New Parent Survival Guide
How am I ever going to keep climbing / backpacking / skiing / camping / biking after I have kids? I can’t push myself as hard as I used to or go as far as I used to now that I’m pregnant! It will never be fun again! My friends / coworkers were right, I’ll never do anything outdoors again! Life is over!
Obviously most of that is not true, exploring the outdoors with kids is amazing. It is just a lot different - sometimes much harder and sometimes way better. Here are some tips on adjusting to being an outdoor parent:
Preparation while pregnant or waiting for adoption
- For pregnant moms: lower expectations - work on just being happy to do things even if you can’t do them to the level you used to.
- This is much easier said than done, but remember you’ll get stronger again after the baby comes
- Prioritize spending time with any outdoor parent friends you have and start watching how they do things with kids
- If you don't have any outdoor parent friends, look into joining a local group - check out the Communities page to find one.
- Get any gear needed for outdoors for the first year
- Specifically: baby backpack carrier, baby bike seat/trailer, snowsuit
- Look for deals on used items - there are a lot of good deals out there if you are patient
- Make plans for an outdoor adventure to do after the baby comes and put it on the calendar - this forces you to get out there, even when you’re sleep deprived
How to adjust to doing things with babies
- In general, lower expectations (just like for pregnant moms)
- Prioritize spending time with any outdoor parent friends you have, or look into joining a local group - check out the Communities page to find one.
- Hiking:
- Hiking is a good transition activity because it's fairly easy to do with babies, just be ready to stop often to feed/change diapers
- If you’re nursing, bring extra water because you’ll be thirsty, and be prepared to stop often or practice nursing the baby in the carrier
- Camping:
- Put the kid in the car seat or in a travel crib at the campsite while you set up camp or cook dinner
- Many babies love hammocks
- Bring a table seat for feeding
- Something warm for the baby to sleep in, such as a fleece sleep sack (instead of a sleeping bag for small babies)
- Sleeping bags often don't work well until a kid is about 3 years because kids move so much and come out of them, but might work for some kids sooner
- Other options: have the baby sleep in the parent's sleeping bag, or bring a crib size quilt
- Some babies sleep better in a travel crib in the tent
- Climbing:
- Outdoors:
- Bring at least one extra person so someone can take care of the baby
- Try bouldering (even if you didn't do it as much before) because you can sometimes do without a third adult and don't need much set up time
- Indoors:
- Put your baby in an infant car seat while you climb at the gym
- Time belays to when the baby is happy or sleeping
- Outdoors:
- Biking:
- Trailer or baby seat - but you generally need to wait until they're about 6 months old for a helmet and to use the bike carriers
- Carry them in baby backpack or front carrier if you feel comfortable
- Skiing:
- Cross-country:
- Take baby with you in a baby backpack
- Downhill:
- Parents can take turns, use radios to tell the mom when nursing is needed
- Have the baby sleep in the car seat or in a wagon in the lodge
- Cross-country:
How to adjust if you waited until the kids are bigger before getting back out
- Keep doing it - they will eventually start whine less
- If you like several activities and the kids like one activity better, encourage the one the kid likes and maybe do the others less for a while
- Remember everything changes with kids every few years - if they don't like your favorite activity now they might like it later
- Tailor the activity to the kid - look for places to stop on your hike/bike ride that the kids like or bring things for them to do while they’re waiting
- Bribe them with snacks - you can taper the snacks off over time as they enjoy the activity more
- Bring other kids for them to play with
- Take lots of breaks
- Develop routines and have gear always packed so you can get out the door faster
How to find time to do things without the kids
- Put them in classes while you do the sport
- Great plan for skiing, but usually after they're 3 years old
- Some resorts offer infant daycare but it's expensive
- Date nights:
- Get a babysitter and spend a night at the gym or going out for a ride
- Date lunches:
- Workout together while kids are in daycare
- While on maternity/paternity leave, meet the working parent for lunch and have one parent workout while the other gets quality time with baby
- Take turns:
- Go solo or go with friends
- Go on a trip with another adult and have the parents take turns
But whatever you do, don't listen to the naysayers who think that the outdoor life is over once you have kids. It may take time to adjust, but that is just part of becoming parents. Keep getting out there and it will keep getting easier.
When to Start
Hiking
- Start hiking as soon as the birth mom’s body feels ready, and if she is nursing make sure she is comfortable nursing on the hike.
- Ease into how much the birth mom carries over time, so consider starting off with the other parent carrying the baby first.
- Look out for making sure the baby is warm enough and is covered from the sun.
- Parents interviewed by OKH reported starting hiking when their babies were between 1 and 4 months old.
Camping
- Same as for hiking - wait for the birth mom’s body to feel ready and to be comfortable nursing on the go if she is nursing.
- Go easy on yourself - if you are all having a really rough time sleeping, don’t feel you need to rush into camping. You will get there.
