Family Tramping with toddlers (1.5-3 years)
Stop Often.
Up on your back is a great view-point for your toddler. But they do want to join in the fun! You’ll have to plan on only walking about 30 – 60 minutes at a time, depending on your child. And rest time will probably be just about as long as hiking time, if not longer! So plan how much ground you can cover in a day accordingly.
At this age, rest time was best spent running around in circles, playing with rocks, sticks, climbing over things; pretty much just being a toddler. If we wanted to be super productive, we’d get her to walk as the break from the carrier.
If you want to cover lots of ground, this is best done during your wee ones nap time, if, and while they still have a day nap!
Let them “Walk”.
By the time Bethany was 16 months old, she was such a confident walker, that she just wanted to hike by herself! At first holding our hands, but soon enough if the trail was relatively flat, she was off! This was a great way to take 10kg of weight off my back, tire out the toddler, and still get some ground covered. However, you do need to plan on your pace being about 0.001 km/hr!
But don’t worry, by the time we approached 3 years old, if holding both our hands, and walking downhill B could walk at almost our pace. Approaching 3, sometimes she could even cover up to 1/3 of the distance we tramped!
Distances covered.
The older Bethany got, the less ground we could cover. But the more she walked herself, so the less weight I needed to carry!
Flat tracks are still easy with toddlers, but needing to carry them up hills gets much harder! While we could easily cover a flat or downhill section in line with the DOC time, the uphills can easily take even double – and we’re relatively fit! Plus for some reason, Bethany ALWAYS asks to get carried on the uphill parts – eek!
Now is definitely the time to start looking into those Great Walks and other more well formed tracks.
Prepare for toddler strikes
All of us have ‘bad days’ now and again, and your little person is no different. When you’re planning your trip, keep in mind a series of shorter route options and suitable camping spots enroute. If the wheels really are falling off the trip, then you’ve got backups lined up. Maybe once the crisis is averted, you can continue on a bit more..
As you walk, take note of camping spots along the way, so you can retreat if necessary; there’s no point pushing things just for the sake of ‘getting there’.
With that in mind its worth being more relaxed about ‘failing’ to reach your intended destination. Just getting out is an achievement, anything extra is a cherry on top.
Start explaining the meaning of trail markers to them.
One year olds are pretty capable of understanding what you explain to them, even though some don’t yet communicate back with words yet.
If you point out the DOC markers, or whatever other markers your trail has, your toddler will soon get the hang of the fact that that’s what they’re meant to be following.
With Bethany being quite verbal, we often asked her to point the next one out, and made it a bit of a game. But it’s also been useful if she tries to run off ahead to ask her whether she can see the orange marker! That re-orientates her to follow the correct trail, rather than just run away from us.
Up your snack game.
A little growing toddler needs nourishing snacks on the trail! Well, so do you, but it’s much more important for tiny little bodies.
And with toddlers actually walking some of the distance, nourishing snacks are much more important than during the baby stage. But so are the bribery snacks. It’s definitely important to keep both on hand! Some of our favourites for multi-day tramps include: sultanas, seed crackers, vegetable crackers, dehydrated apricots, nuts and cranberries.
Starting from about 2 years old we also kept some jelly beans, gummy bears, and dark chocolate for when she was walking.
Little people footwear.
Wee little feet that don’t yet walk too much of the trail don’t need to have proper hiking boots. In fact, we found that the best footwear was good old gumboots. They keep socks dry, and that was pretty much the only consideration in footwear I found!
A pair of soft-soled shoes for around the hut, or for walking in good weather are also great.
At about 2 years old we brought some hiking sandals, which are great for summertime when gumboots aren’t a necessity – though we did still often find ourselves taking the gumboots, sandals, and soft-soled shoes on every trip!
Once she was out of the toddler stage, into the pre-schooler stage, walking more decent distances, we finally purchased a pair of tramping shoes. And in retrospect I still wouldn’t have done it earlier. Read More...
