![\"Family](\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2017\/10\/IMG_0766.jpg\")
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Editor’s Note: This is a guest article from Erik Kennedy<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n There\u2019s a myth that the moment you have a kid, you are duty-bound to cut off contact with the outside world. Any hobbies, sports, or adventures that you participated in pre-fatherhood? Those are now over.<\/p>\n I detest that myth.<\/p>\n Putting together a weekend trip becomes more difficult with a child<\/a>, but it\u2019s still possible. Today we\u2019re going to talk about backpacking with a baby. Backpacking has everything you could want from a pastime: scenic, cheap, reflective, and physically demanding. And if you\u2019ve been backpacking with your friends or spouse, you\u2019ll find only a few adjustments are necessary to bring your baby along.<\/p>\n Why bring a baby backpacking? Why cart them around on a trip they\u2019ll never remember? I can suggest a couple reasons: First, do it because you<\/em> want to go on the trip anyways. Second, even if your child never remembers the trip, they\u2019ll see photos and hear stories someday. Perhaps my daughter will grow up to be absolutely uninterested in the outdoors. That\u2019s fine; I can\u2019t control that. But if she does<\/em> take a liking to being in the backwoods, then she\u2019ll feel she belongs in a particular way. She\u2019s been doing it since before she could remember, after all.<\/p>\n One thing to know about carrying a baby in public is that it\u2019s like being in a dog park with a dog \u2014 except with a baby, the dog park is the world<\/em>. Anyone and everyone will feel free to approach you, make conversation, smile at your child, and so on. That camaraderie is only intensified on the trail, where people are so surprised to see an infant that it\u2019s practically a special occasion. Don\u2019t be surprised if you find yourself stopping to make conversation with every other passerby, and your fellow campers basically demand<\/em> you let them babysit as you cook dinner.<\/p>\n In the woods, everyone\u2019s excited to see a baby.<\/p><\/div>\n My experience backpacking with a baby is somewhat limited: a 50-miler in the North Cascades (1 week), a 100-miler around Mt. Rainier (2 weeks), and a few days in Olympic National Park. If you\u2019ve got twins, or toddlers, or anything other than a single crawling infant, this article might be a good start, but you will probably know some things that I have yet to learn.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve broken down the particular things you\u2019ll have to account for into six systems. We\u2019ll start with the one that everyone<\/em> asks about first \u2014 diapers, of course \u2014 continue through the other concerns, and finally, we\u2019ll end with a checklist of items to bring.<\/p>\n With diapers, you have a couple choices, depending on the length of the trip, and what\u2019ll be available to you on the trail:<\/p>\n G Diapers are a fantastic solution for any trail with pit toilets along the way.<\/p><\/div>\n There aren’t a ton of baby-compatible backpacks out there, so your choices might be limited. The most popular, comfortable, and durable brands seem to be Osprey<\/a> (this is what we used, found at a steep discount at an REI Garage Sale<\/a>) and Deuter<\/a>. We were happy with our choice, as it was packed with useful features, including a \u201cconvertible\u201d sunshade and a pouch for a water bladder. Be on the lookout for what\u2019s most highly rated and in your budget.<\/p>\n Another option is using a Baby Bjorn<\/a> front-carrier and wearing a standard backpacking backpack. However, there\u2019s a size constraint here: if your kid\u2019s legs hang down low enough to impede your climbing stairs at home, don\u2019t count on walking uphill to be much fun at all.<\/p>\n A few logistical pointers about carrying a baby:<\/p>\n Here’s what we brought to feed baby (and mom), and it worked out very well:<\/p>\n The first rule of baby clothes on a backpacking trip will be familiar to many of you: cotton kills<\/em>. Cotton wicks up moisture and holds it something fierce, leeching your baby\u2019s heat to the slightest breeze. Avoid cotton and stick to materials like polyester, fleece, and wool.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, finding non-cotton baby clothes can be surprisingly difficult. Most brand-name sports retailers will offer baby clothes, but their prices are often brand-name too. We had the most luck searching Amazon for baby athletic clothes (it might make sense why there\u2019s not a lot of results for this).