Head, hands and feet

90% of the body heat goes out through your head, and if you'r feet are cold, you get cold all over. Seriously. It's very important to keep the feet and head warm, to keep the rest of you warm. Hands get cold very fast, and this is the place on the body you first get cold. Kids also use their hands in the snow, so mittons are a must.

Once again I'm going to mention this word; wool. Aspecially on hands and feet. The reason is, as mentioned before, because it keeps you warm when you get wet. Kids get very easily wet on hands and feet when playing in snow or rain. Even rain boots can't keep the water away from my boys' feet! I don't know how they do it.

 

Feet.
Always thin wool socks for inner layer.
For wet weather, we have dock boots. These are made of the same material as dry suits, and are flexible, waterproof and says to have a comfort temperature from +10 to -20 degrees celcius, which covers most of the norwegian winter. I usually put on an extra pair of thin wool socks when it gets minus degrees. 

My experience is that they are not soo good in cold weather, so we also use winter boots with thick, removeable wool lining. These keeps you warm through anyhing!

Or normal, insulated winter boots.

For mild, wet winters I would say get dock boots (if you can) or lined rain boots. If you can't get any of these, thick wool socks in normal rain boots will work.

Head.

I use wool hats with lining around the ears (often fleece or double layer of wool) to keep the wind out. Lindsay  

asked  me  how  thick wool hats I use for different temperatures.  I usually have thin, cotton hats for late spring and early fall,  and then thick the same thickness of wool after that (under zero?) .  Wool breathes...  

Hands.

We use home knittet wool mittens for "warmer" winter days (picture above).These are not wind proof, which is why we often use  knitted mittens that we throw in the washing machine, so they get thick and feltet (picture underneath). These are super warm, I love these.

For the kids I normally use wind proof/water resistant mittens with wool lining, that I buy. Or it's possible to use the home knitted mittens with thin wind proof and water resistant mittens over.

Lindsay also wondered how I keep the mittens on the kids. Short mittens,  like  the top two,  I stuff underneath the sleeves of the jacket \snowsuit.  The longer mittens,  like the ones at the bottom,  goes all the way up to the elbows and difficult to get off. The kids usually understands  very fast that they need to keep the mittens on in  order to stay warm  on  the hands.  My boys ask for mittens if they're not on when they go out. 

On a budget? 

Norwegians in general has a culture where people like to be outside, and the kids can stay outside for Hours and hours, out in the woods, on ski trips etc.. It's very important to us to have clothes to keep the kids warm for the whole time they are outside. In other contries people are not as often outside when it gets cold, and if they go outside, it's just for maybe an hour, and just staying outside the house. Then it is not so important to have all the best equipment, since you can just go inside if the kids get cold.

So, if you don't want to put so much money into the clothes, I'll give you som cheaper options. This is if you live in a place where winters are not so cold, plan on using the clothes for a short periode of time (on a vacation) or don't plan to stay out for a long periode of time.

 Cheap hats can be bought anywhere. Just be shure it is thick and somewhat wind proof around the ears.

 If the kids are playing in snow or water/wet sand, buy thick insulated mittons, that are waterresistant. These are way cheaper than the wool mittons. The downside is that you might need two pair, since these need to be changed when they get cold and wet. Once the hands get cold, the syntethic mittons won't warm up the hands when you put on the mittons, like wool does.

For feet, I would't recommend anything else than wool if it's cold. Wool socks are not suuper expensive, and cotton socks will not keep you warm at all. I think it's possible to buy thermo socks, but I have never tryed these.

Cold fall weather/mild winter weather

The fall is getting colder, and I took out the wool for the first time this week. Fall and spring are onion seasons. You layer up like an onion, and vary the middle layer depending on how cold and moisty it is. When it gets too cold to just put on a jacket and shoes, this is a good way to dress.

First layer: thin wool underwear and thin wool socks. 

On a budget? Wool is expensive. If you are planning on only using it for a short periode of time, like on vacation, and don't want to invest in wool underwear, you can use cotton underwear in stead. It is not as warm and gets cold when you get wet, so it is important to make shure the kids are dry and not stay out for a very long time.

Second layer (if needed): thick wool. This Layer is knitted with thicker wool than the wool underwear. It has more air pockets, and therefore it keeps the body heat better than the thin wool.The thin wool is mostly bought in the store, but a lot of the thick wool I have knitted Myself. The ones in the picture are actually bought in the store. The thinner wool is always bought in the store. It is to thin to knit by hand, and also, since it is the innerlayer, it's important that it doesn't itch.

On a budget? If you are only planning on using the clothes for a short periode of time, you can use fleece in stead as a second layer. It's cheaper! But not as good.

Third layer: thin, water resistant and windproof jacket and pants, or playsuit.

Water resistant shoes or rain boots.

Is it raining or is it very wet outside? Waterproof rain suit...

thicker wool socks (if it's cold) and rain boots.

Also mittons and a hat. I will write about these later.

Why wool?

Wool can let out and absorb moist to cool down or warm up the body. You get warm quickly, but not overheated, because of the unique breathing quality. Clothes made from wool has millions of small airpockets that holds your bodyheat close to your body. Thicker wool will have more air pockets than thin wool, and will therefor be warmer. Think of a thermos or a thermo cup. It has two metal wall with air in between. It is not the metal that keeps the coffee warm, it's the insulating layer of air in between. Two layers of metal on top of each other would not at all do the same job. But the most important reason to wear wool is that it keeps you warm even if you get wet. When you are playing and sitting in the snow for hours, or if it's raining, kids will become wet. When you get wet, you get cold. Wool absorbs 35% of it's own weight before it feels wet, and it also generates heat when it absorbs water.
When it gets cold, my kids usually have a thin layer of wool closest to the body, under the normal clothes. They wear this both inside the house and outside. When they go outside, we usually take off the cotton pants and shirt, and put on more wool and/or a suit, depending on the weather. This is the thin wool underwear that is used under the clothes. Pictures from pierre robert.

And this is my little one in wool underwear.

This is the first post in this blog that I started mainly for you, Lindsay ;) My sister in law, who lives in Kansas, wanted me to make a mini series of tuturials on how to dress the kids when it's cold outside. I live in Norway, and I know that she has many times seen the pictures of us out in the snow, thinking we are crazy.  For example, during the wintertime we can stay out for hours doing winter activities, like sliding down hills, go skiing, play in the snow, and we very often pack lunch or grill hot dogs over the fire and eat outside in the woods. In daycare children are outside for hours every day, in school they are outside in the recesses and also have activity days outside. Where we live, the temperatures during the wintertime can vary between +10 degrees celcius and -20 degrees celcius. It is very important to know how to dress the kids so that they won't get cold or wet.
I'm not really sure how I am going to do this, since I don't really know what is interesting for people to know, and also living in Norway these are just stuff that one knows. By looking out the window and at the thermometer, I just know if we need one or two layers of wool, if we need the thick or thin wool, the thick or thin hat, the thin rainproof suit or the thick, warm suit. It's just difficult to say how we dress the kids, because there are just so many options. So I'm thinking I would categorize the post by weather/temperature, and also do posts on hands, feet and head and the best material ever; wool, deserves a post of it's own.

(Old pictures. We don't have snow here just yet ;)