Oztrail Kids Sleeping Bag review
If you’re in the market for a decent, cheap kids sleeping bag then read on; we’ve got a ripper review for you! For those of you who haven’t been following along, we’ve been travelling around Australia for the last year and a half with two young boys, in a Hybrid Camper Trailer. We’ve had a queen bed with normal sheets, a wool blanket and a doona, and the kids have been using an Oztrail Kids Sleeping Bag the entire time.
Yes, they’ve literally slept in these sleeping bags about 600 times, and its fair to say that they’ve been extensively tested.
We paid full price for these
No, this is not a sponsored post, nor do we have any affiliation with Oztrail. We paid full price for these sleeping bags from Snowys Outdoors not long before leaving on our Lap of Australia, and are not receiving any benefit from Oztrail for writing this.
I detest the lack of transparency from many other content creators, and that is one area we’re worlds apart in.
What do they cost?
For the record, you can pick these up for about $40, which makes them really good value.
Where have we been?
We’ve had these sleeping bags all over Australia, literally. They’ve done South Australia, Victoria, NSW, Queensland and the Northern Territory, and have seen temperatures anywhere from 45 degrees during the day down to just below zero occasionally, in the Victorian High Country, and Alpine regions of NSW.
They are used on a normal foam mattress in our Hybrid Camper, which has really good ventilation in the way of windows, and a diesel heater if it gets really cold. It’s worth noting though, that our youngest is tucked away in the bottom bunk, and has very limited air flow for when its hot, and we have been using a Supercheap 12V car fan to keep him cool.
What’s good about the Oztrail kids sleeping bags?
I really like these sleeping bags, and I’m not one to get too attached to things like that. They are warm, but still great in hot weather, and they don’t get cold like the silky sleeping bags do. They’re quite thick, which makes it nice to snuggle into, but at the same time, they dry surprisingly well.
We’ve had dozens of accidents over our lap from both kids, where we’ve had a puddle to contend with in the morning (or the middle of the night). In many cases we just washed the sleeping bags ourselves, without the ability to really spin the water out, but it just runs out and they dry exceptionally well if hung out in the sun and wind.
They have been really durable too, and seem to just work very well.
What do we not like about them?
Honestly, not much. They can be a bit of a mission to wash properly in our 16L bucket, but if you use enough water its doable (although we prefer to find a laundromat). I would imagine the more compact sleeping bags would be far easier to wash.
We also find the zip can get caught if you are haphazard doing it up and down, and can take a bit to undo it, but this doesn’t happen that often.
I feel like they wouldn’t be adequate in really cold weather in a tent (we do have a diesel heater that we use sometimes), but for moderate climates they’re amazing. When its below 7 degrees, we get our kids to sleep in thermal bottoms and a singlet, plus long sleeve tops, but there has been instances where they’ve woken up cold, simply because the sleeping bag doesn’t retain enough heat.
In this case we just turn the heater on, but they are surprisingly good at cool and hot weather, so we can’t complain.
How’s the wear and tear?
I mentioned above that these sleeping bags have been absolutely hammered. There are some little tears and pulls starting to appear, but I’d expect nothing less given how much they’ve been used, and abused to a point with our two little kids. We’ve sewed one section up twice now on one sleeping bag, along with another section higher up, but the other one is perfectly fine, after around 600 nights of being used!
If you’re in the market for a decent priced sleeping bag for your kids, and are wondering if these Oztrail Kids Sleeping Bags are any good, we can very easily tell you they’re a great product.
