I Tried Hiking With a Baby!

In this video, I have a very tiny and very special guest joining me. Everybody, meet Jane. What's up, dude? I think this is fun for her. Is this a bad time? She is the daughter of Abby, our videographer, and her husband, Jimmy. And Abby and Jimmy have graciously allowed me to borrow Jane. Bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge. Look. Is she looking? Because I have never hiked with a baby before. Hiking with baby is hard. We're not quite ready for bottle time yet. What do I do? Ah. It's just a lot harder to... In this video, I am going to show you all the stuff that Jane is using on her hike, as well as some of the tips that Abby and Jimmy are going to share, things that they've done for hiking with a baby. I'm realizing I'm not in the most comfortable position. We're currently going for rocks. Am I doing it? Is she still there? We're in squirm mode right now. So if you're a parent or a friend of a parent, or if you're a baby, then this video will be relevant to you. Come on, Jane. You and me. High five. This is my show, gosh darn. Here we go. Am I doing it? Is she still there? Is she? Somebody say yes, great. Is this a hand? Oh my God. Oh wait, we are missing something really important. The baby cam. Okay, Jane. Get a close up. It's rolling. Oh my God. Do you think this is fun for her, or is this bad time? Do you like this, Jane? Does she seem happy? She's doing so much babbling also. I hope that you hear that in the mic. It's like, Nailed it. Now let's actually start the hiking. So the hike that we are doing today is to Coal Creek Falls. Most of these trails are fairly flat. So this is a perfect chance for me to practice like wearing the baby carrier. It's kind of like what it feels like. I have this little mirror on a piece of utility cord, and I can actually hold it up and see Jane. Basically like a backup camera, but for babies. We're gonna go to Coal Creek Falls, which is that direction about a mile. I'm already getting warm. This girl's heavy. You're doing so good, you chonk. Look, it's a leaf. We're having fun. I think I might be having more fun than she is though. Beetle! If I want to bend down and look at the beetle, can I do that? Beetle. There's a beetle on the ground. And we're up. Cool. Woo, yeah. Leg workout. So Jane is right now like 16, 17 pounds. And these carriers have not only a starting weight limit, but the baby also has to be able to sit upright and hold their head up. She can be in this carrier until she weighs, I think like 40, maybe even 50 pounds, depending on the carrier. So she's got some time still. Which means that if I keep hiking with Jane, or especially if Abby and Jimmy keep hiking with Jane, I'm gonna butt a ----. That's a heavy ass baby. She doesn't understand. Turds, farts, little wee, little poop, little poo. I don't know, is poop a swear word? Jane's like, yes. All right, another sign. We are going that way. All right, power walk. Here we go. Come on, Jane. You and me. Careful steps. I'm starting to get over the novelty of it a little bit. I am really glad that we opted to do a shorter trail because I'm realizing just how different this pack feels in my backpacking bag. And so my body is kind of adjusting. I will say that this is actually physically a little bit harder than I was expecting, honestly. Okay, we're gonna get up to Coal Creek Falls. At some point in time here, Jane is going to need a bottle and she's probably also gonna need a diaper change. I have some kind of cool backpacking gear that I have decided to try and use for hiking with a baby. Things that like are part of my backpacking kit, but have made their way to the baby hiking kit. All right, girl. Here we go. Ooh. We just head butted each other. Yeah. Look at how green everything is. Ooh, yeah. My butt cheeks hurt. Tired. Hiking with baby is hard. This backpack does feel like you're just wearing a box. I feel like a telephone booth with legs. I'm just like imagining if I can like scoop the air behind myself, I'll go faster. Zoom. Fly. Wow, they're going so fast. You guys don't know my pain. I'm having a time. She's heavy. All right, Jane. Girl, there's like a huge droplet of sweat dripping down my boobs. That's because of you. I do feel like this backpack gives me kind of a strut. Having fun back there? Having a chill time? I can't wait till you are old enough that I can point fungus to you and you can be excited about it. Look. Is she looking? Is she looking at it? Over there. Ew. Don't touch. Look at this, Jane. Oh, hi, smile. I really get a camera on looks on these guys' faces. They're trying to get her to smile. Oh my gosh. My first bridge with