It’s difficult to be a parent, especially as a first-timer. There are new things to learn, you have to make sacrifices and your life routine has to change. No more sleeping to 9am, no more a glass of wine for dinner (breastfeed), no more a nice long bath and among many other things, some of your hobbies has to be put on hold…

Our hobby is to hike. Long hikes and the higher up the better. 

“No worries! It will be easy go hiking with a baby”

We told ourself before having our daughter. Then the reality hit our face hard as soon as Mirabelle popped out her head into this world. It took me a few weeks before I had the courage to go out with my new baby (I was depress but that is another story) and it took even longer for us to take her for a real hike, for four reasons.

The reasons where :

Lack of sleep

Any parent who reads this will nod their head of understanding. The lack of sleep! I think one of the big reason for my depression was the lack of sleep. Mirabelle would wake up every two hours every night for as long as I can remember. Just the thought of go hiking was very tiring.

What should we bring?

At first we always panicked of what to bring and what should she wear, wherever we went. Then we realised that it is better to bring everything…just incase! Lucky that her clothes are as tiny as our underwear and her nappies are as heavy as a roll of toilet paper!

 Breastfeeding on demand

I was breastfeeding on demand and she was demanding it very often. It was very exhausting to go out and every time she would scream her heart out just to have her thing. She would spit both the bottle and the dummy out. She was clear with us that she didn’t like plastic!

  Baby carrier

By the time Mirabelle was born we had three baby carriers. None of them worked for us. Because of lack of sleep and breastfeeding on demand we didn’t search for a better one either. We were just happy putting her in the stroller and go for child friendly walks.

But then these child friendly walk started to “depress” us. There is nothing wrong with stroller friendly walks but I have to be honest…at the end it was deadly boring!

We were missing the altitude, the effort and the feeling of when you reach the summit.

The time passed by and I was slowly starting to get use to my sleepless nights. I had gain more confidence and experiences nursing in public (the experience was not to give any attention to anyone who stared) and we found Manduca sling that was great for carrying Mirabelle, especially for winter.

Our first hike with Mirabelle in Manduca baby sling, in Leysin, Switzerland.

It was winter and we wanted to do something more adventurous we decided to drive to Leysin and jump into our snowshoes. The sun was shining and the weather was perfect for a hike on the snow. The feeling was great as we were breathing in the fresh air. And then Mirabelle started to cry. I gave her what I thought she wanted, under a tree. Even thought I had stop caring of what people might think, it was still very annoying nursing when I had tons of clothes on me. She was happy till another hour and then I would undress myself, again and again. I was so so so frustrated! At the end, in spite of the multiple nursing sessions, we had a good first hike with Mirabelle.

It was of course not as fun as I wish but the more we went hiking and the older she got the easier it got aswell. We changed the Manduca sling to Manduca carrier when she got a little bit older, for the daily use. And when she was around 1 years old we started using the Deuter Kid 2, for longer hikes. She loves being in there.

The Manduca baby carrier. A hike from Oia to Fira, Santorini. 

Now we go hiking almost every weekend, back to normal! As long as she doesn’t complain and likes it and as long as David manage to carry her in the Deuter, we are doing the hikes a bit less child friendly. I just wonder for how long we could keep going on because we will come to the point when she is getting to heavy and she will need to walk…

…if she even wants to!

She is her dad’s cheerleader when he is climbing up.

Well, now she is almost two years old and weight 11 kg. So for now we try to enjoy our hikes as much as possible and when the problem occur we will find a solution.

Here are some of the hikes we have done with Mirabelle.

A sea of Narcissus in Les Pleiades  Click here

Enstligenfalls, the coolest waterfalls in Switzerland?  Click here

Five beautiful child friendly hike around mountain lake in Switzerland  Click here

Cherry blossom trail in Frick  Click here

Augstmatthorn, a part of the Hardergrat trail   Click here

Hardergrat, the most dangerous hike?  Click here

When did you guys started to hike with your child? When did they started to walk on a longer hikes? How do you motivate them to walk?