If A Real Shtf Scenario Occurs With A Young Child Onboard.

Hello, I hope you all are well.
I feel confident in my survival skills but have been giving a lot of thought lately about my wife and baby daughter, and what to do if shit really does go down. We live on the outskirts of a major city, have a little bit of land, and enough to get by on for a few days. But is that the right move? Never thought Id be packing a go bag for my 15mo daughter but her I am making sure there's enough wipes and diapers... just want to get some of your thoughts with regards to prepping with a young family. Wife can shoot, I can shoot, we have enough of the essentials to get by and hunker down, but would it be best to pack everyone up in the car and move out? We could play the what ifs all day I guess, but its not as easy to bug out with a 15mo baby attched to ya.
Love to hear from some people in the same boat.
Thanks

 

I have to say steve-0 I don't envy your position there.
Having an infant or a child younger then 8 is one of the biggest obstacles one can face in a SHTF.

Now I don't have this kind f challeng to over come but in my opinion bugging out is a last resort for any situation due to the limited resources one can bring and the unpredictability of what is out there. A child would make this three times harder and would suggest it would be better to hold up at your home.
I would suggest you prep your home for a long term bug in. Try getting as self sufficient as you can on your land by having a water and food supply. If it's you your wife and baby a mid size green house along side a stockpile of food would be good. If your not squeamish you could raise chickens or rabbits.
Try to get your home ready to work on it's own for at least a year.

And in case of an emergency have a bug out plan. Have necessities off to the side and ready to go, plan where your going to go and how you'll get there.

Again this is just my opinion I don't have the same worries as you with a whole family to take care of so in the end it boils down to what you think is best for your family.

I hope this helped even if only a little.
Best of luck.

 

Thanks for your thoughts and guidance Travis.s. I also believe that "bugging in" would be our best chance at survival granted teotwawki isnt at my immediate doorstep. We are fortunate enough to be on a well and have two natural fire places along with enough wood and trees around. We also have plenty of small game, deer and turkeys to get us through if need be. And we are only 15 minutes away from a major city..which poses other threats. We may be selling our current property soon and may move onto even more land which would be nice. So, who knows... long story short, bugging in would be in my family's best intrests.. short to longish-term.

 

I guess it also depends on what the situation is. We have a set up where there are members of our family spread all over the country. Each household has enough preps and would be able to host displaced members of family from another part of the country. Bugging out is only a realistic choice if you have a safe destination in mind.
For those who haven't planned ahead the government's emphasis is on SIP these days. Shelter In Place information on how to cope with Chemical, Biological, radiological, Nuclear attack is a bit of a joke but it is a starting point if you intend to bug in.
I believe that keeping alert, keeping your options open and developing the skills to allow your family to be self sufficient are the key to survival short term, long term survival will depend on you continuing to keep your wits sharp and make good choices.

 

Basically if you live far enough out to have a little land then you will definitely be better off bugging in for at least the first 6 months to a year. The cities are going to burn and without power or water they just won't be able to exist. Your challenge will be to survive the exodus. Once things hit a level where even an idiot can see that it is either leave or die it is going to get UGLY. What you will need to do is be invisible until most of the riffraff have pass on.

Try to plant something that will sort of hide your place from the road. Have covers for your windows so that after things get bad you can seal up as tight as possible. You might even consider splash painting your place to make it look less noticeable. Two or three gallons of assorted darker colored paint can make your place look like a deserted place and with a little gang type graffiti it will get passed by. Plant things now that you can eat later that are NOT above ground plants. Most people don't have a clue what a potato, sweet potato or peanut plant looks like. There are also a lot of very nutritious plants that are generally considered as weeds. Lambs quarters is one but there are a lot of others.

The problem with obvious gardens and green houses is that if you don't guard them they will be raided and you will lose most of your hard work. We are talking about people that are really hungry not like what people THINK is hunger now days rather starvation. After things thin out that will change but for a while you need to be able to feed without advertising it.

