Taking a baby to the Arctic
Taking a 14 month old (River) to the Arctic for 2 months was a great experience but hard work at times, we quite often had people tell us how impressed they were, we just assumed there must be babies in the arctic, surely it s no big deal. The thing we under estimated was the faff. Anyone with kids can tell you about the added faff, the arctic is like faff on steroids.
With temperatures as low as minus 30 you have to make sure that when you leave the house you are fine and your baby is toasty, that sounds straight forward enough but being in the house being ready for -30 and then getting your baby ready is hot work, we soon learnt not to do this arse about face, baby then you!
Before going to Finland we scoured the internet for advise on layering for River, suitable clothing and were to buy it, the reality is there wasn’t a lot of information out there, so we did what we thought was best, we managed to get some merino base layers from H&M (of all places), a mid-layer fleece from decathlon and down suit from Columbus. We searched eBay, facebook market place and anywhere else we thought we might get secondhand bits but there was nothing!
The only slight issues we had, were that sometimes when we got home River’s feet were on the cold side but nothing to worry about, the other place that suffered slightly more was her face, her cheeks would be come red and dry out, we had two balaclavas for her, one wool and one merino but they didn’t cover her cheeks. It is important to note that if you are using any lotion on your face, especially children's that isn't applied before or whilst you are out if it has any water content, without doubt any cream you pick up with be a large part if not mainly water.
River loved being pulled on her sledge so we brought a cover for it to protect her from the elements, she hated it but it definitely helped.
Anyone with kids already knows the downside to all these layers, getting them on, taking them off and getting in there to remove the offending desecration of the nappy. The trick with getting out was to get her ready before you are ready otherwise you are scrambling around at room temperature whilst wearing base layers, jumpers, coats etc and getting very hot!
I think the best advice is don't worry about it too much and the you don't have to spend hundreds of pounds. These are the links for the items we brought:
Columbus Down Suit £50
Merino Base layers H&M £30
Decathlon Mid Layer £12.99
Winter Boots £14.99
I cant recommend the boots, in that in that I think something better would make more sense, that said River still has all her toes so they did work .When I added the links for the above all of these were currently reduced by 30%!!
We didn't do anything special when we took River to the Arctic, we just didn’t let her be an excuse for missing out.
If you want any more information on our experience feel free to get in touch