How to dress a Finnish child for all types of weather

The Finnish daycare centres let the children play outside for much of the day. If they are not eating or sleeping they are outside. So a Finnish parent has to have a variety of clothing to suit the four seasons of weather which sometimes all occur in one day. Though the calendar says it is officially spring in reality it is still the dead of winter here and although it was +5 degrees Celcius one day a couple weeks ago now it is snowing and -18 degrees again! So we still have to wear our winter clothing. To give you an idea of what outdoor clothing a little child in daycare needs I have taken pictures. These are the clothes I put on over her regular clothing.

So basically her outdoor clothes consists of: one pair of 100% woolen mittens worn underneath proper insulated winter mittens, two pairs of 100% woolen socks, 100% woolen jumper, a woolen balaclava hat (it negates the need for a scarf), a winter jumper which is made of windproof, slightly waterproof material with an inner insulating layer and of course insulated winter boots two sizes bigger in order to accommodate all the socks!

Then when spring really comes it will be rainy and wet. So I will have the added challenge of dressing her for cold/chilly and wet weather. I will dress her in something like this: a rain jumper lined with fleece, a fleece jumper underneath when it is cold, rain gloves, maybe the woolen under mittens from above if cold, rain boots with warm socks inside, and a hat. It may be that on a really cold spring day these rubber boats may not be warm enough so I am thinking of buying these:
http://www.reima.fi/en/collectioneng/footwear/boots They are very warm and water proof.

Then there are the wind breaker jumpers for when it is chilly and or windy and maybe slightly wet but not rainy. These are useful also in the summer as the summer can sometimes be disappointingly cool and or wet.

The day care center asked that we leave a spare pair of rain boats and outerwear in case they are not dressed for rain and it rains. So I left some plastic rain pants and coat in her cupboard at day care. She should be ready for anything now. Some of these pieces of outdoor clothing are not cheap but luckily I got many pieces from my friends. She has already outgrown some of her outdoor clothes. So this could be an expensive proposition to buy two of these winter jumpers and under jumpers each year. You Trinis don't know how lucky you have it!

Alas life for my little girl will never be as simple as her mother's was. There will be no running outside, clad only in a diaper, to play. But fortunately she is an active child and loves being outside no matter the temperature, rain or shine.