Tips for holidays

[Joneseygirl77]

Just wondering if anyone has any tips for holidays with dcs? My dd is 14mo and we're going away next week and again when she'll be 17mo. We have a strict routine of dinner, play, milk, bath and book then bed at home. She's in nursery ft though so is normally shattered at night.

When we've been on holiday before it's always when I was bfeeding so I've never been worried about being out of routine. It was always a case of her last bedtime fee would calm her down and make her sleepy.

Just wondering if we need to forget about routine and just go with the flow? Let her sleep in pushchair and then move her to her travel cot. Any tips much appreciated!

[lexyloub]

Stick to your routine (maybe change the times to suit) but instead of putting her to bed put her in the pram and go out maybe for a walk 1st to get her to sleep then enjoy a nice meal with your dh take her back and put in travel cot. This worked for me with all 3dc most times they never knew they'd been out. TIP If she is too busy nosying at what's going on around her then take her into the restaurant and face her away from you facing a wall and just leave her she'll soon get bored with the view and fall asleep

[Joneseygirl77]

Thanks lexy that's helpful. This probably sounds like a stupid question but I am a first time mum so forgive me- did you bother changing them for bed or just pop them straight in travel cot in their normal clothes? Or did you take them our in their pjs?

Thanks!

[lexyloub]

Take them out in pj's. I've just come back from Spain I put a normal sleepsuit on him but didn't put a vest on as it was warm at night.

[Writerwannabe83]

I haven't long come back from turkey with my 14m/o and the routine went completely out the window - it had to.

At home DS's bedtime was usually 7pm but in holiday the restaurant for our evening meal didn't even open until 7pm! The earliest DS ever went to bed at was 9pm-ish, sometimes later.

At home he would have a morning nap and an afternoon nap at quite set times but this just wasn't feasible on holiday - not if we actually wanted to get out and about of course. We didn't pay for a nice holiday for us to never leave the resort to accommodate nap times

DS soon fell into a new routine of later mornings, later nap time and later bedtime. He would often sleep in his pushchair whilst we were out and about and his usual two naps turned in to him just having one long nap, usually after lunch, for anywhere between 2-3 hours long.

DS had no choice but to go with the flow and things had a way of sorting themselves out.

However, trying to get things back to normal when we returned to England was an absolute nightmare!!!!

[angemorange]

When my DS was younger we tended to just go with the flow on holidays, having a buggy for them to sleep in was great - we usually put PJ's on at night. The only danger was too much sleep during the day - if you can try to keep them to short nap in the afternoon or you could be up all night :)

When you get home there's usually a night or two of pain as they re-adjust, but it's worth it if you all want to enjoy your holiday!

[Joneseygirl77]

Thanks all that's really helpful.

I've bought a buggy that reclines with a big sun visor as thought it would be useful for hols. My DD isn't a great daytime napper- we only get 1 hour max from her so hoping the heat might help her snooze for longer. That and lots of swimming!

Useful tips re switching times around and not letting her nap too long. And thanks for forewarning me about the disruption when we return home !

[GingerDoodle]

We are currently away (in the UK) and after a very late nap (she doesn't nap now normally!) resulted in a grouchy toddler (she's 2.9) till 10pm!! We've been heading back to our accommodation for 6pm bed so we get some adult time!! Last year at longleat I confess we did much the same. I like my child free evenings. That said around 9 months we did Disney and put her 'to bed' in the sling or buggy.

I guess abroad may be different and if you are happy with your mini being up very late then a late nap is your friend!

[Joneseygirl77]

Hmm yes I like my child free evenings too so that's worth knowing. We are self catering on both holidays so guess we could stay in some nights and go out on others. This is all really useful so thanks all.

I'm so strict on routine that I'm worried that if we break it then all hell will break loose when we get home. Which would be a nightmare as we'll be back at work!

[lexyloub]

Stick to your bedtime routine obviously just alter the timing to suit. It being hot and being in the pool will mean she will sleep more during the day. She will probably adapt quite easily to a later routine. As long as you do what you'd normally do at bedtime at home I don't think you'll have much trouble.

[Writerwannabe83]

My DS is only just getting back into DH normal routine now and we've been back for about 7 weeks.

He really struggled at night as he was unnerved by the new environment and for the first week he refused to sleep in the travel cot so we ended up co-sleeping which was a bad habit we'd managed to break three months prior to going on holiday. By about the start of the second week he'd fall asleep in the cot but if he stirred in the middle of the night he'd start crying and wouldn't stop until I bought him into bed with me. The fact that the cot was in my bedroom definitely didn't help matters because when he realised I was there he wouldn't go back to sleep. I also ended up feeding during the night (BF) which again was a habit that we'd broken months before but because me and DS were co-sleeping it just naturally happened.

It took about a month of being back home before DS would sleep through the night again without us having to co-sleep and it's only over the last few weeks that the nighttime feeds have stopped.

Unfortunately the holiday caused huge regressions in his sleep but I'm hopeful things will completely return to how they once were