Trailbabies: Tramping with baby or toddler

Hi everyone, after writing an answer to a question of Chiromum, I decided to re-post most of it here, as I know from experience that it is hard to find information about this topic, and I want to make it easy for people to find it. Excuse the length of the post, I hope it will be worth it for some people, since we had serious trouble finding any useful information on tramping with babies or toddlers when we started. This is a hugely incomplete write-up of some of our experiences from tramping with our baby and toddler, starting from a few months old to currently 19 months. As we found out that it's not only possible, but even enjoyable, to do real tramping trips with a baby or toddler, we would like to get to know other people out there who do the same. We're reasonably experienced trampers, but in no way hardcore, so assume there must be others, though we have not met any yet anywhere. Where are you? Show yourself! Please get in contact with us - we'd like to exchange experiences and tricks, and maybe we can do a bit of walking together... First off: Never, ever, understimate what babies, toddlers, and children can do, in many ways! If you give them the opportunity, they will surprise you many times, and have a ball doing it. "Second off", of course: Never, ever put anything above looking after your little ones, and don't forget it for a second, round the clock - sun protection, comfy temperature, dry, drink, food, bum, mood... It's only fair to do that. Look at native peoples around the world in all sorts of environments, with very limited equipment, and at what they do with their whole family no matter what age, and you quickly realise that it's not the children who define the limits. It's the parents and their knowledge, skill, experience; and their relationship to their little ones. Most people, including most trampers, seem to think that what we do is quite extreme, either because they think it's dangerous (more about that later), or stressful, or both - but truthfully and speaking from experience, it's neither if you do it right. We braced for a tough experience when we started it, but that never really came - of course you need to think differently, but it's in fact pretty easy, at least for us, to the point that we really REALLY can't believe how many tramping-parents do not go on these wonderful trips with their little ones! It's like breaking through a wall, once you've started and you have your head on the other side, you realise that the wall wasn't half as thick as you thought, and the other side is actually a really nice place. There are much, much more hardcore trampers than us - lots of them - and we are convinced that if we can do this and enjoy it, loads of other people can as well. All you need is a reasonable amount of tramping experience, and then add to that some thinking outside the box and a good relationship with your baby / toddler. Many people who see us seem to think we're oh so tough and "doing it all for our baby", while we're actually having a really good and quite cruisy time - but when we tell them, they think we're putting on a show. It's just so uncommon that many people simply can't believe that it should be possible, let alone enjoyable. Don't listen to the naysayers! Try it, and you will never look back. Just use your brain while you do it. We've been doing day trips and overnighters with our baby within his first few months of life; this summer we've been out around the Routeburn area for 8 days autonomously, meaning we were carrying all food and fuel and other supplies, didn't use huts or camp sites, and camped in the bush with a tarp. It was bucketing down on us most of the time and was stormy on some days, but we were warm, well fed, and safe without exception. Most of our tramping-with-baby-strategy worked well, a few things we do differently now. We borrow lots of ideas from the ultralight community, but don't consider ourselves ultralight, and have a strong emphasis on "going safe", meaning within our abilities and well equipped for the worst possible conditions. For eight days out, including 12 kg of our toddler, we usually start with a pack weight of around 24 kg each, which is not too bad considering that the food goes down day by day, and the little one starts to walk up to an hour or more each day now as well. We could go lighter, but don't; we prefer to still be able to smile even in the worst weather. The rain washed most other trampers without children out of that area while we were there, while we really had a good time - even though some more sunshine would have been nice. If you want to try it for the first time, if you can it can help to take a friend or relative along who MUST be totally committed to help with everything. Not so much for sharing the weight, but an extra pair of hands helps heaps. If that friend is throwing pebbles into a creek, the other two can pitch the tarp / tent in terrible weather much more easily, for example. Talking of weather: You MUST have a baby carrier that has a very solid rain- and storm proof rain cover all round, and your little one MUST have full polypro AND rain suit. With that, you're pretty much sorted regarding warmth. Goes without saying, taking cotton is asking for very, very serious trouble, don't even think about it, not one piece. Once baby can sit upright properly for a longer time, a back carrier is the way to go. Before that, use a front carrier or moby wrap. Macpac makes a front carrier that can be detached from its own carrying harness (the adult side) and clicked into the standard harness of a normal backpack, by the way - they don't advertise that fact, but it works perfectly and is safe. We slept under a quilt, with him between us - as we share two queen-size mattresses that are put together at home as well, nothing he wasn't used to before, no problem. Try a night in your garden before maybe if you're unsure. He always loves to go to bed underneath the tarp