Tips and Tricks: RV Life with Kids

Tips and Tricks: RV Life with Kids

In this episode of 'Travel Essary,' we share valuable tips and tricks for RV living with children. Drawing on personal experience, we emphasize the importance of giving children their own space, using creative solutions for toddler and child needs, and making RV setups safe and convenient. The episode covers topics such as using dog beds as toddler beds, the utility of portable dumping tanks, and the benefits of having portable internet for extended RV stays. Tune in next week for RV destination recommendations.

Link to the dog bed we purchased for our one year old - https://a.co/d/4qTROFe

Link to foldable potty seat - https://a.co/d/9aji5zF

Transcript

  We're the Essary family and we're exploring America one destination at a time. On this episode of TravelEssary, we are going to share , some tips and tricks for RV life with kids. Let's chat.

Welcome and thank you for joining us on this episode. We are super excited to get into this as we have quite a bit of experience with this, not only with our current situation, but what we've also done with our older children now, whenever they were young and even whenever we were kids, we have experience with this.

But before we actually get started, I do wanna say that if you wanna know more about us and you want to some more UpToDate information, then I highly suggest that you go ahead and jump over to our Patreon page. Check that out. There's a whole bunch of information that. Typically it doesn't get put out either on podcast or on some of our social media.

So definitely go over there and check it out. You do not wanna miss it. So let's get right into this. This is, this is gonna be kind of interesting because. There's different aspects and there's different ways that we as parents view it, and then even from our kids' point of view and what they're looking for, whenever, you know, they, they start traveling in RVs or just living in a rv, and we think that this is something that could help.

Everyone. Yeah. There's a lot of tips and tricks out there for having children depending on what age your children are, whether you're full-timers or part-timers, or whatever your situation is. . There's so many different tips and tricks that are out there, but we're gonna specifically talk about some that have worked for us and our children.

And we are going to jump off with the biggest tip, the most important in our opinion, the golden nugget of it all, because it's just that important. And I believe that, if you grasp this tip and , you truly take it to the utmost . That you're capable of doing this will make RV life in general just that much easier?

Yeah, it's, it's very important. So our biggest, biggest tip that we can give is that your kids need their own space. Something they can call their own. And I, I would even go a little bit further that everyone needs their own space, but specifically kids need their own space.

Yeah. It's super important for them to have somewhere, um, especially if you're full-timers at the end of the day to. Wind down to have their own peaceful little space that they can call their own, that they can personalize that that is just them. That's not something they have to share with siblings or with the rest of the family.

It's just their space. And while this isn't as important, if you're, you know, you're, you're just weekend camping a few times a year and. You don't have a, a big rv. You have maybe a popup or a small travel trailer, and your kids are sleeping on pullout couches or tables that turn into beds and your whole time is been outside because it's something , you don't do very often.

Then it's probably not as important as it is for our family doing it full time or even those that are in it the whole summer. Something like that. It's so, so important for us because we have two teenagers of opposite genders, and Jeremy and I both growing up with siblings of the opposite gender that are close in age.

We understood the importance of them having their own space and I think it's also important that you, you. Try to remember this, especially if you're full-time RVs, , if you have a normal stick and brick or even an apartment, most of the time, every child is gonna have a a bedroom or they're gonna have a bed.

They're gonna have their own little area inside of a house. And the same concept is. Taken on in an RV as well because you need those separate spaces, whether it's sleeping or whether it's just, you know, like a corner that they can go to curl up with a book, you know, because whenever you travel, weather's always going to be a factor in it.

So you probably made plans to be at a certain resort or at a certain RV park. Months in advance, and then all of a sudden a storm just pops up and all of a sudden you're stuck inside, which gives you a great chance to kind of bond and build up and have movie day and pop popcorn. And we always like to do fun and exciting things whenever it's just raining outside because it keeps everyone entertained.

But also there's those points where , like Misty said, if it's more of a weekend, it may not be that big of a deal, but if it's a week. Or especially if you're gonna be living in it in a long time, or if it's something that you're gonna be doing, you know, almost religiously. At least, you know, twice a, a month or even monthly mm-hmm.

