"I am just going outside and may be some time" Oates 1912
"I am just going outside and may be some time" Oates 1912
Member since:17.04.2002
Reviews:51
Members who trust:43
We were going camping and taking the children for the first time. So we looked at kitting them out so that they would be comfortable and warm. One of the most important items, if you’re sleeping outside, is a sleeping bag. There’s nothing more miserable than being cold and uncomfortable, especially if you’re a child. Being cold and uncomfortable in the middle of the night when you’re sleeping in a strange environment is probably the worst of all. Even for adults. Both my husband and I have tried out various types of sleeping bag through the years and have learnt one or two things – never trust the manufacturers temperature ratings and buy the warmest bag you can afford.
To choose the right sleeping bag you have to consider several things – how warm you need it to be, where you are going to use it, whether it needs to be very compact or water resistant or machine washable. The same rules apply for choosing children’s sleeping bags as they would to adults, probably even more so as kids tend to feel the cold easily.
Then you can consider the different styles of bag. The basic bag is a rectangular
shape; it has a wide opening at the top and usually a zip on 2 sides. Sometimes you can buy one bag with a left hand zip and one with a right hand zip so that they can join together and make one larger bag. These types of sleeping bag might be good for youth hostels, summer camping use or caravanning. Another type of bag is the tapered sleeping bag. This has a narrower bottom than top and is generally considered slightly warmer than a rectangle because your legs and feet fit more snugly. It might have one or two extra features like a baffle to stop draughts getting through the zip and a particular type of construction that will stop cold spots being created through the stitching. The warmest shape is the mummy. This is not only tapered but also incorporates a hood into the design. This hood usually has a drawstring so that it can be fitted snugly around the face and shoulders. There might also be a shoulder baffle – a wide insulated flap at shoulder height in the bag – this stops draughts blowing down your neck. The filling might be distributed more thickly around the feet keeping them warmer, the construction might be one that minimises loss of heat from cold spots and the materials used would be of the highest quality. Mummy shaped bags are usually more expensive because of their complex construction.
So, we were looking for a mummy shaped bag, ideally lined with cotton or polycotton, filled with synthetic fibre. We decided on synthetic fibre because my husband is allergic to featherdown, we weren’t worried about how compact the bag would be and synthetic bags still perform well when wet or damp. Plus they can be machine washed with ease.
We chose the Ajungilak Little Viking Sleeping bag, as it seemed to combine all the features that we were looking for.
Ajungilak have been making sleeping bags for many years, I think the first bag was made in the 1870’s! They also specialise in synthetic fillings for sleeping bags and other bedding. Nowadays they manufacture their products in China but design and test them in Norway. They are widely available in the UK.
The Little Viking bag is an extendable sleeping bag recommended from birth until about 10 yrs old. It has an extra extension section that can be added on as the child grows so the bag increases from 1.25m to 1.6m in length. The inside of the bag is dark green and the outer is navy blue and red. There is a two-way zip on each side of the bag so that it can be opened out and folded down like a quilt – handy for nappy changing!! Ajungilak do say that the bag can be used in a pram or pushchair. It also has all the bells and whistles that you would expect from a good quality mummy design sleeping bag, baffles, drawstrings, Velcro fasteners, extra filling round the feet and no coldspots. The outer is Micro-Lite Tex, a ripstop nylon especially made for Ajungilak, the filling is Terraloft (a type of hollowfibre) and the inner is polycotton. Altogether it weighs about 1500g and comes in it’s own stuff sac. The Little Viking can be machine washed at 60 degrees with a third of your usual detergent, rinsed 5 times, spun and tumble dried. Full washing instructions can be found on the label inside the sleeping bag. It is also non-allergenic.
We bought two but had a mixed reaction…….Rhianna, the eldest at 4 yrs, couldn’t wait to try hers out and slept in it the night after we brought it home. She really loved it’s snugness and the little picture of the Viking on the front! Megan, at 2 ½ yrs, wouldn’t even entertain the idea of sleeping in a bag - she’s a little claustrophobic at the best of times - and ended up sharing a double sleeping bag with the baby and me. On the camping trip Rhianna was always warm and cosy, even in just her usual pyjamas. If she became too hot then it was simply a case of unzipping the bag near her feet to let in a bit of cool air. When she was completely bundled up, with hood and all, she looked like a little caterpillar!! I’m sure this also helped her feel more secure during some very bad thunderstorms we experienced in Languedoc. We are very pleased with the Little Viking and I’m sure that it contributed to a positive first camping trip for Rhianna. How many of you were put off camping through being cold, wet and miserable!!
We bought the Ajungilak Little Viking for about 40GBP from Hitch and Hike in Derbyshire.
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