though, hard to keep him out of it, and loves the camp mats as well. One rule of thumb is: Take more time. Often we were surprised at how far we would get in a day, as our toddler was enjoying himself silly almost all the time, and the mood of the little one is directly related to what you can do. But sometimes things just don't work as planned, and it's important to be able to stop and call it a day soon when that happens, not be frustrated about it, and just enjoy being where you are with your children. That also seems to be the trick to make sure that he wants to go again and again - works for us - at least so far, knock on wood! In our experience, even little toddlers are much more adaptable to backcountry situations than most adults seem to be - as long as you keep them warm, well fed, dry (with the exception of feet sometimes, but that's what superwarm socks are for), and: Make them part of everything! As long as he could help pushing pegs into the ground, doing dishes, getting water etc. pp., he felt he was a real member of the family, and was SO proud and happy! Also, give him a collapsed tramping pole, and he walks like crazy for up to an hour and a half or more. Of course, people told us before that "it can't be done", "it's dangerous and irresponsible" etc. pp., and some people still tell us now. But none of them has actually seen how we do out there - if they had, they would probably agree that the way we do it it's not more dangerous than spending a day in the city with our toddler. It also is, for example, WAY (!!!) safer than cycling in say Christchurch or Auckland, with our without baby. Yet not many people realise just how dangerous doing that is. That is not an exaggeration at all - it really depends on how you do it, both of it. If you cross streets like an idiot, you do get run over. If you go to the mountains ill equipped or without enough experience etc. pp., you can have bad outcomes as well. It really depends much more on how you do it than on what you do. As a healthy parent, your guts will always tell you where the line is, if you listen to them. Respect that instinct, it's a good one. A general part of any good baby tramping strategy is: Make absolutely every single task that you need or may need to do as little time consuming as possible. That drastically increases your ability to respond to situational changes and circumstances. If your little one(s) suddenly need to stop to play with some rocks because they won't sit in the carrier anymore, it's great if you can quickly and without many complicated things to do cook dinner, for example - right there on the trailside - and if they suddenly decide to want to go on again, change your plan again, NOT eat it, but pack it up in a tupperware thingy or similar, wrap it in your sleeping bag, and eat it at night at camp where it's still warm. Just as an example, you get my point. UMBRELLAS, the larger the better, may seem odd and heavy - compare! - but they buy time galore in many situations as instant shelters. Lunch stop, nappy change, map reading, whatever - not only great for the offspring, but also for you. Basically, anything that helps keep everybody in high spirits, and anything that helps save time and hassle, is worth some extra weight multiple times. Look for those solutions. Once you start tramping with your toddler(s), you will identify them all the time. Tip: Take a pen and piece of paper, have it readily accessible all the time. On our first trips, I scribbled about half a page of notes per day, and did some serious improving of our gear back home. Without pen and paper, would hav forgotten half of it. One particular thing we do and recommend: Take an emergency beacon. They are no substitute for anything else, but add quite a decent time advantage in most situations where you do need external help. We've never needed it, never even come close, but wouldn't go without it. They can be rented from several places in town, and even locally from businesses sometimes, often even on short notice - pays to ask ahead though. For some dollars per day, it's a no-brainer. People have travelled long distances on foot with their babies, toddlers and children for millennia - with the ridiculously powerful equipment that is available today, with some bush skills and good common sense, there is absolutely no reason why we shouldn't do the same. Ramble ramble - sorry! Hope that was interesting for some people. Would be really cool to meet some other young families in the mountains some time! Have great trips! Cheers, Matt
21 comments
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Kaaren and Jeph were based in Christchurch and won a grant to travel down the Mekong. They have also worked in Nepal. They are both doctors and have been taking their littlelies out heaps. Not sure where they are now. Someone might know. Jeph was contributing articles to the Press about their river trip. I think he may have written a book. He writes beautifully.
I saw your flyer in Vernon Park and want to get in touch with you re. tramping. I have 2 children, 5 years and 20 months. Have you an email add/cell no. that I can contact you on?
Garth, Izogi: Couldn't agree more. With the current carrier, Macpac basically owns the market for all people who want to do a bit more than average with their children. It's a bit of a pity that there is not more competition in that segment, as there are clearly things that could still be done better. Don't get me wrong, the Vamoose is a great carrier, but not quite perfect yet. Honora: Sounds like an interesting family, will see if I find the time to google them a bit more. Thanks for the info! Timmi: Would be cool to get in contact, please email me - see below! EVERYONE: Here's my email address for anyone who would like to get in touch: [Email address removed]. We're looking forward to hearing from you! Cheers, Matt PS: Matthew, if it's not ok to post email addresses here, please let me know and obviously feel free to remove it.
