Mike Baron

If you are like most people, a family camping trip usually comes with grand ambitions of leaving early in the morning, pitching the tent together, and then relaxing by the fire roasting marshmallows. All this while the Instagram worthy meal heats up and the picnic table is set. What usually happens, however, is a mad scramble to pack the car that extends close to noon because you can’t find someone’s socks, you end up at McDonald’s for a late lunch, and you pitch the tent in the dark while the kids groan about being hungry. You then realize you brought hot dogs, but forgot condiments. Trust me, I’m not throwing shade, we’ve been there more often than we’d like to admit! Now that we are four kids deep, we’ve developed a car camping with kids checklist that acts as our guidepost and helps us avoid the fast food scramble and ketchup-less hot dogs.

Fortunately, after four kids and countless outdoor adventures, we feel pretty good about the essentials of camping with toddlers and young kids. This break-down has been curated after years of fine-tuning for a minimalist list of car camping essentials and fun activities, leaving behind the camping gear you just don’t need!

Holiday gifting for toddlers can be as fun for caregivers as it is for the kiddos. While the cheap flashy plastic available at the big box stores may provide a temporary wow factor, this holiday season you have the opportunity to share super fun gifts that are also impactful with your loved ones. At Marley & Moose, all of our toys are thoughtfully curated for the merits of child development and longevity of use for toddlerhood and beyond.

Toddlers are developing physically, mentally, and emotionally and having the right toys can help make playtime fun and educational! Below are a few areas of development along with some of our favorite gifts for your favorite toddler.

It is both increasingly important and challenging to monitor children’s technology usage. As the number of connected devices and opportunities to explore increases, so does potential exposure to the dark side of the internet. Pornography, cyber bullying, violence, and fake news are all a few clicks away either as an intentional search, accidentally, or via some other bad actor.

Kids now have access to the abyss of the internet via things like smart watches, personal assistants like Amazon Alexa, laptops, tablets, gaming consoles, and smart TV’s. Parental controls and monitoring should be considered for apps like Google, XBox, PlayStation, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, SnapChat, Facebook, text messaging, WhatsApp, and email.

With everything to consider, it’s hard to know where to start, and that’s where this guide and our general resource guide for kids and tech come in handy.