Dear Past Sarah: Your Kids Need Real Fishing Bibs Out There

Dear Sarah from last October,

You're standing on the damp, splintery planks of the marina dock at 6:15 AM. You're wearing those gray Lululemon leggings that are starting to pill at the inner thighs, an oversized, slightly damp college sweatshirt, and you're clutching a lukewarm Yeti of French roast like it's a life raft. Maya, who's four and entirely unreasonable, is screaming at a pitch that's startling the seagulls. She is screaming because her supposedly waterproof rain pants have slid down below her waist, she has just forcefully seated herself in a puddle of what I can only hope is just muddy lake water, and her lower back is completely exposed to the wind. Leo is seven and he's shivering in the corner of his grandfather's boat, complaining that his knees are wet.

You're miserable. Your husband Mark is pretending to check the outboard motor so he doesn't have to deal with the crying. And you're standing there thinking, why is taking my kids into nature always this awful?

Well, I'm writing to you from the future to tell you exactly why. It's because you bought them rain pants.

Dear god throw the rain pants in the trash

Rain pants are the biggest scam sold to modern parents. They offer this complete illusion of dryness when you put them on in the hallway at home, but the second you get a child out into the actual wild, they fail spectacularly. The elastic waistbands are an absolute joke against the smooth, curve-less belly of a toddler.

You pull them up, and within three steps, they slide down.

And kids don't just stand there like mannequins on a boat or a muddy shoreline. They squat. They bend entirely in half to inspect a dead minnow. And the exact moment they bend over, the rain jacket rides up, the rain pants slide down, and a three-inch gap of cotton undershirt is exposed directly to the freezing rain and mud. It's like a funnel for misery. The wetness seeps right down into their underwear.

And chest waders with the little attached boots? Dr. Aris told me at Maya's well-visit that waders act like literal concrete anchors if a kid falls off a dock and fill up with water, dragging them under, so we're never, ever putting those on our children.

What you actually need, Past Sarah, are real fishing bibs.

The toxic plastic problem I didn't know about

So, once I finally realized that overalls with suspenders were the only way to keep the mud out of Maya's butt crack, I immediately went to Amazon and ordered the first cheap yellow rubber pants I saw. Because I'm impulsive and tired.

Don't do that.

Commercial fishing gear is historically made from traditional PVC, which is apparently this incredibly toxic, environmentally devastating material loaded with phthalates. I started reading about this late one night when I was going down a rabbit hole about microplastics, and oh god, my anxiety spiked. You're putting this plasticky chemical wrap on your child's body, and they're sweating in it, and then those chemicals are leaching... anyway, the point is, skip the cheap PVC crap.

You want to look for bibs made from Polyurethane (PU) or recycled nylon treated with an eco-friendly DWR coating. I don't entirely understand the chemistry of DWR, but I know it means the water beads up and rolls off without using chemicals that will outlive the human race. The sustainable brands get this right. Kianao is super big on safe, non-toxic materials, which honestly just gives me one less thing to hyperventilate about when we're out on the water.

How to actually dress them so they don't freeze

Okay, so Dr. Aris was like, "Listen, if you're taking them out on the water in November, you need to understand how quickly they lose heat." She mentioned the AAP says we should dress kids in one more layer than whatever we're wearing. Which, honestly, Mark wears a single vintage t-shirt until it's literally blizzarding, so that metric is incredibly flawed for our family.

But the real danger isn't just the cold air. It's the sweat.

If you put them in a cheap rubber suit, they run around the dock, they sweat, and because the fabric doesn't breathe at all, that sweat gets trapped against their skin. Then they sit down in the boat, they stop moving, and that trapped sweat turns ice-cold instantly. It's a recipe for rapid chills.

You need a three-layer system. I know this sounds like so much laundry, but just do it. Put them in a base layer of merino wool. Never cotton. Cotton holds moisture and refuses to let it go. Then put a fleece layer over that. Then you put the waterproof fishing bibs over the fleece.

Mark was rambling to me the other day about how proper gear needs a "10,000mm water column rating," which honestly sounds like a technicality for a mattress commercial. But from what I can gather, it basically just means the fabric is dense enough that if Maya plops her entire body weight onto a soaking wet boat seat, the pressure won't force the water straight through the fabric into her fleece pants. They also need fully taped seams, because otherwise the water just sneaks in through the tiny needle holes where the pants were sewn together. Sneaky.

Oh, and buy them one size too big. You need room to stuff all those bulky layers underneath, and kids grow so fast anyway. It'll look a little baggy. They'll survive.

Speaking of surviving the boat, I need to take a quick detour about snacks.

Check out Kianao's eco-friendly baby gear if you're trying to swap out all the toxic plastic in your house like I'm.