Of going out, then they're gonna need that space. Because, I mean, we've all, especially if you have siblings, you're gonna get on each other's nerves. No, no. Family is absolutely perfect. There's gonna be, you know, attitudes, there's gonna be some things that are gonna flare up and you, you can't control them even on vacation.

So why not have a good spot that they can go to and , even better yet. I was just thinking about this. If you're at home and you're disciplining your, your children, you're, you're giving them timeout and you're sending them somewhere to their rooms. Where are you gonna send them in the RV whenever they need a timeout.

And so it's just something else to be thinking about. Yeah. I also think it's really important for, I. Um, those of us that are in it extensively, like full-time or most of the year, for the children to have a space that they can personalize and call their own, whether, oh, absolutely. Whether it's putting up pictures that they've made or posters that they've enjoyed, .

Picking out their own bedding, having their own buckets and shelves to put their own items in, whether it's electronics or books or puzzles, whatever it is that their keepsakes that they want for them to, to be able to have that, a space that they don't have to share with the sibling. , And I understand, you know, , bunk houses are super popular and you can put anywhere from two to four kids a lot of times.

Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. If you give each kid their own bunk and then you know their own basket or their own box or their own shelf to put stuff on that they do not have to share with another sibling. It really makes them feel valued and special.

And it also gives them opportunities that if they want to get away or if. And our family's a little bit different maybe in this aspect. We have three people that get up really early and once they're awake, they pop up and everything is rainbows and sunshines. And then there's two of us that we like to sleep in.

We like turning the alarm off and just taking our time to do that. And so if you have kids that are kind of polar opposite and they're in a bunk bed situation, well now that person has its own personal space that they can play in without disturbing everyone. Yeah. Having , their own space is such an important factor.

It's so important. And, you know, whenever, especially whenever I was growing up and doing a lot of RVing, because that's pretty much all my family did. There was times where we had to break down the, um, the the table. The table or the couch. Mm-hmm. And we had to pull it out and then, you know, we had to wake up.

First thing with grandma is she was cooking and then put all that stuff away. Yeah. And then we really didn't have our own personal space and we had to go outside . And with today's just technology in general. Mm-hmm. With everyone having smart devices or iPads, .

, Most of the places you go, there's very few that, you know, have dead zones that, I mean, , you're gonna be. Watching movies , and listening , to podcasts or things of that nature. Um, whenever we were growing up, it was VHS's and so you couldn't watch anything without the the V HHAs tape.

. Well. Whenever our kids were young, it went DVDs. DVDs. And so we were able to pack a whole lot more DVDs than VHS's because we didn't have to carry all of that around. Mm-hmm. And now everything's live streamed.

Yeah. And now everything is live streamed and Yeah, you can take your internet with you on the road and whatever you need to now, so you can take your internet on the road. . 

Which all comes down to, you know. What kind of space are you gonna give them? That that's their, their personal space? How much stuff are you gonna allow them to kind of pack up? And, you know, in the popups, you really can't do a whole lot. Mm-hmm. The bigger your RV is, the more you can do, .

It makes 'em feel more comfortable and more at home if they do have those bad weather days or they get sick. Or they get a really bad sunburn and they don't wanna go outside anymore. You know that type of stuff. Or if you're like us and you're in your RV full time, you want it to feel like a home, not just for you, but for your children.

Absolutely. You want them to enjoy the life as much as you do. And by far the best thing we have done is purchased the RV that we have that has allowed our kids to, to all have their own space.

  Now, Jasper's a little different. His space is in communal spaces. Of course. He is only a year old. So I do have some really great tips and tricks though, that I wanna go over for having babies.

It's not near as important for him to have his own space 'cause he's just under my feet 24 7. Right. Doesn't day or night he doesn. , He doesn't have the personality yet. Yeah. I think it's probably solo ages like 6, 7, 8, where they really start wanting like their own space, their own toy boxes. Their own, their own thing.

