General Guide: How to Dress Baby for Winter

It’s hard to travel light when you have a baby, unless you are a very chill parent, or you can afford to buy most things at your destination. To add to the load, travelling during winter meant more things to pack into the luggage.

This post is based on our 9 days of winter holiday, where we had 7 full days in Northern Kyushu, Japan. The temperatures were hovering from 0 to 15 degrees. Baby EG was only around 8 months old then. You can take a look at our itinerary.

Layering is the best way to dress for winter. It’s generally recommended to wear 3 layers: thermal wear for wicking, a sweater for insulating and a jacket for protection from weather elements. As for baby EG, we added one more layer. Scroll on to see her layers, inside out.

1. Thermal Underwear

For the first layer, EG put on ultra-warm heattech for the top and bottom. You can also get other types of thermal underwear, e.g. long johns. Prepare at least two sets to rotate. Do wear the diapers well to avoid the thermal pants and other layers from getting poo-stained.

2. Long Sleeved Romper and Leggings

Then after donning the thermal innerwear, EG wore a long-sleeved baby romper and normal leggings, not the thick leggings you see in the photo below. This outfit is the type she wears to air-conditioned places in Singapore.

We prepared pretty sets in case we needed to take away all her jackets indoors. In the end, we didn’t get to do that often, because we rarely took off the layer after this.

Hence, baby EG re-wore many of her clothes, since it’s not dirtied with sweat (protected by the thermal wear) or dirt (protected by the jacket).

3. Jacket & Leg Warmers (Winter Leggings)

We brought two woolen-like jackets for EG to interchange (photo below). Two is a good number since jackets will appear in most photos. With two, she wouldn’t seem to be wearing the same clothes throughout the trip.

EG didn’t wear this jacket layer for her airport fashion. Instead, she wore a fleece romper (long sleeves and pants) for this layer.

For bottoms, EG wore winter leggings or leg warmers. It’s again good to have two to rotate and one as a spare for a week-long trip. You might want to consider footed leggings, and not bring so many pairs of socks.

4. Puffer Jacket

The last layer to put on is the puffer jacket! It was worn when we headed outdoors and not in a baby carrier. A puffer jacket seems to be a good choice because of its water-resistant and windproof nature. This jacket works relatively well for EG, except for high altitudes with strong wind.

A hood is superb as extra protection, or as backup when the hat is in the hotel or nowhere to be found.

We preferred a colourful jacket because it looks better in the photos, and it’s easier for us to spot the jacket in case we lost it or forgot to wear it on her. More importantly, it’s easier for us to spot the baby, if for some reason we were apart.

We got ColdControl Lite bear puffer rainbow stripe from Gap during their US online sale, at US$36. This is already out of stock, so a similar one would be this puffer jacket. Shell and Filler: 100% polyester. EG’s jacket is sized for 18–24 months so that she can grow into it, but with all the layers, it felt quite fitting at 8 months old, except that the sleeves were long.

If you look carefully at this photo, you will notice the above-mentioned 4 layers! :)

5. Head, Hands, and Feet Protection

This 3-tier protection is important, from top to bottom: head, hands, and feet.

Head

To avoid losing heat through the head, wear a hat. We got a traditional winter hat for EG and when it got extra cold, we lifted the hood of the puffer jacket over the hat. We would also pull the hat low to cover her ears as much as possible instead of bringing ear muffs.

The neck is another important part to protect from the cold. It’s hard to find turtle necks for infants, and hence as an alternative, we got a woollen scarf for her. Since it’s not easy to swing it around her neck, we sometimes simply placed it across the exposed neck area while she was lying in her pram.

Hands

Gloves for the hands. We prepared two sets in case one gets dirtied, you never know where the hands of babies will go. We got bigger sizes for her to grow in and to cover the wrists. Cotton and nylon are terrific materials for gloves.

Feet

At 8 months old, baby EG wasn’t walking yet. So we didn’t put much thought into getting a good pair of walking shoes. Micro Fleece Pull-On Booties looked like a pair of well-insulated footwear for her.

However, the booties slipped off easily as her feet shuffled around at times. Moreover, her feet felt cold when we removed them as we stepped indoors. We should have worn wool socks on her for better protection.

We are going to head to another cold country end of this year. So I will update again on what it’s like to wear a 1+ year old toddler who’s already walking.

That’s how we wore our 8-month-old infant for winter. Do you have other suggestions or questions? Let me know in the comments below. :)

Before you go, you might want to check out my other baby travel tips: travel.joogostyle.com/tag/baby-travel.

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