Tag Team Parenting

Chris and I have been working on our Tag Team parenting skills. The Kraken is too young to be placed in day care at the ski hill and still needs me for most of his meals during the day. So we are necessitated in taking him with us to the ski hill and trading off parenting. We have a great system going right now, that seems to work for us and for the Kraken. We have tried our method with friends around and when skiing on own our – true tag team parenting.

The gist of our system is that we load the little man into his Ergo carrier (I love it!).  I tend to use it as a side sling when schlepping all my gear and his gear for the day. Our home hill tends to be Sunshine Village in Banff, Alberta. So we take a short trip in the gondola – the boy loves watching the sights go by, or staring at others that we share the ride with. I then head into the hotel restaurant and get settled. They have great sofas in front of a fire place and make a wonderful home base. Chris takes a few runs while I get things settled. He then comes in and gives me the opportunity to head out. Since the lifts are very accessible to the hotel it makes trading off in this manner work really well. We each tend to take 3-4 runs and then relieve the other and parent for a short period. At lunch I feed the Kraken while Chris takes a few runs and then we take a brief break to eat together and continue the afternoon in a similar manner.

The only issue we've run into is nap time. But so far we've been lucky, Chris seems to have some magical skills that can get the boy to sleep in the middle of a busy restaurant. Don't ask me how, but he does it!

This method only alters slightly when others are around since we have kind friends that will often take a shift of care giving, thus allowing Chris and I to ski together.

The best thing is that the other day we had the chance to spend the day with another set of parents who were tag team parenting. They were trying a different method – they traded half days. In their case, the dad skied for the morning, came in for a late lunch together and then the mum headed out for a chunk of the afternoon. I can totally see the benefit of this method as well. It would work much better at hills where a home base is not as accessible to the runs that one is wanting to ski. But could also make for very tired legs or a very tired parent from trying to entertain an active child for so long.

Later that same day we met parents who had spent the day tag team skiing as well. Twice in one day! They even took it one step further and were sharing skis! We really liked meeting and chatting with others taking their little one to the hill so early.

I think the best part is the support and encouragement that we've received from everyone around us. Here's to maintaining a passion while raising a young one. If you have another method or ways to make ours better please let me know, I would love to hear ways to tweak my method to make the day even better for everyone.