Something that they can call their own. So luckily we're not quite there yet with him,.

And we have done a lot of simple tricks that, matter of fact, whenever we first got into the situation we're in now, , we had totally different plans for what we were gonna do with him. Mm-hmm. And then all of a sudden. You, you just happened to be walking through somewhere and you thought of this great idea and I was like, oh, yes.

And then you, you told me about it and you set it up. And I was like, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, but it's perfect. And then here we are three weeks later and I'm like, that's the greatest thing we ever did. Yeah. So when we got the rv, the most important things we were able to check off, but then we ran into situations like, okay, now where do we put Jasper's bed?

I don't want him in my bed 24 7. I like my own space too, right? At the end of the day, that's kid free. And we also thought about putting it in the living room, which I'm not comfortable with because he's only a year old and I feel like he'd get into everything.

Right. And then it's also goes back to the occasion of it's something that we're gonna have to pick up every single day. And it was, that's just something that, that. As far as extended RVers, we didn't want to do every single day. We wanted it to be as functional as possible with as little stuff in the way as possible.

, What we had originally wanted. And we'd seen a lot of full-time RVs used would not work in the space that we have, the way that the master bedroom was set up, we had a very specific shape and size that we could put his bed. And they don't make toddler beds of, of any kind. That shape and size. No. That definitely was not your standard area that you could put it in. And then even if you go into the.

Very specific RV mattresses and stuff. Even that part didn't work for what we needed, and I looked at so many different things. I looked at kinder mats, I looked at online, on Amazon. I looked at, like Jeremy said, RV stuff. I looked at camping stuff and I could not find anything. It was either too narrow and we needed something wider because he's a squirm.

He just rolls right off, or it was too long. , We had like a square space almost. Yes. Well, they don't make square beds. Nope. Beds are rectangle. No matter how small the human is, beds are rectangle. And I was just like almost in a state of giving up whenever I was walking through Walmart with my mother and we passed.

The dog aisle and there are big old soft dog beds all down this aisle. And it was like I had an epiphany and so I went and bought the largest one that I could find because the measurements were almost perfect for the little square space that we had. And it's actually an orthopedic one for like older dogs with like bone and muscle.

Issues. So it's even softer than most dog beds. , It's basically like a memory foam mattress in there. Yes. It's, it's really soft. I've laid on it with him a few times to put him down for a nap and it, it just worked out so perfect. So one of my tips for having babies is think outside the box when you have little ones with you.

For instance, dog beds make perfect toddler beds. They can't roll off of them and hurt themselves and they can make 'em. Fit in any shape or size. 'cause they come in all shapes and size so they can fit in the areas of your RV where normal beds cannot. And something I learned after posting on social media where a few people had a little freak out whenever I said I got dog beds, and they're worried about all the toxins in 'em and stuff.

The type of dog bed we got, I did research and it is, it's basically the exact same memory foam you put on your own bed. So it's perfectly safe. Don't go and just grab any dog bed off the shelf, do your research and make sure that it's like a US made dog bed and that it is, I think it's called. Certa Paul certified or something like that.

I'll have to put it down . In the show notes. I will write down specifically what brand we got because it is very human safe. And that just brings us to another tip of every space is usable if you use your imagination. Yeah. And you do have to get pretty creative sometimes in an rv.

Never would've thought of a dog bed. Never. , But it, it definitely is one of those things where. Every space is usable. It just may not be something that is normal to the everyday person to use. Yeah. So another toddler tip, um, that I'm just now having to get into because we are right around that potty training stage with our one-year-old, is that I found this toilet seat on Amazon.

Just like two weeks ago. It fits perfectly on these RV toilets. I mean, it is a perfect fit, and it folds up and it gets put in a bag because if you know anything about an RV bathroom space, it's very small. Sometimes it's so small. Luckily ours isn't. But in the past we've had them so small that like your knees hit the counter while you're sitting on the toilet or it's hitting the shower and there's no space for anything extra.

