Baby Carriers and Backpacks

 If you have not read my post trying to convince you to Ditch the Stroller, you should give it a read. Unless you are already convinced that baby wearing is the way to go in order to do travelling with kids. Baby wearing is in my opinion the BEST way to travel with kids. Once I started wearing my babies, I did it everywhere - grocery store, garage sales, zoo and most importantly - on the hiking trails. And we also realized that baby wearing was essential to getting anything done at home as well. 

I will have to admit though, that baby carriers and backpacks have improved immensely since we had our first baby. We used a Kelty Kid carrier. Why? Because it was cheap compared to Baby Bjorn which was basically our other choice. Fortunately, the Kelty was also a very good carrier. We were able to start wearing our babies in it once they hit 8 pounds. We were able to wear them facing us until they were able to hold their heads up and then we were able to face them out. Our babies absolutely LOVED facing out. And I will have to brag that by the third baby, I was able to actually feed my little constantly eating son while he was in the carrier. 

So, what would I suggest is important as you shop for your front carrier?

    1. Make sure it is possible to have the baby in the carrier hands free. That is what I always struggled with when trying out slings and wraps. Maybe some parents can use them and make them hands free, but I was not able to manage to do it. It was especially needed to be hands free with baby #3 because I needed to have one hand for holding on to each of my daughters. I did not have a hand to balance the baby in the carrier.

    2. Make sure that you are able to stand with aligned posture. In the picture above I am slouching a bit, but that was mainly to make sure I did not squish my daughter because my arms were not long enough to reach into the sink. Baby wearing is not for the weak and if you are slouching you will have horrible back aches.

    3. Make sure it is easily adjustable. I loved that after practice, Jim and I were easily able to swap the carrier. He wore the babies just as much as I did (possibly more) and having a carrier which fits both parents is essential. Especially when parents are nowhere near the same body shape and size. 

    4. Make sure straps are padded. While you are at it, make sure everything is padded for baby as well. I remember reading a lot about how some carriers had the carrier set to have legs wide apart and others had baby legs close together. I have to admit I can't remember which is good and which is bad. I do remember making sure that the one we had was what supposedly was the ideal fit for baby legs.

One funny story - I do remember going into the store and shopping for carriers. The store salesperson strapped it on Jim and she put in weights so that he could feel what it would be like to check on the padding, check out the back, etc. He announced quite shocked that it was heavy and he could not imagine having to carry a baby on his front because it would make him SO tired. At that time I was about 8 months along in pregnancy and quite large. If you don't see the humor in that, just go read something else.

Anyway, for the adorable factor, here is proof of how much our daughter loved being strapped on.

We didn't just use this for household chores, we hiked with kids in it as well. I remember taking #2 down a canyon in Yellowstone in it. That hike burned a bit in the legs on the way back up, but it was a good hike. And #3 spent almost our entire vacation to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in it. 

From seeing the above pictures, you might be wondering why I am doing the wearing because I had mentioned Jim did more wearing than I. He definitely did, but tended to do more of the heavy lifting. In the above family pictures from Michigan, he usually had #2 in the backpack carrier. And even once carried both.

We actually had two of the carriers shown in the above picture. Once the babies were big enough to be in this carrier, it was their main form of transportation. We wandered Annapolis, DC and western New York with daughter #1 in the backpack. When we knew #2 was on the way, buying a second backpack was one of the first things we did. (Both were craigslist finds, by the way. Back when that was the best place for finding slightly used items.) Once we had two kids, we carted them up mountains in Yellowstone and Colorado.

Anyway, since I am sure the REI Piggy Backs are not sold anymore, here is what we think you should make sure are features of your kid backpack.

    1. Five Point harness system for the kid. They will fall asleep in the pack and it is important that they are strapped in well. 

    2. Padding. On our most recent trip we had a nice chat by a waterfall with a German family about their kid backpack. They showed us that the newer packs are much better with front padding by the kid's face. Which is awesome. Because we were concerned one time when Jim walked into a post in Annapolis and our daughter ended up lurching forward from the impact. Fortunately, Jim's balls and our daughter's face were fine, but it did make us think of the padding on the front.

    3. Hip Belt. This was one thing that the German parents at the waterfall were not pleased about with their pack. It is critical that there is a hip belt and that it adjusts well so that the weight of the pack sits on the wearer's hips rather than on the back. With the weight on hips you will be able to walk much farther. Along with the hip belt it should have the stabilizing strap which goes across the wearer's chest.

    4. Kick Stand. When we were shopping for packs, many did not have kick stands. We loved the kickstand because it meant that when our kids fell asleep we were able to take off the pack and simply set the whole pack on the ground and they would just continue with their nap. Without a kickstand you have to risk them waking up when you set the pack on its side. I remember once going into a restaurant and setting the pack with our daughter still in it in a corner and she slept through part of our dinner. 

    5. Extra storage. Ours had enough room to stuff diapers, wipes, snacks, blanket, spare clothes. Pretty much whatever was in the diaper bag went into the storage on the pack. And if you are doing a longer hike it needs to be able to hold snacks and water for parents as well. 

    6. Proper footwear. I know there is a lot of discussion online now on the value of hiking boots versus trainers for hiking. We really liked wearing our boots when carrying kids in the pack. Anytime you are carrying a pack, make sure you are wearing proper footgear. We also found that using hiking poles was incredibly helpful when carrying the kids on trails. 