Feeding them on the boat without losing your mind

Because you're going to be spending every weekend this fall on your father-in-law's boat, you need a system for feeding them while they're wearing all this bulky gear. You can't just hand Maya a loose bowl of Goldfish while the boat is bouncing over the wake. I tried that. She immediately launched the entire bowl into the lake, cried because the fish were "swimming away," and then rubbed her greasy, salty hands all over my sunglasses.

I finally bought the Silicone Bear Suction Bowl from Kianao and it's easily my favorite thing in my chaotic tote bag. It has this intense suction base on the bottom. I literally slapped it down onto the fiberglass console of the boat, filled it with lukewarm mac and cheese, and Maya couldn't pry it off no matter how hard she pulled. She just sat there in her oversized bibs, eating happily while we hit choppy water. It's 100% BPA-free silicone, so I don't have to worry about the sun heating up weird plastics.

I also got the Bamboo Baby Spoon and Fork Set for Leo to eat his chili out there. It's fine. It's really beautiful, and the silicone tip is great, but honestly, if you're the kind of person who accidentally leaves dirty dishes soaking in the murky cooler water overnight—which I'm—the bamboo handle gets a little weird. It needs to be hand-washed and dried, and my executive functioning is too low for that on a Sunday night after fishing. Just being honest.

But the Silicone Baby Bowl with Divider? That one comes with us to the muddy dock picnics. Leo will have a full-blown existential crisis if his wet dock-side berries touch his dry pretzels, and the little piglet divider keeps the foods completely segregated. Plus, you can just toss it in the dishwasher when you get home.

The neon colors are non-negotiable

Okay, back to the bibs. One last thing before I let you get back to your miserable morning on the dock.

You probably want to buy them in a cute, muted sage green or an aesthetic beige so they look good on Instagram. Stop. Stop doing that.

When you're buying insulated waterproof fishing bibs, or any kind of waterproof fishing bibs for a child who will be near open water, they need to look like a construction cone. Yellow. Neon orange. Hot pink. Bright, obnoxious colors.

Dr. Aris was terrifyingly blunt about this. If a child goes overboard, or wanders off into the dense, muddy brush near the shoreline, you need to be able to spot them instantly against the gray water or the brown mud. Earth tones are camouflage. Don't camouflage your children near a lake.

My anxiety can barely handle the boat as it's, so the neon yellow bibs are my visual anchor. I can track Maya out of the corner of my eye while I'm trying to drink my coffee.

So, past Sarah, go home. Hose off the mud. Throw those useless rain pants in the donation bin, get some proper bibs with reinforced knees, and save yourself a winter of screaming, shivering kids. You're doing fine. Just buy better gear.

Ready to upgrade your outdoor family adventures? Grab some sustainable gear that actually works before your next muddy trip.

The messy questions I kept googling

Do we really need insulated fishing bibs or just the waterproof shells?
Honestly, it depends on your kid and your climate. We live where it's freezing by Halloween, so I lean toward the best waterproof fishing bibs with built-in insulation. But my friend lives further south and she prefers just the shell, because she can just stuff her kid in sweatpants underneath if it gets chilly. If you buy the insulated ones, just know they're HOT if the sun comes out, and your kid will complain loudly.

How the hell do I wash these without ruining the waterproofing?
Don't use fabric softener. Ever. It literally clogs the pores of the breathable membrane and ruins the waterproof magic. When Mark and Leo get back from the dock, I just lay the bibs on the driveway and spray them violently with the garden hose to get the saltwater and fish slime off. If they're aggressively dirty, I machine wash them on cold with a special technical detergent, hang them over the shower rod, and pray they dry before the next weekend.

What if my newly potty-trained kid has to pee while wearing all this?
Oh, it's a nightmare. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Getting a four-year-old out of suspenders, fleece layers, and a base layer while standing in the woods is an Olympic sport. Look for bibs that have quick-release buckles on the suspenders. Practice unclipping them at home. Because when they say they've to go, you've exactly twelve seconds before disaster strikes.

Can they just wear their winter snow pants on the boat?
No. I tried this. Snow pants are water-resistant, not fully waterproof. They're meant to handle frozen water (snow), not liquid water (lake spray, deep mud puddles, sitting on a soaked wooden bench). Leo wore his ski pants on the boat once, sat on a wet towel, and the water absorbed right through the seat of his pants. He was miserable for three hours.

Are the suspenders really that much better than a waist belt?
Yes. A million times yes. Suspenders hold the pants up high, almost to their armpits, which means there's zero gap between their coat and their pants. No drafts, no mud slipping down their back. Plus, kids have no hips. Belts just slide right down their little straight-up-and-down bodies. Suspenders are the only way.