baby. Bridge, bridge, bridge, bridge. Baby on a bridge, bridge, bridge. Dee, dee, dee, dee, dee. So behind me is what at some point in time was Cold Creek Falls, but we are much later in the season now. And so most of the water has dried up, but it's still very lovely. And there's a nice spot out here where it's totally dry. So we're going to take a second and probably change her diaper. Woo. We did it, Jane. High five. We are going to take a break. But first, how to take this off. You didn't tell me that. All right, should we check your diaper, see if it's time? Cool. All right, I'm going to pop her into some more flat ground. Perfect. All right, now before I take her out of the carrier, I am actually going to just take my sit pad off and lay it down so that I can immediately pull her out and put her on something. I actually just bungee corded my Gossamer gear, like super lightweight sit pad onto the back. It's really thin, but I think it's going to be okay for here because I just want something that she can kind of be out on. Do that. Just because I'm extra. I also brought another sit pad, so extra protection for Bebe. Ready to pop out here? Unbuckled. And off we come. So little baby Jane has on here this like fleece bear suit from Columbia. Underneath this bear suit, she actually has these wool, like merino wool base layers. So the brand of her wool layers is a brand called Muesli. There's not actually a ton of brands that make base layers for infants. It's not super cold right now here in Seattle. So Jane actually also has a little like insulated bunting that she can wear when it starts to get a lot colder. The thing about riding the baby carrier that Jimmy and Abby taught me is that Jane isn't moving around at all. She's not like walking. Like we heat up as we move, but she's just sitting up high in an area that's potentially really breezy, not breaking a sweat at all. So she's definitely far more bundled up than I am. She also has a little tiny bear hat and then she has some little fleece booties. These little, whoa, she just chucked herself off my leg. These little booties have little like grippies on the bottom. She also has little mitts that she's not wearing right now, but also they like flip. Little bear suit flips around so we can tuck her hands in if she was cold. But yeah, again, not super cold here right now. Still just early, early fall. All right, what do you say? Can we change the diaper? She's just the cutest thing in the world. Are you listening to anything I'm saying and be honest? I'm not. How could you? Wanna do it? We're gonna sit you right here. I'm gonna get some stuff out here. You play with this. Boop. Oh, boom. Okay, so we have a stasher bag with some clean diapies and some hand sanitizer and some baby wipes. Ooh, then we have a wet bag with a dirty diaper. Cool, so now we're gonna all learn about this together because I've never seen one of these before. This is a wet bag. So clean change of clothes for Jane on the outside here in case she were to just like vom all over herself or like have a blowout. You don't know what a blowout is. It is when a baby poops their diaper so hard that they poop all over their clothes. And then this is the waterproof part of the wet bag. So this is where the dirty diaper goes. Shall we? Okay, hand sani, wipes just in case. We're just gonna have those ready. Clean diaper is gonna be out. This is open. Out. I'm gonna put this right there. Cool. I know you wanna eat the sit pad. I'm not doing any of this. I want it to be known that she's doing all of these movements. Okay, we're not gonna do that. All right, clean butt time. All right, this is for you. Well, not this though. That is off limits. So many things I wasn't really thinking about. We're currently going for rocks. Okay. I know you want the rocks. Okay. She really wants the sit pad so badly. I just don't think that should go in your mouth. She's a lot harder to... No. Babies have a really different patience level than people do. And I think that Jane is starting to lose her patience a little bit. Boom. Okay. Sit you down. Make sure you're scooted close enough to me. Oh, I know. There we go. Okie dokie. Okay. Ready? I'm gonna take the whole thing off. Okay. We're in squirm mode right now. Dirty diaper. We're just gonna set this on the ground because that's dirty now. We're gonna get this clean one. Yes, yes we are. Totally painless. Changing a diaper. Oopsy daisy. Time to pull the pants on. I don't wanna... Okay, that's... No. This sleeping pad with the little sit pad on it is actually working really well. Jane seems to be pretty protected. If you have a baby that moves around as much as Jane does, you might wanna just