- Parents interviewed by OKH started camping when their babies were anywhere from 2 to 6 months old.
Backpacking
- It's probably easiest to start backpacking after you have been hiking for a while and tried camping at least once.
- Backpacking is easier the lighter your baby is. If you have a really heavy baby and don’t feel ready to backpack until your baby is 9-12 months old, you might end up not able to go backpacking until your child can walk.
Biking
- The simplest answer is not to bike with your kid until they are one year old, since laws, bike helmet manufacturers, and most bike seat and trailer manufacturers don’t recommend it before then.
- However many people don’t feel it’s necessary to wait that long and will look for other options, and if this is you check out this post from RascalRides.
- Many people start putting kids in a trailer when they are around 6 months old .
- Look out for the baby's helmet pushing their head forwards into an unsafe position. You can put a pillow or towel behind the kid to prevent that.
- Some people put a baby car seat in the trailer, but consider that you probably can’t use a bike helmet with that and there may be laws requiring a helmet.
- One of the OKH interviewees, Corbin, rode with his son in a backpack when he was 6 months old and felt it was safer than a trailer
Skiing/Snowboarding
- Kids:
- You can start kids playing with skis by putting them in strap-on cross-country skis to play in as soon as they can walk.
- Most places don’t have ski lessons until 3 years old, but if you can find skis that fit your kid you can take them on the hill yourself when they are two.
- Parents can’t get back to skiing together until they have childcare, but many parents take turns skiing with one parent staying in the lodge with the baby. You can start this as soon as the birth mom feels comfortable and is able to nurse well if that applies. The birth mom might also want to make sure that her ab muscles get back together before starting.
Cross-Country Skiing
- Start whenever you feel comfortable hiking with your baby and comfortable keeping your baby warm.
- Consider which options you feel most comfortable doing with a small baby:
- The Chariot trailer with ski attachments or a ski pulk put the baby farther away from you, which might be a concern if you’re worried about cold, but you don’t have to worry about falling down as much.
- Baby backpacks or front baby carriers also work well, but you have to feel comfortable about the possibility of falling down.
- Kids can start trying cross-country skiing as soon as they can walk, using the strap-on skis.
Climbing
- Parents:
- Start hiking first and get comfortable with that, then get prepared to carry more weight on the approach (or enlist friends to help).
- Parents can climb as soon as the birth mom is feeling good and (especially) has their ab muscles back together.
- You’ll also need to line up an extra adult unless you’re bouldering so there’s always someone looking after the baby.
- Kids often can’t start climbing on a rope until they are at least 3 years old, since they are so short and don’t weigh much.
- Before then, consider letting them appreciate the joy of climbing by playing around on small boulders and jumping onto crash pads.
Travel
- Travel with a baby can be fun to do as soon as the parents are comfortable with it and especially when people are sleeping well enough.
- Travel with a baby, even international travel, can sometimes be easier than when they’re toddlers:
- They can be in the bassinet on the plane if you get a bulkhead seat.
- You can take them wherever you want and don’t have to cater to their preferences as much as for bigger kids.
- To make it easier for them to adjust to the travel, bring a travel crib and stroller or baby carrier that they are used to sleeping in.
Outdoor Life Balance
One of the biggest challenges of outdoor parenting is setting up our schedules to keep going on trips and getting outside, despite the pressure of sports teams, school events, friends’ birthday parties, and demands from work. Additionally, it’s important to balance between family trips and individual parent time. Here is a summary of advice from us and from our interviewees on how to create that balance.
How to fit activities into working life
- Set up systems and routines for frequent shorter trips that you can do close to home:
- Set up a routine for getting out, even if it has to change each season or as kids get older
- Example: Shannon said they tried to get out for a hike every week, taking advantage of one parent working part-time to get out midweek.
- Set up systems to get away quickly (have go-bags in the car, change them for each season)
- Include in this a set of snacks and water bottles to bring quickly
- Have a list of places to go (nearby or farther away) so you can get away quickly without much planning.
- Learn about the idea of planned spontaneity from Mrs. Adventure Rich on episode 76 of the ChooseFI podcast.
- Set up a routine for getting out, even if it has to change each season or as kids get older
- Incorporate it into your daily life:
- Plan longer trips annually and ahead of time. If you don’t like planning far in advance, make sure you have vacation time allocated and a rough time to use it so you don’t let the vacation time go unused.
- If you need to use vacation time to visit family, plan adventures to do while you’re already out visiting them.
- Err on the side of reserving too many backpacking permits or campsites - you can cancel them if needed.
- In a perfect world: live somewhere close to family or friends so you don’t have to use vacation time to visit them, live close to outdoor activities that you love so you don’t have to drive so far, and have one or both parents with less demanding jobs (or jobs that align with the school schedule) to make packing and getting out of town easier.
