Taking a kid camping

It seems that for many people, backpacking ends when children come, and doesn't start again until the rascal reaches about 7 years old. I have found that ultralight technique is well suited to camping with little kids who can't carry their own gear. the following is a little description of our current approach to camping with our three year old. We first took our daughter to Desolation Wilderness when she was 4 months old, and in many ways that was the easiest time because she didn't complain much, was still light enough to carry, and I could use my clothing as her sleeping gear, saving more weight. I think on that first trip she slept in a Patagonia puffball jacket, while I was in my Western Mountaineering Iroquois under our Tarptent Rainshadow. I carried her in front in a large piece of fabric called a Didymos http://www.didymos.de/english/index_e.htm and on my back carried my Golite Breeze. My wife carried the G4. The Rainshadow is still our shelter of choice. Henry Shires http://www.tarptent.com/ makes perhaps the best ultralight shelters in my opinion, and the Rainshadow is his three person tarptent. I have been thinking about a large pyramid however, given my now three year old daughters propensity for jumping up and down in the tent, and her utter lack of concern for things like mud and wet tent walls. My current approach for her sleeping bag is a north face beeline which I pull to shorten from the inside, giving her a 19 oz bag with an entire extra two layers over her (three layers total). She sleeps on a car windshield reflector and never complains. I know, my wife thinks it's cruel, but kids don't really need padding, their bones are still soft. Because she sleeps in pajamas she is never cold, although I bring along a little down suit just in case. My concern when she was younger, that she would slide out of the bag and get cold at night is no longer a problem. for those with infants and kids under two, I think a nice down suit is a great option for ensuring their warmth. Someone needs to make some nice kid size Polarguard and Qantum suits! My wife and I share a Western Mountaineering Badger used as a quilt, with a piece of Epic fabric pinned along the zippers to decrease drafts and give us something to lay on. We also have a Golite Fuzz-2 that I like, but it's heavier and not as warm as the Badger, so...it ends up staying home. We started sharing a sleeping bag with pinned in fabric on the JMT using a Mountainsmith Vision, which is a great bag that is no longer made, giving us easy 25 degree comfort at two pounds.

Carrying

This is a bit of a work in progress, and my dream of a single wheeled sled a-la Bob bicycle trailer meets snow Pulk (see the pictures above) is in the works. In the meantime however, My wife carries all of our gear in a GVP G4, www.gossamergear.com at about 25 pounds max. I carry our daughter and the food in a thriftgear Snugli backpack carrier which has a big integrated bag. On our most recent three day 32 mile trip this worked relatively well, although I was carrying 40 pounds in a crappy bag. More reason to get to making my land-sled.
So, backpacking with a slow moving kid means carrying her if one wants to make any distance. She did alot of running and then "carry me" which was fine. My approach was basically for her to have fun the whole time, and for us to learn how to have fun within a new set of contexts and expectations. In both domains we were successfull.