Hi OP, I feel your pain too!

Hate it that we have to plan so far ahead of time and pay all this money, but ugh, we do it every year because the punishment gets worse if you don't do it. Punishment- Camps get full.

It does get a bit easier as the kids get older since there are more options.

Anonymous wrote:
One of us needs to create a handy camp registration website where you can enter all your requirements (kids, schedule, locations, interests) and the appropriate camps just pop up!

Campeasy is a good resource with many area camp sessions and you can filter by age, week, location etc. https://www.campeasy.com/

Anonymous wrote:
One of us needs to create a handy camp registration website where you can enter all your requirements (kids, schedule, locations, interests) and the appropriate camps just pop up!

There was someone on this site a couple of years ago proposing to do just that - I wonder what became of the endeavor.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol... DH asked me last night what week he should take off to spend with the kids. I just looked at him. Camps have been booked and paid for since winter break.

Yea, my DH doesn't know how much time I put into finding good camps for two kids. Grr.

Did you talk to DH while researching, planning and booking?

Wow OP - how do you wait this long? All my DD favorite camps filled last month! Heck, even the YMCA Aquatic camp and pony camp for her age were filled by the time I looked las month so that was,late!

Anonymous wrote:
One of us needs to create a handy camp registration website where you can enter all your requirements (kids, schedule, locations, interests) and the appropriate camps just pop up!

+1

Anonymous wrote:Which camps are already full???
We just moved to MD a few months ago and never thought we should be registering for summers camps when it's still snowing and freezing cold out there!

This poster is not OP. Please start you down thread. Please do not hijack.

OP is located in Northern Virginia.

We do one camp the whole summer that's close to my work.

Pp, the pre-payment kills me too! Just finished paying post holiday bills and in Feb you're hit with a huge camp bill.

I booked the last of 9 weeks of camp last week. At one point in the process, before signups started, I started spinning out a little at the idea of having to make all these decisions (and payments) so that my daughter could have a great summer. I asked what she wanted to do this summer - theater camp, cheer camp, the art camp we did last summer, the Knights of Columbus camp she loved last year - and then added a couple more camps (Camp Kids Place and Mad Science.) I made a spreadsheet with a matrix of all the camp names along the left side and all the weeks across the top, and then filled in what weeks each camp had available. Juggled the schedule a few times to figure out the best way to get everything we wanted, and noted all the signup deadlines.

Yeah, it's a giant pain, but I was done with all this crap as of 2/18 at 7:05 a.m., and now I can relax. (I booked spring break camp too.)

I involve my children in the camp choosing process.

During the summer, I pay attention to their opinions of the camp. At the end of the summer, we have a conversation about which camps they preferred and why and which ones they didn't like. This lets me know if I need to be researching other camps or if the kids are pretty happy where they are.

My priorities are taken into account before I offer the camp options to the kids. Am I limited by cost, transportation, geography, etc. As my children have gotten older, they have heard about camps from other kids and sometimes we've had negotiations like you can go to this really expensive camp for one week, but it means you need to do 2 weeks at a cheap camp because otherwise the summer becomes unaffordable.

When the first camp registrations open up we have another conversation about summer plans. We keep a calendar with the weeks blocked out so everyone can see where we are. Summer vacation planning happens in the same time. Some years we have a vacation where the time is flexible, so if it turns out a much desired camp happens during when we'd planned on vacation, we can shift vacation. Sometimes, vacation isn't flexible in which case I'll have a backup camp for an open week just in case the preferred camp doesn't work out once the schedule's released.

I have nudged my children towards camps that have early registrations because I hate coming down to the wire and realizing in April there are still a couple open weeks in the summer that I need to arrange childcare for.

Which camps are already full???
We just moved to MD a few months ago and never thought we should be registering for summers camps when it's still snowing and freezing cold out there!

I feel you. One of mine has ADHD and some camps are spectacular failures, but we can never tell ahead of time how they will go. Last summer we ended up paying for two and he barely made it through Tuesday. Summer camps UGH.

One of us needs to create a handy camp registration website where you can enter all your requirements (kids, schedule, locations, interests) and the appropriate camps just pop up!

I feel you OP. I have a stack of materials and I'm a mess. My kids are in preschool so my hard requirement is 3 days 9-12. But within that, it's madness. Good luck to you! Sounds like it gets easier here on out, once they have an opinion! /s

too....ugh, and I can't even blame fat fingers!