Toddler Adventure: Gone Hiking

Hiking with a toddler – yes it is totally doable:

Taking little humans on adventures can be an adventure in it of itself. Taking our infants or toddlers or both out into the wilds can be a fun, rewarding, exciting, hair pulling out good time. How best to accomplish this is as both easy and as difficult as you can imagine. The rewards, endless.

Starting young is the trick. My son was born early October so by spring, in Montana so mid April ish, he was ready to go. My first adventure back out into the woods with him was amazing. When they are that small, chuck them a baby carrier (my favorite was the BabyBjorn as it could be worn in multiple body positions) and go. When he was old enough and weighed enough (around 8-9 months of age) he fit into a full frame kid carrier. These things are amazing ( see links here deuter / osprey) the kiddo is front facing and can look out over everything. Most will come with or you can purchase separately the little cover to protect your little one from the sun. Starting kiddos out this early really gets them at minimum used to it and best case scenario in love with it. 

Not to be dissuaded, you can start hiking with kids at any age. The best way to prevent the hair pulling out scenario is to properly set expectations. Kids are kids. They are temperamental, can be fussy, and lets be honest the little ones rule the show. Going into this with no expectation of distance or how many hours you will be on the trail go a long way to preventing your own frustrations. I have had plenty of non-starter hikes. Hikes where the minute my son gets out of the car he is ready to get back in and go home and there is no amount of bribing that will get that kid out onto the trail. Other times you get ¾ a mile in you a celebrating in your mind of how great this is going to be only for the little one to make friends with a tree they obsess over and your distance goals go out the window. 

When you eliminate the expectations of how far you get, it’s ok that you get stuck standing next to a tree counting leaves. It’s not about how far you go, just that you go at all. Second big one, bring the snacks. All the snacks. I am a health nut so I would pack apple slices, crackers, granola bars and for the older non nursing little ones, there very own water bottle. I find that my toddler takes the concept of hangry to a new level, and a simple apple sauce will settle him all the way down and give his brain the juice needed to focus for five seconds instead of two. 

Once those expectations safely thrown away, simply enjoy being outside with your little humans. Get down explore from their point of view. Bring the snacks, kid binoculars, butterfly catcher, and whatever else you want and enjoy.