- Emily said that “Right now we are satisfied with planning ~4 - 6 trips/year and doing a lot of local hiking. We are fortunate that most of our family is close so our vacation time is generally spent in the outdoors.”
How to balance outdoor adventures with kids school/sports/friends
- This isn’t a problem when kids are babies, but this is a good time for parents to set expectations that can continue as the kids get older.
- Decide what is the priority for your family, and revisit this discussion with the kids as they get older and develop more opinions.
- When you decide to sign your kid up for activities, decide in advance if this is something that you will never miss or what cases you would miss it for so you have a plan ahead of time. As your kid gets older, involve them in the discussion.
- Example: ski team conflicts with soccer in the spring, and possibly with friends birthday parties, so decide (on your own or with the kid’s input) what is going to take priority.
- As Emily said, “If she's doing something on a weekend like swimming or gymnastics, I am fine with her missing a class and swallowing the money if we have another plan.
- When your kid starts school, you’ll need to have the same discussion about school events.
- Try to get the school calendar as far in advance as possible, so you know about any weekend events or Friday afternoon plans so you can decide to miss or attend them.
- Agree among the parents on how you feel about taking kids out of school. Take advantage of half days on Fridays, if your school has them. Learn the rules for missing school - for example in some districts if you take off more than 3 days a year there are consequences, but if you take off a full week you can get an independent study plan and have no consequences.
How to make sure each partner gets enough outside time, on their own if necessary
- Start by having multiple discussions with your partner about what is important to each of you and determine what you want to do without kids.
- This is hard to do think about doing during the chaos of a new baby, but there are a lot of benefits of making time to do this.
- You’ll most likely need to lower your expectations of what you can do, individually and together, compared to life before kids. Take advantage of the change to focus on what is most important to each of you.
- If there are things that each of you wants to do every week, take turns so each of you can get a break from parenting duties.
- Shannon says: “She likes running so I make sure to be on kid duty so she can run. I play soccer, so she’s on duty then.”
- Corbin writes: “We developed a schedule. I get up first and take care of our son in the morning from when he wakes up till 8:30 or so. My wife then takes over till 3 pm. I then have time to work or bike. I take back over at 3 pm till after dinner, at which we swap again. This allows each of us to have dedicated time to ourselves. On days that my wife works, I will watch our boy for the entire day.”
- If either of you can fit things in during daycare hours, look to take advantage of that.
- If you and your partner work close together, you could take a long lunch break and meet at the climbing gym.
- If you work near a climbing gym, get in bouldering sessions or laps on an auto-belay system during lunch breaks.
- Look for opportunities to get out together without the kids.
- Make it into a date night (or afternoon) and get someone to look after the kids. Hire a babysitter and go out to the climbing gym or go for a bike ride. Or swap childcare with friends nearby.
- If you have family nearby, or good friends, maybe they want to play with the kids for the day or a weekend.
- If family is far away, consider flying them out for a visit. We once flew my mother to come to visit for a while and look after the kids when we went on a trip.
- Many ski resorts have daycare options (but it’s usually very expensive!). You don’t need to ski at the resort - see if there is good backcountry skiing nearby
- Emily says “We found ourselves stranded in Red Rock Nevada once when another family skipped out our planned trip and we were able to find childcare at a local kids gym in Las Vegas (Evelyn was around 2 or 3yrs). We would wake up, drive her into the childcare, then book it back to the rocks, climb something shorter, and then dash back to pick her up by 5 pm."
- Go on trips with good friends or near where your family lives.
- If you travel to your parents’ house, see if they’d be willing to look after the kids while you go away for a day or three.
- Go on a trip with another family and each family takes turns taking care of all the kids so the parents can go out by themselves for the day.
- Go on a trip with another adult, and the parents take turns going out with the other adult for the day.
- Go on trips with just your family and have the parents take turns. Each parent can:
- Go skiing by themselves for a few hours or a day.
- Go on hikes (even if it’s just the morning).
- Find a climbing partner for the day and go climbing.
- Or just make the decision that you will just do everything with the kids.
Gear Buying Guide
You don't need a lot of fancy, expensive, new gear to adventure in the outdoors with kids. If you have been playing in the outdoors yourself for many years, you’ve probably splurged on some good quality clothing or the lightest pack available, but your intention was most likely to use it for the next 10-20 years. For example, OutdoorMamma still has the Whisperlite stove she used hiking the Appalachian Trail over 20 years ago, and it still works great. But kids grow quickly and (unless you have a teenager) the gear probably won’t fit them in a few years, so it’s usually not worth it to buy them expensive gear.
Our recommendation is to use hand-me-downs and second-hand gear whenever possible or find deals at end-of-season sales or discount websites. This is why it is our philosophy on this website to share the types of things to look for in gear for kids rather than the exact brand name because you can’t predict what your friend will give you or what you’ll find at a discount. If you understand what characteristics matter to you, then you can decide which characteristics to compromise on and if the discount gear will work for you.
