UKC

Having just bought a child-carrier rucksack I'm starting to look at some hills but am unsure how to dress the baby. She's about 7 months and up to this point I've carried her in a sling and used my jacket over her so she stays warm on the fells, but the child-carrier won't fit this.

How do others dress little ones in these? Just a big snowsuit and lots of layers? Little baby down jackets?

Snowsuit and layers for as long as they are small enough (18 months ish).  If your snowsuit doesn't have integral feet then use long trousers and socks, otherwise the trousers tend to ride up their shins and give them freezing legs. 

Getting my son to keep gloves on is a mugs game,  but cold hands is also a problem.

Also,  buy a small mirror so you can check on them easily. 

I know you have just bought a child-carrier rucksack, so this might not be of use...

We had one too, but as our children are close in age my 3 year old went in that and I bought a Connecta sling to carry my daughter in, which lasted until she was 2.

A sling is much more comfortable for the baby and yourself and I could wear a huge fleece that covered us both. Could go front or back. Normal clothes, a hat, knitted booties and proper warm socks for her and we could walk for up to 3 hours like that (she slept).

In the rucksack we would have dressed warmly but also a full body waterproof / windproof as even on warm days they can get freezing. I'd read some horror stories of babies suffering from hypothermia in them.

I had pertex/pile booties for ours with numerous socks in the winter.

full body suits for the win, decathlon

Few additional thoughts

 - get the best kit you can - you will probably find the 'limits' are not as far out there as you want them to be, so if you have the best kit you can find/afford you know you have given it every chance of working and if the sprog gets cold and cries for an hour as you try to run home you are not wishing you had bought the better suit/hat/gloves!

 - We have found that 'spotty otter' down suits are brilliant when it's cold and dry, you can get them on ebay for £20-30.  Their down booties are brilliant also.

- Balaclava's are better than hats because they don't come off - we have got some merino ones from amazon which are brilliant.  Gloves, just have a few options and find ones which will stay on - it doesn't matter if their fingers are in the holes or not!

 - Find a waterproof cover which has a fully enclosed face, the standard one for Deuter is rubbish, the Littlelife one is really good and fits Deuter carriers ok.  Problem is that sprog might hate it with the cover on as they can't really see out, but if the weather really craps out and you need to keep him safe for half an hour as you trot out it's better than them being out in the wind and rain.

- Tights + vest, wool trousers, wool jumper, fleece suit + fleece lined waterproof suit (regatta do a good cheap one), + waterproof cover on the carrier and we nearly cooked ours on a short walk to the doctors when it was -10degrees during the Beast from the East, so it is possible to keep them warm.

- If it's wet and windy and cold I wouldn't go out or would quickly abort, as I don't think anyone would be having fun

- sprog #2 will happily fall asleep in the carrier, but sprog#1 would just get grouchy and cry so we had to rock him to sleep on a feed, then gently put him in.

I think rucksack carriers are great - we’ve just sold ours after using it loads with all 3 kids.

One word of warning - be careful to keep an eye on them when it’s cold. It is easy to underestimate the fact that they are inactive while in the rucksack and more susceptible to the weather.

We took our youngest out in the rucksack on Dartmoor when it was proper snowy.  She was wrapped up warm and I didn’t think anything of her going to sleep until we got back to the car and she was really drowsy and hard to wake up.  Pretty sure she was bordering on hypothermic - terrifying and I’ve since heard a horror story of a kid dying in these sort of circumstances in the States.