Ok so that didn't work too well, obviously I can't post my email address here. Matt, how can I let other people know how to contact me? Or is the only way through the internal private messaging system? If the latter is the case, anyone interested please send me a message through the mail system of this forum; you find the "inbox" button at the far top right of this page. I assume and hope that I can then send you my email address from there... Cheers, Matt
Hi Matt, Email addresses are stripped so that they are not harvested by spammers. However, I'm going to start another thread asking about that, as I'm aware it is a hassle. For now, people should contact you via internal mail -- and I need to make the links for this more obvious, which I will get onto. Yes, in the internal mail you can put whatever you like. It's not about stopping people share email address: it's about protecting you from spammers. MW
Hi again, sorry, I totally forgot to come back to this thread and finally post my email address in a way that the software allows! So here it is: trailbabies[AT]gmx[DOT]net Anyone curious about tramping with babies and toddlers and / or keen to join us for a few walks, send us an email! Cheers, Matt
Hi young families, the Trailbabies are going for a little meet'n'greet walk on Sunday, 23. May. Read more here: http://www.tramper.co.nz/?view=topic&id=934&messageId=6666&response=messageAdded&CFID=36732341&CFTOKEN=59730902 See you there...? Cheers, Matt
Hi everyone, sorry it's been a while since I last posted an update about our activities here - that's simply because I don't have time to do that! We've been on a number of walks in the meantime, did a nice overnighter together, and learned a whole lot again. Summer is close now, and we're getting ready for some bigger trips! To collect family tramping specific knowledge and experiences in one single place, we have set up a specialised forum for tramping with babies, toddlers and children: www.trailbabies.net If you are interested, please feel invited to have a look around and, if you like what you see, sign up as a member and be part of everything right from the beginning! We are looking forward to get to know you. Happy trails! Matt for the Trailbabies
A tarp huh. So sandflies..... ? my wife and I have a 6 month old and are hardcore trampers like you (off track being the definition) and every weekend - well that was before lucy arrived. So then we had a baby. We did a trial in the back yard in a tent went fine apart from all the crying at night which is normal. Then when out in the wild it was much harder - when it got windy on exposed grass land she couldnt breath, and if stopped to breastfeed anywhere below 1100m the sandflies came and it was not fun. putting up the tent and cooking dinner was harder being a person down(looking after little one). We used a mac pac carrier we use (koala?) i purchased the rainbow thing- which is awesome and the sombremeo sunshade which holds it up - it has mesh but its is loose and has large gaps! maybe for aussy flies? doesnt really protect from sandflies. the gear and baby was much heavier and much more bulky for the bush bash part. the nappies got very heavy just over night! . 8-9 days id like to know what your doing for nappies. ive read a couple of these baby outdoors articles they skim over the real hard bits like nappies, sandflies and moaning tired babys that wont fall asleep. at the end of the trip I felt like id rather not have gone out! a day at the beach or a short walk would have been nicer - and thats very weird for me an outdoors junkie. im not adapting well and although i love the little one I cant help wanting the old days. I wondered how much is baby really taking in, that they woudn't from a visit to botanical gardens or beach. my own first over night tramp was with dad when I was about 6 or 7 - I liked it that way. I was very excited and before then had only done day walks. Having had our own baby I really miss the freedom to do hard trips and catch up with freinds doing it. No one else says this! - am I the only one who really wants to go back to the freedom! The outdoors used to be an escape from lifes pressure and responsibility and a place of adventure - now the outdoors is just a big giant responsibility and domesticated.
We spent a few days with a lovely family at Routeburn Falls hut one time. Dad was washing the cloth nappies in a side creek. He called it 'Nappy Creek'. There was a pot belly stove at the hut which dried the nappies. Very laid-back family and we were staying near the snow line there in June so no other visitors. They had a lot of activities for the 2 older girls to do. I'd say it's a helluva lot easier staying in huts than camping with the little ones. Makes me admire the tangata whenua in the pre-European times. They had the woven baskets which they lined with spaghnum moss. A lady told me dried celmisia leaves were used to protect against scratchy moss for the women's use.
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Forum The campfire
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On 30 March 2010
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