Niagara Falls with a Baby

September 15, 2016 4:41 AM

We are thinking of going to Niagara Falls (Canada) in March. What can I do with a baby while the six-year-old and husband are at the water park?

This will be our first family vacation post-baby, and he'll be about four months old. Husband's sister, who also has a six-year-old, will be coming too. I'm guessing the older kids will want to spend most of their time at the water park (Great Wolf Lodge has been mentioned) which will leave me as personal companion to the baby.

I'm not sure if they are on a schedule yet or if I can just go where I personally want to and baby will just sit in the stroller and go with it. I'm also not sure if there are places which might actually be fun and/or stimulating for a baby that small. So, what are my options here?

posted by ficbot to Travel & Transportation around Niagara Falls, NY (6 answers total)

Best answer: There's a lovely butterfly conservatory at the Botanical Gardens that may fit the bill. The butterflies fly all around, and often land on people. It's really fun, and the baby may enjoy seeing everything flitting around.
posted by jenny76 at 5:06 AM on September 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: 4 months is generally a great age to stick the baby in the stroller or carrier and take them anywhere you want to go- YMMV, depending on baby's temperament. Mine both did very well snoozing in the carrier or stroller while I went to the mall, museums, parks, etc.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:40 AM on September 15, 2016 [4 favorites]

There's also Glen Eden for hiking if you drive past the butterfly conservatory and have a baby backpack.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 7:01 AM on September 15, 2016

You don't say which direction you're coming from... on the one hand your family is interested in an indoor water park, which sort of implies somewhere else in Canada or the northern US, but you also mention putting Baby in a stroller and wandering around, though I'm guessing you mean inside various attractions...

Anyway, you know March in Niagara Falls [usually] means "winter," neh? Not buds on the trees and birds singing but piles of dirty grey snow everywhere and toques and either getting snowed on or it raining absolute buckets on you.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:02 AM on September 15, 2016

Yeah, I went to Niagara Falls in March a couple of years ago, and a lot of stuff was closed for the season, and there was a ton of snow, like roads covered in ice, sidewalks covered by feet of snow with a small snowblower-width aisle to walk down (carefully, because of the ice). Which was fun but really limiting and also I had a major fall on some invisible ice that had me fully airborne for about a quarter of a second (which I will remember for the rest of my life as the time I actually flew) so I spent the rest of the trip hobbling.

However. It was beautiful, especially when we were walking down by the falls at night and a heavy fluffy snow began to fall and capture the rainbow-colored lights beaming towards the water, and the butterfly conservatory was open and warm and a delightful place to be. Baby will love it. Also there is Bird Kingdom, which baby might like even more. Birds flying all around you in a warm, tropical environment. It is much closer to the water park than the butterfly place.
posted by jenjenc at 7:33 AM on September 15, 2016

Bird Kingdom is pretty neat. I took my son there when he was around 9 months old with a bunch of other kids. I think he enjoyed it. The other kids definitely did. The one thing I would say is it isn't set up for a double stroller so make sure that the stroller you have isn't too big.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:25 PM on September 15, 2016 [1 favorite]