How do you get kids to sleep in a tent?

DJ, Andrew

I have a family reunion coming up in which we will be sleeping in a tent for at least two, maybe three nights. So tonight, partly to practice for the trip, and partly because I thought the kids would have fun with it, we set up the tent in the basement, watched a movie, ate some s'mores and then tried to put the kids to sleep in the tent. I tried for over an hour before I finally got so frustrated that I just gave up and took them to their beds. At the reunion taking them to their beds won't be an option. Part of the problem was that my one year old is used to sleeping in a crib and if I brought the playpen for him to sleep in we wouldn't all fit in the tent. The other problem was that the tent was just so much fun they kept bouncing off the walls... literally. Is there anything that I can do to get them to sleep in the tent? or at the reunion are they just going to be up until they pass out from exhaustion?

Answer
Keep at it.

Introducing something like a tent is naturally going to seem like Disneyland for the first few days. Leave it up in the basement and mention that it's for sleeping.

TALK about camping. About sleeping inside the tent, and putting the tent outside.

It'll take a few times.

so, if your four kids were sleeping in a tent in the back yard?

desmeran

and one of them was only 3 so you put a baby monitor out there with them in case he wakes up and gets confused, but the baby monitor massively magnifies every slight sound ... and your kids were now peacefully asleep but there was this one mosquito obviously trapped inside the tent that sounds on the baby monitor like something out of a hitchcock movie

would you:

(a) turn off the baby monitor because you know you'd hear the kids through the open window anyway if there was a problem;
(b) go outside and try to get rid of the mosquito, doubtless waking up the kids and letting ten more mosquitoes in the tent in the process; or
(c) stay on y!a all night because you're way too light of a sleeper to possibly go to sleep with that terrifyingly loud buzzing noise near your head?
ah, sorry boy wonder, should have given a (d) since obviously that one was coming. yes, he's admittedly in some serious danger out there between his siblings. once or twice a chicken has wandered into our yard. scary stuff. but i'm risking it anyway.

Answer
(c)

this is a happy, independent time for the kids. i don't want to go in that tent to (a) turn off the baby monitor and let in more mosquitoes in the process which in turn would 'bug' the kids more, nor (b) kill the mosquito and wake up the kids and ruin the whole camping aura with my hysteric presence, nor (d) chase the evil menace that is the chicken --camping trips are supposed to be a little scary. that's the whole fun of it. so i'd risk the chicken attack, so help me god.

oh and (c) because we'll miss you if you went to sleep. hehe.

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