And so being able to fold this almost flat and put it in a bag and stick it under the sink, it has been wonderful. Whenever she got this, I was. Just like the dog bed. I was a little skeptical about it. I was like, I don't know if this is going to work. Um, but I've yet to see the toilet because it, it folds up so nicely.

Mm-hmm. You don't even know that it's in the bathroom. Yeah. And, and it's been in there for two weeks. Yeah. And it hides away. And so, you know, that's, that's great. , For my little peace of mind because it's not something that I'm gonna have to move outta my way if I wanna shower or if I want to go to the bathroom.

And so, yeah, because if you remember in our other rv, we were potty training and we had that, the big O seat that you put on the seat and it, you had to like , pick it up and hang it on the wall or stick it in the shower or something because it did not fold flat. And it took up a lot of space. A lot of space when the other two were younger.

So that was a really, really nice find. For our toddler. Um, another, I don't know if this is toddler specific or kid specific, or ev just human specific. I, I, I think this is because now I can't live without it. Yeah. Because I don't wanna, I don't wanna say it's, it's even a RV specific. I I think it's just general that, well, I feel like, especially in an RV though, because if, if you're in an RV park and you have all that noise and you're close to your neighbors, um, but we're talking about a sound machine.

Or any kind of noise maker. I mean, how many a fan, how many of y'all at home? I mean, turn on your ceiling fan because it makes a certain noise? Or you have a box fan that has to be going just for the white noise? It, it, it, it's not even blowing on you, but you just meet it or you sleep with your rain sounds on your tv.

Yes. And so, you know, having just. A noise machine and not just one noise machine for like the whole rv, but just several of 'em, because they all have different levels of like how much noise actually comes out of 'em. Mm-hmm. But even having the different noise machines helps out because Misty's, right.

Depending on what park you go to, how close it is to the, the highway or traffic noise, or how busy it is of just people coming in and out all the time. Especially on the weekends. 'cause that's usually your big travel days. And so being able to, you know. If you do have those people that like to sleep in, then having those, those white noises going where they're not picking up so much outside noise as people are starting to move around, you know, getting their boats ready to go fishing, or they're just going hiking or the kids woke up and they just wanna go outside and start playing and make a whole bunch of noise in the park.

And so having that white noise inside and out, it's just one of those great tips . I thought that I really needed it at the house, but now that we're in the rv, I realized really how important it is because you know, the master bedroom where the three of us sleep is right next to the bathroom.

And when the other two get up in the middle of the night, if we didn't have that noisemaker, you would hear every door click, you would hear every light switch, turn on. You're in a very close proximity without, you know, a lot of sound barriers and. I'm an extremely light sleeper, so I definitely appreciate the noise machine.

But you know, Jasper can be a pretty light sleeper too. I don't want anything waking up my toddler in the middle of the night. So a noise machine in an RV I feel is just absolutely necessary. Another important thing, um, when you have small children, not so much, you know, middle school or high schoolers, but when you have anywhere from potty training to young elementary age kids is a portable dumping tank. If you do not have full hookups, because I know this from experience, it is not fun when you are in a.

Spot that is a good five, 10 minute walk to the bathroom facilities and you don't have full hookups. And so you're trying, you know, not to use your tank and stuff, your bathroom as much as possible. And you have a three-year-old little girl with you who's gotta go to the bathroom five or six times in the middle of the night.

And I have done that. On several occasions where in the middle of the night I had to go take her to the facilities because either we were tent camping or we didn't have full hookups, and we were trying our very best not to use, you know, the, the black tanks and or the gray tanks even, like trying not to use as anything as much as possible.

But having a portable dumping tank that you can either hook up to the back of your truck and take down to the dumping station or pull down there if you're closed. It is a must have when you have small children. Absolutely. Because it's one of those things that, how many times do you get in your car after you've checked and made sure that everyone went to the bathroom and then 10 minutes later.

