree with dragging a child around to everything I want to see. If we had our daughters there we'd be focused on doing 75% of stuff for them. 

I think we'd take them once they're around 10/8. Even then this would be with childcare for at least one night (my parents go). 

You always miss out on 99% of the festival anyway! Yes, this is the idea for going as a group, swap some childcare evenings as I'm not sure I'd want to take them anywhere overly busy anyway. I'm trying to go into it with my eyes as open as possible, I know it won't be the same as when I went in my 20s child free!

[blutarsky]

30 minutes ago, LGH said:

You always miss out on 99% of the festival anyway! Yes, this is the idea for going as a group, swap some childcare evenings as I'm not sure I'd want to take them anywhere overly busy anyway. I'm trying to go into it with my eyes as open as possible, I know it won't be the same as when I went in my 20s child free!

Yes, but I'm talking about missing out on 80% of the 1% of the festival I get to do! 
I didn't go this year as my second child is only 7 weeks old, but in 2022 my festival only happened between 4pm and 6am. That's not possible with kids. 

Edited June 26, 2023 by blutarsky

[Neil]

8 minutes ago, blutarsky said:

 my festival only happened between 4pm and 6am. That's not possible with kids. 

it is if you take a babysitter, we (me, and another friend-couple with kids used to take along  another-friend who had little interest in the festival),  and who'd baby sit when we wanted to do stuff without the kids. as a friend he was a regular babysitter away from the festival for us both, and our kids knew him very well,

it was the perfect set-up. 🙂 

Edited June 26, 2023 by Neil

[blutarsky]

6 minutes ago, Neil said:

it is if you take a babysitter, we (me, and another friend-couple with kids used to take along  another-friend who had little interest in the festival),  and who'd baby sit when we wanted to do stuff without the kids. as a friend he was a regular babysitter away from the festival for us both, and our kids knew him very well,

it was the perfect set-up. 🙂 

But if I were to do that I'd effectively be handing my kids over to my parents and only seeing them for a few hours each day. I'm not prepared to do that. I'm sure in a few years I'll no longer have such an appetite for late night activities and extra-curriculars, at which point I'll be very happy at the kidzfield from 10-5, popping along to a few acts and watching the headliners as a family. 

Ultimately, I'm not prepared at this point of drop a grand plus on tickets, camper pass and spending, to then be limited in what I get to do at the festival. 

[she bangs the drums]

6 hours ago, LGH said:

Hello to all the parents of the festival, I hope you had a great time.

My wife and I have both done Glastonbury many times from 2013-2017, it's very special to us, we met there and got engaged there, now we have a little man who's birthday will fall on the Glastonbury weekend most years! 

Next year we are planning to take him and I've been trying to recruit some other parent friends we have made to join us, my question is how busy does the family camping area get and how quickly does it fill up? Would we be able to go on the Thursday and setup a camp for say 8-12 adults? Or would it be best to send a few people ahead on the Wednesday to do the setup?

 

Wicket ground family camping always has lots of space, however I'm pretty sure they would not allow 8-12 adults in for one child. You would need 2-3 kids with you to get that many adults in on the basis the kids are from different families. 

I took my daughter from when she was 9 (she is now 22 and still camps with me though sadly cannot get on family camping anymore) and spent most of Thursday and mornings in Kidzfield, and Green Children fields making, playing etc which is lovely, though you do have to pick and choose who you want to see.

I would imagine it was a struggle for many parents this year with kids suffering with the heat

[Daimo]

We took our two year old this year. We’re in a campervan so can’t answer your camping question but we had the best time ever and it was our fifth glasto.

We spent a few hours a day at Kidzfield (most of Thursday) to appease her and were sensible about who we wanted to see. For example if we knew pyramid would be rammed we stayed near the back. Stayed away from SEC. Most people were accommodating and decent about us having a small buggy. The odd person tried to climb over the front and one woman was so f@@ked she fell into it but I caught her luckily.

Our two year old had a great time too and was perfectly happy the majority of the time. Yes you won’t get to see everything you want but it’s glasto so you never do but these memories we made with her are worth so much more than that.

[BBC7BBCHEAVEN]

I'm with @blutarsky after bringing our 1.5 year old this year. Last year at six months it was a doddle, barely made a difference to our festival. After this year we've decided we probably won't bother again until he's older or we can arrange babysitting (this opinion will likely change when ticket time rolls around)

If you're happy to spend the festival avoiding crowds, in the kids fields, craft fields etc. then fair enough, but I don't see the point in all the effort and spending just to do that.

The constant child minding and keeping an eye out for drunk/drugged up people with no sense of awareness takes a toll, especially if the heats ridiculous like this year.

It seems some peoples children just fall asleep and they go see all their bands but ours wouldn't and kept getting woken up / crying so we usually had to call it a night before headliners. 

If you're in a group of parents it might also be a different story, but we had no babysitting options on site so it means missing a lot.

 

[blutarsky]

On 7/3/2023 at 2:27 PM, BBC7BBCHEAVEN said:

 

It seems some peoples children just fall asleep and they go see all their bands but ours wouldn't and kept getting woken up / crying so we usually had to call it a night before headliners. 

 

f**k me - this times a thousand. Both of ours are such hard work to get to sleep and settled as babies. We couldn’t even properly enjoy Worthy Pastures with a 10 month old because the amount of parenting needed was mad. I for one cannot f**king wait for #2 to be 18 months old.