Have you recently been introduced to the wonderful world of sleepless nights tending to a newborn? If your newborn is several months old, you’re probably thinking that your whole life has been turned upside down. Gone are the days of fun and adventure with just you and your spouse. The baby gets all of the attention and all you can do is find ways to keep the baby from crying, right? That’s exactly the way I felt a few months after our daughter was born. Don’t get me wrong. I loved everything about our new addition to the family. But, I was starting to wonder if things would ever get back to normal. Not long before the baby, my wife and I were enjoying almost daily hikes through the mountains, campouts in the great outdoors, and a number of other outdoor activities that we both loved. Would the new baby mean an end to all of the outdoor fun?

Lucky for me the answer was a definite no! After my wife recovered from the trauma of the whole hospital scene and she was tired of being stuck in the house all of the time, we discussed the possibility of our first adventure outdoors with the little one. I realize here that many parents would call me crazy for even mentioning the idea, but just hear me out on this one. With a little planning and the right preparation, you won’t have to say goodbye to all of the fun outdoor activities you used to enjoy.At two weeks old, my wife and I decided that our daughter was ready for a little nature walk. We stopped by a local outdoor store and picked up one of those big wheeled rigs called a “jogging stroller.” Heading up into one of the local canyons, we found a fairly wide hiking trail that wound up through a majestic forest of tall pines and beautiful aspens. While we were not able to hike too far on this first trip, we realized that there were probably plenty more outdoor activities that we could take our daughter on.

As our daughter became old enough to hold her head up really well on her own, we invested a new kid carrier. A kid carrier is like a backpack that you put your little one in. The one we bought has a nice canopy over the top to protect the child from the sun. This new advancement in outdoor gear really allowed us to get outdoors with a little one. We took on several lighter hikes to test