You hear from the back, I need to go party. Go party. Yeah. And you know, and it's frustrating as adults 'cause you're like, okay, you know, , they should be where we are, but they're not, they're children. And so just learning to, to live with that and then having that. That accessibility to you, that option of going, you know what, just, just go to the bathroom.

We'll dump it tomorrow and then we will move on from there. Mm-hmm. And I mean, yeah, it takes a little bit of time and it sometimes it can be frustrating, but having that amenity, having that option mm-hmm. Is such a blessing when you need it. Yeah. And, and this just made me think of whenever that first time we went with Justin and then two years again with Ariel, they were newborns.

They were both a month old the first time they went camping, and we were washing bottles constantly, but we didn't have anywhere to put the gray water because we didn't have full hookups. And having that portable tank is a lifesaver. Oh yeah. Because you're washing so much. When you have small children, you're washing them a lot.

You're washing their bottles, you're washing whatever they need with you have. Um, toddlers at sippy cups and all kinds of things, and then of course, all the little. Potty breaks they take throughout the day. So being able to have that, I feel it's so important, uh, or just makes your life a lot easier, makes your life a whole lot easier when have that without having to stress about filling up a tank that you gotta go find somewhere to dump now,

right. You're, you're having to repack your entire RV up mm-hmm. Just to go dump. Mm-hmm. And then bring it right back. Yeah. Or if you're like us, when we were out there for the week, we were trying to use like the bare minimum so we didn't have to . Dump until we left, so we didn't have to, you know, pack the RV up.

So, portable dumping tank. Get it if you have small children. Is that what they're called? A portable dumping tank. That's what we're gonna call it. I dunno. I'm pretty sure that's what they're called. I dunno if that's actually what they're called. It may not, may not be a dumping tank. It may be Just be a portable tank.

And the next tip that I wanna share is more of a safety thing than anything. And when you are setting up, when you were moved into your spot, you finally got backed in, you're done yelling at each other and you're ready to start hooking everything up. Keep your kids in the car, your small children. I, I never knew that this was as big of a factor as it is but. You know, just hearing the horror stories mm-hmm. Of people going on vacation and a little one gets away and mom and dad or you know, whoever's there trying to set up the rv, getting it in the right spot, checking traffic and trees and, and all the other amenities that are going on, you know, that you have to do in order to set up an RV and then a tragic accident happens.

Yeah. And this is one that we have put on our checklist, and this is crazy, but. It. It is what it is because we want to be as safe as possible. Mm-hmm. Whenever we talk about kids, I'm talking about even my 18-year-old, if he doesn't have a very specific job that I need him to do mm-hmm. I need him inside the truck.

Yeah. Because I don't need to worry about it. Our rig is so big and has so many blind spots. That you, you just never know what could happen. And if he has his back turned and you know, he doesn't see you come in and you don't see him, yeah, it could absolutely be an issue. I think our rule of thumb is until we're set up and slides are out, and then the child can go in the rv, you're staying in the car.

, It's just one of those things that, you know, . RVs have gotten a whole lot bigger mm-hmm. And they're a little bit more difficult to set up that, and you, well, we've never had anything as big as we do now. Yeah. This is massive. Yeah. It, it's kind of on the larger scale . And with Jasper, he doesn't want to be held and he doesn't listen. So, I mean that's, that's one of the biggest tips. That's, that's definitely the safest tip that we can give you.

Yeah. And even whenever we're breaking down, once those slides go in, he's in the car. Yeah. And he's gonna be in the car, in his car seat until we are pulling off. Well, well obviously even after that. But that's it. He's in the car at that point. Gotta keep him secure. Gotta keep 'em safe. And a lot of people might be going, oh, you know, that's, that's a little bit of a overkill.

You know? It's like, oh, you're taking it too. I have heard too many horror stories of people either running over their own children or. Um, them getting in someone else's area while they're moving in and out and them getting ran over by strangers. And either way, it's a horrible, horrible tragedy that I do not want happening to my children or your children.

