One thing that wasn’t obvious to me is how difficult rock climbing is with a baby.
It’s so tricky.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s *possible*, and here’s how you do it:
- you use up some of your childfree time – probably by one partner staying at home
- you arrive and climb whilst your baby sleeps (great for newborns!)
- you arrive and hand your baby to a friend who looks after them the entire time
- you arrive super early and leave super early as you don’t want to mess up your child’s dinner/bedtime routine (because the person who suffers from broken sleep is… you)
The challenge is that realistically, you are only well placed to support your child climbing, and if they’re a baby, they ain’t going up yet! Even with a 2:1 parent/baby ratio, you’re still going to struggle to get any climbs in without a third person.
It’s just possible things are better with bouldering, but bouldering is not a version of our sport that sparks joyous delight in me.
I once thought that the way to get more occupancy in a climbing centre was lunchtime sessions with an onsite creche. (And then I looked at how hard it was to effectively run a nursery, and concluded that noone would pay what would reasonably be required).
Photos from The Climbing Clan @climbingclan at @parthian_climbing_mcr /Parthian Climbing Manchester
Originally posted on this post on Instagram