We believe in saving your money to buy new stuff in cases where you can’t find a used item, where the item is specialized or a safety item, when you know you’ll use it a lot and pass it on to your other kids, or when you know that a certain feature is really important for your family.
Examples of situations when it could be worth it to buy new:
- Helmets (safety items)
- Good quality mittens that cinched onto kids wrists well, if you spend a ton of time in the snow and the hand-me-downs aren't that good
- Snow pants one winter when you got all your other gear used but couldn't find those in the correct size
Here are some tips on where to get used or discount items:
- Skiing:
- Look for places that do season ski leases, like Any Mountain or Sports Basement
- If you’re on a team, find out where the team goes (for example Granite Chief in Truckee outfits many of the teams there with season leases)
- Used gear websites like Sideline Swap
- Head to a ski town in the fall and look for discounts on last year's gear
- Clothing:
- Look for discount websites like *https://www.sierra.com/ Sierra Trading Post
- Used clothing stores - if you don’t live in a mountain town, consider visiting a shop in a mountain town
- General:
- Craigslist - great for expensive gear that people often only use for a year or two (like Burley trailers or Piccolos)
- Look for discounts at the end of the season
- Look into Buy/Sell/Trade groups:
- If you’re a member of the American Alpine Club there are great gear and clothing discounts, including Patagonia
- Give the special gear for birthday or holiday presents
- Pass down your good stuff to friends - share the gear!
- Make a note of when certain companies have annual sales (such as REI’s 20% off one item at the anniversary sale in May) and make bigger purchases, like sleeping bags then.
- REI: mid May anniversary sale
- Backcountry: February and August semi-annual sale
Go have fun out there with your kids, and don’t spend a lot of money doing it!
First Aid
First aid planning is more than just building a good first aid kit. It's a good idea for at least one and preferably both parents to take first aid and wilderness medical training to match what you would be expected to do if you were a trip leader on a professional course. This gives you peace of mind that you know what to do in an emergency and also gives your family the best chance of a good outcome. As a bonus, you are also able to help other people that you meet on your trip. All the classes recommended below include adult and infant CPR training/certification that is good as long as the overall certification lasts, so you don’t need to spend time taking that as an extra class.
If you just go on day trips or car camping, the recommended class is a 2 day Wilderness First Aid (WFA) class, making sure you get adult/infant/child CPR training.
If you take your family on multi-day backpacking trips, the recommended class is the Wilderness First Responder (WFR). This class also trains you on the use of epinephrine which can get you special certification depending on your state which may allow you to purchase epi-pens to carry on your trips (not necessarily needed if your kids are already prescribed epinephrine by their doctor).
It's also recommended that you recertify following the schedule the provider requires, because you hopefully won't have any opportunity to use what you learn (because you plan well and have good luck). The hands-on part of the class gives you good opportunities to practice what you learn.
First Aid Training Organizations
| Organization | WFA | WFR | Certification | |
|
| Wilderness Medical Associates | 2 day | 5 day and 7 day and 8 day options (5 day options requires 3 days of preparation work) | 3 years no grace period WFR - 3 day recert |
|
| SOLO | 2 day (doesn't include CPR | 8 or 9 days | WFA: 2 years WFR: 3 years/2 day recert No grace period |
|
| NOLS Wilderness Medicine (formerly WMI) | 2 day (doesn't always include CPR) | 9 or 10 days | 2 years with a 1 year grace period WFR - 2 day recert |
We have taken classes with all 3 of them (although over a 25 year time span). They are all excellent, but have slightly different approaches. Our recommendation is to start by finding the organization that offers the most classes close to home, to make recertifying easier. Otherwise, you can look at the information on their website to see if one of them appeals to you more than others.
First Aid Kit Contents
Once you’ve completed your class, create your first aid kit and make sure you pack it with you at all times:
- Wound care:
- Band-aids (with fun characters for kids)
- Gauze pads / gauze roll
- Betadine
- Syringe for irrigation
- Tweezers
- Vet wrap or coban
- Badger balm / triple antibiotic
- 2nd skin
- Blister kit (Great link to blister care from a WFR instructor)
- Moleskin
- Molefoam
- Tincture of benzoin ampoules
- KT tape blister
- General:
- Nitrile gloves
- KT tape (video on how to use for ankle stabilization)
- Blank SOAP notes
- Thermometer
- Children’s tylenol / Advil / Benadryl
- Epinephrine (if you have authority to carry it)
- CPR Mask
- Scissors
- WMA Field Guide
- Pen
- Triangle bandages
- Tourniquet (they are recommended again)
- Biodegradable soap
- Ziploc bags
And don’t forget to restock your kit before you go out on a trip and audit it once a year for expired supplies.