Hopefully this helps when shopping for packs. We loved ours and most importantly, we loved the freedom we gained from strapping on the kids. Fortunately, our kids loved the packs as well and we like to think that the effort we took in shlepping them around helped instill in them our love for exploration. Our daughters even have their names signed in a logbook from the top of Mount Washburn in Yellowstone because they made it to the top! (Happiness of the child on Jim's back was totally due to his hearty, or gasping, singing of "The Wheels on the Bus".) 

Ditch the Stroller

Yes, that is what I said. Ditch the Stroller. Maybe we have this mindset because we were never able to afford a nice stroller. We had one which folded up and we could snap the car seat on top. I think we bought it on Craigslist for $25. We did not have the money to pay for a nicer one and there was no way we could fit a bigger one into our small apartment. But, as we managed without a fancy stroller first for one kid and then the second, we realized that for the third child, we didn't even want one. And we started watching other parents struggling to fit their gear in the car and attempting to maneuver their push mobiles which were almost the size of smart cars through crowds or up stairs. We were not missing anything. 

Since we had baby #1 in the Washington DC urban area, I will start with discussing the difficulty of having a stroller in a city. As I mentioned before, strollers take up space. Unless you are able to afford a large apartment, floor space is too valuable to waste on storage of a stroller. We did not have a garage for any storage so everything we owned had to be in our 800 square foot apartment unless we wanted rent a storage locker. If you rent a locker, you will get to KEEP paying for that stroller every month as you pay your storage locker fee. Then there is car space if you are travelling. We could only afford to have one car (parking spots can be pricey). It was a Toyota Corolla. We loved that car - manual transmission with great gas mileage. We called her Moya. As much as we loved her, if you are planning on hauling around a big stroller it will take up almost all of your trunk space. Which means you will not have room for anything else. Those parents you see using the strollers had to invest in bigger cars which are gas guzzlers. Which means they probably pay twice as much gas money as we ever did in our Corolla. So, when you pick out your big stroller, think about how you are not only paying for the stroller, but you are paying for square footage in your living space as well as your car.

Next, I am going to talk about using a stroller when using mass transportation. When we lived in DC, we used the busses and metro a lot. Getting a stroller on a bus is awful. Change that, unless you have a fold up one, it is almost impossible. Hard pass. Getting a stroller on the metro was a bit easier.  But, if it was crowded other passengers were not always cheerful about giving up space so you could squish in with a stroller. It is difficult to get on and off the metro car quickly with a stroller. Strollers are only allowed on elevators when exiting or entering the station and at times elevators at certain stops would be broken which would mean you would have to switch to a different stop. (Which is absolutely horrible for disabled people!) Then there was also the uncomfortable feeling I always had in crowded spaces that someone could quickly unstrap my baby and walk away with her and disappear into the crowd. Hopefully this gives you an idea that strollers and mass transport do not really go together well.

Still thinking about using a stroller in the city, think about what kind of activities you will be doing if you are a tourist in a city. We discovered that many museums and zoo buildings would not let us enter with a stroller. We had to check it at the front door. Which often meant just leaving the stroller by the door. We would have to unload anything of any value and then carry those items as well as the baby. This does not work well if there is only one parent. Jim learned very quickly how annoying this was because he wandered around the zoo a lot with our daughter. And much like on the metro, other tourists in museums and monuments are not sympathetic to making space for a stroller. Then, if you feel like hopping into a restaurant, good luck finding a restaurant that wants to give you space for your stroller. (And please don't expect them to give you larger seating which is reserved for handicapped persons, that is just rude.)

So, that is what city life can be like. On to why I don't like strollers for more rural pursuits either. As we have mentioned in other places on this blog, our travel is often focused on hiking. It seems like at least once on every one of our trips we see at least one set of parents attempting to hike with a stroller. (On our last trip it was a couple attempting to do the 9 kilometer out and back trail to Stuðlagil Canyon.) It is rare to have a hiking trail paved for strollers. If it is paved, it is called a nature walk and it is usually about 1 kilometer. It will not be a long trail because paving a "trail" is expensive and the parks don't have funding for that. Yes, I am aware this extremely unfair for anyone who is disabled and needs a wheelchair. Our national parks are doing what they can to be accessible, they still have a LONG way to go. Which means they are not accessible for strollers either. You will be able to do some things with a stroller, like walk in to Old Faithful at Yellowstone and maybe around some of the hotpots. You can stroller up to the overlook at Mount Rushmore. But, the trails at Gettysburg will not happen with a stroller. If you want to actually do REAL hiking and REALLY get into our national parks, you must ditch the stroller. 

Ok, so what are you supposed to do once you have recognized that a fancy stroller is a waste of your money and space and is not an asset when travelling? You do baby carriers and baby backpacks. They are amazing.  Fortunately, we have a blog post about them. Baby Carriers and Backpacks

If you have read all the way to here, I do want to add a caveat. Or two. The experiences I am speaking of are of us travelling with ONE baby. If you have multiples, you are in a whole other world than me. I have absolutely no experience travelling with twins or triplets and I will just admit that any parent of multiples deserves the title "Master of Parenting". You win. You have different skill sets than I and your children have different needs than mine. This also goes for any parent of a child with special needs. 

My other caveat is that if you are a runner I guess I could see wanting a running stroller. Neither Jim or I are avid runners. Maybe we would have run if had a running stroller. We will never know. We bought a treadmill instead and put a baby fence around it. And put up a TV over the treadmill so I can watch Buffy and Angel episodes while I run. So much better than a stroller.