<\/p>\n Synthetic shirts and pants make a great base layer \u2014 light, non-wicking, and protective from the sun. A sunhat is extra protection for the less shaded stretches of trail. Between a long shirt, a sunhat, and the sunshade built into the pack, we were able to forego sunscreen for our baby \u2014 a boon, considering it would\u2019ve ended up in her mouth in short order.<\/p>\n For mornings, colder days, and high-elevation stretches, pack warmer clothes. Fleece booties and a thin wool hat are good for the in-between temperatures, but if it\u2019s truly chilly, nothing beats a one-piece full bodysuit, either in fleece or other synthetics.<\/p>\n A one-piece fleece suit is great for cold mornings \u2014 although it occasionally will pick up a bit of dirt if you have a crawler.<\/p><\/div>\n For sleeping, standard one-piece pajamas work great \u2014 but, not to beat a dead horse, do use fleece instead of cotton.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s rain. While a rain cover that fits your baby backpack will be good first protection, there\u2019s always the chance that it\u2019s raining when you\u2019re in camp, taking a break, or sometime when the pack doesn\u2019t make sense. For those, you can get one-piece zippered baby rain suits.<\/p>\n For a full list of baby clothing to bring, see the checklist below.<\/p>\n Sleep was the most difficult part of our trips \u2014 our daughter just doesn’t sleep well in tents.<\/p>\n In some sense, who can blame her? We were in a totally new place, in a tent with backlit orange walls, it was far lighter in the evening, brighter earlier, and the sleeping bag she was on was totally different in texture and softness from her crib at home.<\/p>\n It is a challenge to create an ideal sleep environment for a child in the backcountry. As much as you can, replicate your child\u2019s sleep environment at home. Now is not the time to take away the white noise machine. We specifically brought a receiving blanket that my wife had wrapped her pillow in the nights before we left \u2014 here was something that felt and smelled like home for our daughter, and she would often fall asleep on it at the beginning of the night.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the question of space. Where does baby sleep? In general, there are two viable options: above one of your heads, or next to you\/in between you.<\/p>\n If your baby sleeps at your head, you can either use an extra-long sleeping pad, get a separate small sleeping pad (such as a pet sleeping pad), or \u2014 what we did \u2014 put together two 3\/4 length backpacking sleeping pads. This spanned our tent the long way, and I had enough room to stretch out with my daughter at my head.<\/p>\n If you sleep with your baby between you or on one side of you, then some different options open up. First, if your pads are wide enough, you might have enough room for the three of you on two pads (we often ended up like this by morning \u2014 sometimes tight, but certainly doable). Alternatively, consider a multi-person sleeping pad system designed for the job.<\/p>\n When the temperature was in the 50s during the night, we found fleece pajamas and a wool hat was plenty warm. When colder, we also put her in a one-piece fleece suit or snuggled her up to us. With your baby so close to you, it\u2019s not hard to monitor their temperature and adjust accordingly.<\/p>\n In the checklist below, I\u2019ve also added a baby tent into the sleeping system list. Some companies offer small, zippable tents for babies, targeted primarily at families bringing babies to the beach. We bought one hoping to use it as a crib, but found it worked better as \u201ccontainer care\u201d when we were setting up camp and needed four hands to pitch the tent, filter water, make dinner, etc.<\/p>\n![\"Park](\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2017\/10\/backpacking-baby-on-trail-e1507133474506.png\")
1. Diapers<\/h3>\n
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![\"Baby](\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2017\/10\/backpacking-baby-sleeping-e1507133746593.png\")
2. Backpack<\/h3>\n
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3. Food<\/h3>\n
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4. Clothing<\/h3>\n
![\"Baby](\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2017\/10\/backpacking-fleece-e1507134077150.png\")
5. Sleeping<\/h3>\n
![\"Small](\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2017\/10\/backpacking-tent-e1507134154335.png\")