Nagano with a baby (0–1) 3 spots
Nagano is Japan's high mountain interior. Wild monkeys sit in the hot spring at Jigokudani all winter with no glass in between, and Matsumoto's black castle keep is one of the original ones. Summers stay cool up at Kamikochi.
A zoo laid out across a hillside, with a monorail running to its north gate.
Stroller OK · Nursing room · Changing table · checked Aug ’26
A 71.1-hectare hilltop park northwest of Matsumoto that holds a zoo and a nature museum.
Stroller OK · Nursing room · Changing table · checked Aug ’26
Naganobi! Nagano Children's Museum
An indoor playground of five themed areas, built around nature, animals and science.
Stroller OK · Nursing room · Changing table · checked Aug ’26
On weekends and public holidays at 14:00 there is a Red Panda Talk, held indoors in the red panda house. On Saturdays from 11:30 to 11:45 the Kiso horse and pony barn runs "Take a photo with the horse!", for the first 10 groups. A stroller can be rented for 200 yen.The nursing room is at the north gate. Baby beds for diaper changes are inside the toilets at the south gate, at the north gate and beside the children's zoo. Accessible toilets are at two places, the south and north gate toilets. There is no restaurant in the zoo, so bring what you need to eat. Parking is free, with 690 spaces. In winter, roughly December to March, snow and frozen ground close the walking path from the north car park to the north gate, and you take the monorail to reach that gate.
The Forest of Birds and Small Animals is free to enter and never closes, and it keeps about 250 animals of some 30 species, among them Japanese macaques, sika deer and ponies. Parts of the ground are gravel, but there are no stairs, so as one visitor's account puts it you can go round it with a stroller. At the Matsumoto Mountain and Nature Museum, also free, the 5th-floor observation room gives a 360-degree view that takes in the Northern Alps.There is one nursing room, on the 2nd floor of the Mountain and Nature Museum: a nursing space screened off by a partition, plus two diaper-changing tables. It is air-conditioned and roomy enough to take a stroller inside. There is no bin for diapers, so take them away with you. Accessible toilets are marked at the south entrance car park, the east entrance car park, the north entrance plaza, the Mountain and Nature Museum, the Forest Entrance Rest House, beside the Children's Adventure Ground, Sakura no Mori, the Dream Coaster boarding point, inside the Forest of Birds and Small Animals, and the old folk house learning facility. The park has no shop at all, only drink vending machines, so bring a packed lunch and eat it inside the Forest Entrance Rest House (9:00-17:00).
The Forest Adventure Plaza on the 1st floor is a shoes-off area, so a child who is not yet walking can spend the visit down on the floor. The nursing room and the hot water for the baby's formula are both in that same Forest Adventure Plaza. The building is indoors and all-weather, so rain does not change your plan. Children below school age get in free, whether or not they live in Nagano City, on weekdays and on weekends and holidays alike.The nursing room is in the Forest Adventure Plaza on the 1st floor, and staff will bring hot water for the baby's formula if you ask. The diaper-changing table is in the parent-and-child toilet on the 1st floor, and used diapers go in the bin set aside for them. A microwave for warming baby food is in the 1st-floor rest space, and kids' chairs are in that rest space and in the basement. A stroller may be used to move between floors, but not inside the 1st-floor Forest Adventure Plaza or the basement Space Athletics, so you leave it at the stroller parking on the 1st floor. No strollers are available to rent. The building has ramps and a lift.