Baby Ski Equipment

A snowHead

Afternoon SnowHeads, My little girl will be under 3 when (or IF Puzzled

) we get to go away next year now. Has anyone had any good experience in buying & using baby ski equipment to get them ready for the slopes abroad?

I have found nice cheap plastic skis for a decent £40, is this a method anyone has taken up just to get their little ones used to the big alien skis on their feet?

A snowHead

We hired those Plastic skis when in resort. It saves carrying them and they'll soon grow out of them.

Keep an eye out on eBay, as kids grow out of ski clothes so quickly - so they are often in great condition. Worth buying new if they will be handed down. Friends and Family often have unused gear that has been grown out of, so worth asking.

Trespass is a brand that we found well made and good value.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Wouldn't bother with the plastic skis - depending how big she is you might be as well to hire the real thing, we had our 2.5yr old on hire skis, the limiting factor we found was boot size for very little feet.

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If you do buy clothes new, look for the outfits that have the room to grow functionality. Just unpick a hidden seem to lengthen arms and legs. Keeps them in use for a few years.

Get both googles and sunglasses (with a strap).

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Important to have very modest expectations of what a sub-3 year old is going to achieve on skis! And even more modest expectations of how much skiing you will get to do.

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Yes, forget plastic toy-kit, rent kids gear but book it ahead as they may not have very small boots for small-peeps.

In general, spare sets of everything, and then spares for them. If you are REALLY organised, check and see how long Jnrs kit takes to dry out - we had one particular set of gloves that would take about 2 days then reeks.

Mittens Mittens Mittens - Don't do gloves because you'll never get fingers into the right place. We 'Acquired' some really good ones which had a zip right down the side which then covered over so Jnrs could get them on and off easily.

For specifics, sunglasses with a strap (baby-bans was one brand, but similar are available - make sure they have proper UV protection)

NippaGrippa is basically a set of reigns for kids with extended ties (steys?), and additional handles on the front and back for picking up Jnr.

After all it is free

Get spare mittens. Then get some more spare mittens. If you hire skis etc then see what the staff in resort at the ski hire shop have for kids to play with. We didn't ask. They just asked us if we wanted a toboggan for the week and we took it. free of charge.

Oh yes, get spare mittens. And sun block

Thank you all for the advice! I will be noting down all of the tips for the actual holiday!

My initial questions were relating to here and now in the UK, to get the little one used to having skis on feet, has anyone bought and used the little plastic skis to drag them around in or down little hills?

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

@Jhead91, I've got some ?60cm? Fischers which, at the time, were the shortest skis available. I got them third hand, and they've since been through my kids and some friends' kids.

If you arrange DPD/Hermes etc. pickup then they're yours for the price of the postage. I can't imagine the bindings are still indemnified, nor can I imagine you'll care as you'll have the release set so loose that the kid can step out of them. PM me if interested.

My daughter started at 2.5. As others have said, set your skiing expectations low. Take a toboggan and bucket and spade, make snow castles, and every half hour, play on the skis for 10 mins. She loved it, and we have great memories.

To put progress in context - my daughter started at 2.5, and by age 6 she'd had about 16 weeks lessons. My son started at 5, and by age 6 he'd had 6 weeks lessons. They were both exactly the same level at age 6 (i.e. both got their French Etoile d'or at that point) and have since progressed basically identically; the beauty of the rigour of the French system is that we can track their race results etc. The skiing development from 2.5 to 5 is pretty limited "what takes a week at 3 takes a day at 5" was (roughly) the quote I recall. However, it's a lot of fun and we were never planning to train olympians, but to get them to a level where they could ski anywhere we skied, and do it well.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

snow reports

@snowdave, This sounds perfect! not sure how to DM on here, I will happily pay for P&P, how can we arrange this?

Take note of the user name you want to contact, go to the top of this page where there is Send/Read message header (top right), select Write a message in the next screen , off you go.

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Go for the proper kit; let her get used to the faff of putting boots on and stepping into bindings as early as possible. My son was on the snow and skiing between our legs at 2 and a half which can be back-breaking but highly rewarding. We used the "Nipper Gripper" as well as it gave a good handle for picking him up and untangling skis. I have video of him from that week shouting "I'm skiing, I'm going really fast" which still brings a proud tear to the eye... 10 years on and he can't even remember starting to ski as it's something he's always done.

Another thing to consider is the "I need a wee" scenario. Work out how much warning you get and how long it takes to bury through the layers otherwise there may be soggy boots Sad

+1 for spare mittens and get a cord to go connect them through the sleeves too if you can. Actually, that can be a good idea when they're older too, after witnessing a Sideways-clan glove disappearing in the wind at the top of Val Thorens a couple of years ago Toofy Grin

Help!!

Baby Ski Equipment

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