like make sure you have lots of extra space because she's definitely trying to like kick herself off of this a little bit. There we go. Come here. Yes. We're not quite ready for bottle time yet. Yeah. Boom. You are all set. Give you a toy to play with. We're gonna clean up. Dirty diaper. Goes in the wet bag. Hand sanitizer from Miranda. This is just a stasher bag that has clean diapers and some hand sanitizer in it. And then also in here, we have some wet wipes. All right. With that, I'm gonna pop Jane back in her carrier and we are going to head out of here before the rain comes. Let's get mosey in. We did it. My first time ever changing a diaper in the woods. That's it. You wanna give me a high five? Nope. There's the zip tie. Okay, that's enough. Nope, that's, we're not gonna do that. Upsy daisy. Into the carrier. All right. Oh. How'd we do that? Yeah. Now we are good. Okie dokie, artichokie. You ready to do this? Easy peasy. You're hiking. Now we're ready. Now, Jane, you got lighter. Hiking, hiking, hiking in the woods. Hiking in the woods. We are hiking in the woods. We are hiking. Well, you're not hiking. I'm not hiking. I'm just a baby. I'm sitting in a baby carrier. Dee dee dee dee dee. She's so unfazed. She's like, don't care. This mirror is genius. No matter how far I turn my head, I can't really see her. So this just makes it possible to kind of check up on her. This is actually an unbreakable mirror. So this is like considered a camp or travel mirror. So if it were to break, it doesn't shatter. It just kind of cracks. All right, onward. Quick pause. Here's something I learned while filming this video. My favorite supplement, Element, is actually fantastic for people who are pregnant or nursing. Element is a powder that helps replenish electrolytes that are lost during pregnancy and nursing, which in turn helps you to stay hydrated. And dehydration is super common during nursing and pregnancy. Element also tastes delicious, so it's kind of like you're giving yourself a little treat. So while I use Element for hiking and backpacking because I get really sweaty on trail, if you are pregnant, nursing, or planning to be, I would definitely recommend checking out Element. You can go to drinklment.com slash MirandaGoesOutside and place an order there. And you'll actually get a sample pack of all of Element's delicious flavors. Okay, back to the video. Mm, ah, so good. Baby Jane, do-do-do-do-do-do-do, baby Jane, do-do-do-do-do-do-do, baby Jane, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do, baby Jane. What do you say, little lady? I think I see some eyes starting to close. I feel like I'm adjusting a little bit to hiking with this pack on. I'm really glad that we chose something short and easy. This is definitely different. Like, all the parts that I thought would be like, oh, it's just a normal hike, and then, like, changing her feeding or whatever, those would be different. Hiking's actually a lot harder. Can we get back to the trailhead? Then we're gonna get for her bottle. Oh, we can hear rain. It just started raining. Oh my gosh. The rain hasn't hit us yet. We're still under a lot of tree coverage. So we don't have a rain cover, but it's just a drizzle. So I'm just gonna put up the sunshade and that should help a little bit. There's that sunshade. If it was raining a lot, this wouldn't be great, but it's just a little bit of rain. I think we're gonna put a little paw. I mean, hang on. Now, this is not waterproof. This is just water resistant. This is designed as a sunshade and it actually comes with this Poco carrier. And depending on the carrier you have, it might not come with one, but you can also get, like, rain covers for these carriers. She's still sleeping. She's like a princess. She's being, like, carted around. I can't believe I called her hand a paw. Oh, a big slug. Caution, big poo slug. I still love you. Grabbing my hair. Thought somebody woke up. Little baby Jane just woke up. And we are about 15 minutes past when she's supposed to get her bottle. That's my hair. That's nice. Ah. She's like, excuse me. It's time to be fed. It's also raining a little bit harder. So I'm moving very quickly back to the trailhead so I can feed her a bottle and also show you all some of the stuff that I'm carrying in this carrier that we didn't get a chance to show you on the hike. All right. We made it. High five, Jane. Oh, there we go. We are back at the trailhead, but there's still one thing left to do with baby Jane. It is time for her bottle. All right. We have here a bottle that has the right amount of water in it. This is the powdered formula that gets put into this bottle and mixed up. Obviously, if