So make sure you are keeping them safe. It may seem silly, but the silliness is worth it. If it saved your child's life, whatever the, the. The alternate is so drastic. Yeah. I mean, accidents happen in an environment like that, especially, you know, in a husband and wife team, when you're setting up, I don't care who you are, you're already stressed out at this point because you've already been yelling at each other about.

, Like backing in and parking in the right spot and getting it in. You're already in a high stress environment and adding , you know, a little two and 3-year-old running around at that point while you're trying to get it done. It just adds to that, and your focus is not going to be a hundred percent on anything.

So keep them in the car, keep them safe. And the last thing that I wanna talk about, we might have a little bit of controversy over. It's not for everyone. It's not, it's definitely for us and probably most full-timers and maybe even weekenders, I mean, we'll see. But for us. Um, not just for the kids, because we need it for us as well, but has really been a lifesaver.

Like right now it's saving our life with the, with the youngest, but that is to have portable internet. And it's something that if you'd have told me 13 years ago, if you'd have told me 10 years ago that you can go camping and have great internet where you can do whatever you want with it. Yeah, I'd, I'd have laughed in your face.

I know. You know, just like those people are like, oh, you know, you're never gonna carry a, a calculator with you, but yet we carry small computers inside of our pockets. Mm-hmm. Um, and it's, it's crazy. But e especially like the longer you go, the longer the vacation is, the longer the stay, the more realistic and the more helpful.

Having , the internet is because it gives you so many options, and especially if you do full-time RVing or if , you're in it for an extended period. The more options you have that are more viable to your everyday living is definitely the way to go. So the more things that you can take with you, like out of your house or just the same amenities that your house has.

Then the easier that traveling truly is. Yeah, the internet. Um. Of course we use it for our personal stuff and our podcasting and things like that, and for business and everything else. But you know, we have kids and we're full-timers. We need it for schooling, we need it for classes, we need it for their downtime in the evenings, you know, well, we're talking about everyone having their own space, and one of the ways that we utilize that space is for everyone to have access to the internet while they're having their downtime.

I like having, you know, a movie or an audio book or something when I. I'm in my downtime mode at night and I want my children to be able to have that, especially my teenagers. And even right now while we're trying to podcast, we have preschool prep in the background for our 1-year-old. We have, you know, he's learning his ABCs and his one two threes and it's semi keeping him occupied for brief moments at a time while we are able to get this podcast done and.

We can actually have, you know, five or six devices going at one time with absolutely no issues. It is seriously just like the internet in our sticks and bricks home now we are big, huge, massive. Active people, like we promote outside activity. Yeah. And a lot of our podcasts, we talk about hiking. Mm-hmm. We talk about going places, we talk about doing things.

We've actually just spent the entire morning in afternoon outside. We're inside taking a break to podcast and as soon as we get done, podcasting, go back outside, there's some more stuff that we gotta do outside that we're gonna go take care of and getting people out. Whenever, especially if you're going camping, that's, that's the number one goal.

Getting people outside, getting them, you know, active either swimming or fishing or boating or canoeing or, or all the different activities that, that can happen outside, especially if you're talking about long-term stay or you're talking about, um, long-term vacation or even RV life in general. Having the internet is definitely one of those almost must haves.

It's very rare that people are gonna be like, oh, I don't need internet for anything., It's a rarity for that to happen. . It's definitely not for everyone. If you're going out for a weekend, if it's gonna be three days, it's not worth the money. It's not worth the money. Yeah. It's not worth the hassle of setting up. And plus you're gonna be spending your whole time outside of the camper.

Right. And so it, it's not really that big of a deal.

. And so, like we said, I mean, there's, there's still items, tips and tricks that, that we can continue on.

Oh yeah. It could just keep going, just sitting here, looking around. I could keep going, I think the biggest takeaway is give them their space and use your imagination. You can absolutely take the same sort of concepts that you would in a sticks and brick home and bring it into an rv.

It just may look different.  . Join us next week. We are going to share some RV destination recommendations. You do not wanna miss it.