Along those lines you need to get a good rocket stove now. A rocket stove produces no smoke and if you are cooking with wood you don't want the whole world to know that you are cooking. Pot meals are best and don't waste anything. If you grill a piece of meat you lose a lot of the fat to the fire. You WANT that fat.

Move your familly into one room. Close off the rest of the house. In the winter you can't heat more than one room and in the summer you will want to keep everyone where you can see them in case something happens. Make sure that you have plenty of books and things to pass the time. You will want to stay mostly inside during the day for a while and then tend to the outside things at night.

Food is FUEL. We have forgotten that these days and people feast 365 days of the year. That is not how it was in the past and not how it will be after things collapse. You can spend thousands of dollars on the high priced gourmet dehydrated survival foods or if your money is more limited you can stock up cheap on beans, wheat, rice and corn. Throw in some of those small canned meats like Spam and Dak canned hams and you will be fed. Down here deer corn is less than 10 dollars for 50 pounds. All it is is dry shelled corn. Buy a grain mill and that will let you grind the wheat and corn into meal and flours. People lived for centuries eating gruel and mush. It isn't fancy but it is fuel.

Another tool that you will want that you might not think of is a BB gun and a pellet gun. All birds and small mammals are eatable and pellets and BBs are quiet and dirt cheap. I'm also proficient with a slingshot and bow but those take more practice than a BB gun.

There is a wealth of information here. Don't limit your reading to only the active threads.

 

Is this the beginning of the end of the U.S. as we know it ? Is this the dawning of putting our prepping into service ? Hoards of people gathering at our southern boarder to assault the U.S. If the boarder crumbles people from failed nations will flood the U.S. , destroying the economy , The working people can only support and help so much before the entire system collapses . I f this happens it may take a few months but nations around the planet will fell the negative effect .

 

I don't see this as a nation ending crisis but it may indeed put the liberal Californians to the test of their beliefs. They might take California but it is already almost more Mexican in a lot of ways than American. Notice they are not stupid enough to do this in Texas. We have the LEGAL right to defend our property here and the WILL to do it. Also illegal aliens don't get any state funded assistance here. You work or starve here if you aren't a legal immigrant or citizen.

This is truly an invasion. The media tries to make it seem that this is families with women and children but the fact is that it is mostly young males in the 18 to 30 range and that fact is becoming hard to hide. One thing that I've noted about liberals is that they are big on giving away my rights and property but you never see them actually doing anything personally or helping someone if it isn't convenient and on camera. These invaders will bankrupt them and the crime rate that is already insane in the megametroantpiles will skyrocket. If they mean it when they say they want open borders then they also need to open their homes to these people. ROTFLMFAO Like THAT will ever happen!!!

Fortunately most of the border states aren't as ignorant as the Socialist State of California. I think that when the reality hits them they are going to scream bloody murder and expect the rest of us to send troops there to save them since they have given up their right to own and USE guns.

 

Steve-O, All the advice is real good, but one thing i think about would be a sound proof area, stocked with necessary items for wife and baby, It will come in handy for quite a few years, and doubles as a safe room.

 

Bugging In is always my Plan A. It is where you will feel the safest. It is where you will have most of your supplies, and the things you need and want to live for all of you; baby included. There are very few things that would make me leave, but that said I would include a BOB for the baby. I would expect you have one for yourself and your wife. Do you have one for the baby? Now it has been a hundred years since I have even had to think about it, but do you (your wife) carry a diaper bag when you go out? I am dating myself, but that is what we used to call it. All of those things a baby needs. Make sure you have extra food; cleaning stuff; diapers; clothes; four seasons of clothes; extra blankets and hats; things to keep warm. I don't even know what else, but I'm sure your wife would know.

At fifteen months you will carry her everywhere you go. You may want to consider a carrier that you wear on your chest, so you can carry the baby, and a backpack on your back. Your thinking on prepping and survival just need to be a little more inclusive. Many of us have been there. You just make children an integral part of the process.