you are breastfeeding or if you're using a different type of formula, this might look a little bit different. How you doing, girlfriend? Into the bottle. Ready to eat? We have our fully mixed up bottle of formula and I'm just gonna really quickly grab her burp rag. I've given Jane enough bottles by now to know that she really likes to spit up. Boom, yeah. Here we go. Okay, little lady. Yeah. I'm realizing I'm not in the most comfortable position. I should have gotten really comfortable before I did this. I'm seeing head nods behind the camera. So if I was feeding her on trail, I'm realizing that I probably would have wanted to not only put out that sleeping pad, but also kind of lean against a rock or lean against her pack even and just get really comfortable to do this. It is so cute, the noises that she's making. Quick use bananas. Pretty soon you'll be feeding yourself. You'll be eating full steaks. I am actually going to pass Jane back to her parents because I wanna show you some of the stuff that I brought with me in this Osprey Poco pack that we didn't get a chance to use on this hike. Little baby. Let's go finish the bottle. Bye bye. All right, this is the Osprey Poco carrier. This carrier actually comes in, I think two or three different like styles. So this carrier has a number of pockets, but the biggest pocket is this one way at the bottom here. We have packed that stasher bag you saw earlier in the diaper change. Also in this bottom pocket is the wet bag. This is where Jane has some extra clothes. So we actually have a full extra outfit as well as some extra warm mittens. And then also a little hat. Did you crochet this? Oh my gosh. The reason for having an extra hat is that her hat could easily fall off her head and like wind up in a puddle or something. For a baby, it's really important to try and keep their head warm. We also have a little blanket in here and that is everything that's in this really big pocket. It's also like kind of the only really big pocket on this bag. There's only just a little bit of extra space on these packs to carry a few extra things, you know? So like once this is stuffed in here, you start to run out of room pretty quickly. We also have a little zip pocket right here which is where we have an extra binky for Jane and also some little light mittens we wound up not needing. And then I also put my own snack in here. And then in this buckle pocket, it's kind of a stretch pocket. This would be a great spot to put like a jacket or anything else. But right now what I have in here is just my water bottle and my zip pad. There's also two pockets on the sides. So we got one little pocket on this side which is actually where Jane's bottle was. There's actually a reservoir sleeve that's right here. I actually didn't end up bringing my reservoir but this will fit, I think a one and a half or a two liter reservoir. So you can carry a decent amount of water. Jane also has this binky that is attached to the pack and then this stretchy rubber chew thingy. This is awesome because it keeps it from falling on the ground. But like I showed you, nonetheless, Abby and Jimmy also packed her some extras. So this baby carrier doesn't actually have any hip belt pockets on it. What I would have liked to have on this hike was like my fanny pack. So I could really quickly grab things like my snacks or my phone or anything else. Abby and Jimmy also hooked this toy just anywhere where it's kind of easy to be like, here, play with this. That is everything that I have in this Poco carrier. And I think that our little superstar is done with her bottle. So, welcome back. Wow, I just realized my voice goes up like 18 octaves whenever I talk to her. I always told myself I wouldn't be one of those people. I'm gonna start talking to you like this. What's up, Jade? There were actually several things about hiking with a baby that I did not anticipate. First off, we were definitely on Jane's time. I realized just like how long it can take to do even just a short hike because of the baby. It's really important to carry lots of extra stuff. Biggest thing that I learned from this experience of hiking with a baby is to definitely like not underestimate the challenge of carrying a child on your back. Which granted, if you've carried a child for nine months, you're probably like, duh, Miranda. I think I'm forgetting what I'm actually saying because she's just so adorable. Did you have fun? Did you like it? What did you think? Jane is ready to call it a day. So with that, we're gonna sign off and I will see you outside. Bye. Where even is your hand? What the heck? Boop. There it is. Aha, we found it. What do you say? Sick.