Unhappy beach toddler

[TiramisuIsMyFriend]

More of a wwyd I guess.

DP and I are on holiday. It's our last holiday before our first baby comes. We took ourselves off to what we thought was a fairly remote, "grown up" part of a small island, staying in an adults only spa hotel with a private beach.

For one reason or another, it hasn't been quite as advertised. Not least because the hotel's "private beach" is just a small strip next to a public beach and another hitel's beach, both of which are crowded with families. Which is totally fine and doesn't bother me at all. The thing that has bothered me is the family who have been sitting all day for the past 2 days in the seats right next to the hotel's strip of beach. They have 4 kids. One of them is a little older but there are 2 young boys who run around shouting, throwing sand, running dripping wet up the private part of beach, etc. again...kids will be kids and I'm just tuning it out. But the littlest child, a girl of about 18 months I think, is clearly hating it. She has, with no exaggeration, screamed, screeched and whined all day for the past 2 days. She is too hot, she doesn't like the sand, she doesn't want to go in the sea and screams whenever they try to make her (which is about 1ce an hour!!) and generally has been putting her lungs to great use the entire time.

So, the WWYD part.

[VioletBam]

I'd sit somewhere else.

[arethereanyleftatall]

Move to a different part of the public beach?

[BuggerLumpsAnnoyed]

There's not really anything you can do except sit somewhere else.

[mouldycheesefan]

Get some peace and quiet at the pool, pop down to the beach early evening when they have left. Or sit at opposite end of private beach to that family.

[branofthemist]

Move away from them.

In my experience a private beach is usually strip of beach that the hotel owns. As opposed to full beach where no other people are allowed near.

[TiramisuIsMyFriend]

Oops- I hit send before I write the WWYD part...

DP thinks they shouldn't bring the little girl to the beach as she clearly hates it and is really, really disturbing the peace for all other beach goers. He also thinks the boys should be reined in a bit, told to calm down and at least not to be running past people throwing sand and dripping wet.

I agree with him re the little boys but not about the little girl. She's just a child and we both have headphones. However I do see his point, for her own good... if she is that unhappy maybe they should take her elsewhere. As we Don't have our own baby yet I don't know what I'd do in this situation as it is the parents are doing naff all so...wwyd?

[mouldycheesefan]

It doesn't really matter what you think or what you would do. The family is thee making a noise so sit somewhere else if it is disturbing you.

[witsender]

Move? They're not doing anything wrong, and with 4 kids sometimes you have to juggle everyone's needs. The boys don't sound to be misbehaving, just doing normal beach stuff.

[TiramisuIsMyFriend]

Oh and to be clear- there is no "free" public beach but strips of beach owned by different restaurants or companies, all of which you have to pay to use. So obvs we Don't want to move to another one where we'd have to pay.

I'm more annoyed with the hotel actually- the way it was advertised was more like a secluded cove. It is, needless to say, not!

[branofthemist]

You don't do anything.

You certainly don't got tell them their Dd shouldn't be on the beach because it's cruel.

If they splash you, or throw sand and it hits you. Ask them to stop or speak to the parents.

The only other thing you can do is complain to the hotel management but I doubt they will do anything about a family on another beach.

[Mycatsabastard]

Poor little thing. She's clearly not enjoying the heat/sand experience and her parents shouldn't be forcing her to stay out all day every day if she's suffering.

Not much you can do, but I do feel sorry for her.

We went to our local beach yesterday, just for an hour and there was a family with four or five kids, dad was in the water with a few of the older ones but the youngest, a tiny little girl was utterly distraught. Turns out she just wanted her daddy to come out of the sea!! But yes, too hot for them without an umbrella for shade and a hat anyway.

[mouldycheesefan]

Kids will get dripping wet on a beach and will be noisy and chuck sand about. At least they are not on your private section though. Face the opposite way!

[mummymeister]

I can understand completely where you are coming from as this isn't what you thought you were getting. abandon the beach and go and find somewhere else for a quiet sit with a book. beaches in holiday areas are always going to be like this. hotels will always tell you what you want to hear to make you book so would not have told you that your "beach " was sandwiched in between 2 other non private ones.

theres nothing you can do, no one you can complain to really so unfortunately you have to remove yourselves from the situation.

I would though bear this all in mind when your LO comes along because the family with the miserable 2year old could well be you in a couple of years time. Its like looking at the ghost of Christmas future

hope you manage to escape to somewhere quieter/more private and that all goes well with your delivery/new baby.

[pinkieandperkie]

Sorry but I agree you should just move and enjoy your holiday instead of worrying about other peoples kids. I don't think that the parents would appreciate you saying anything. Attacking parenting skills often offends. Four kids are hard work and it's difficult to please them all at the same time.

[TiramisuIsMyFriend]

I think people are misunderstanding (due to my big fat fingers posting too soon!). It's not WWYD if you were me...I know there's nothing I can do and I'm certainly not going to say anything. It's WWYD if you were them, with such a clearly distraught child?

[LilacSpunkMonkey]

They clearly think they're doing the right thing. They're trying to give the children (all if them) a nice holiday.

Unfortunately, one whiney child just not trump three happy children.

My youngest used to scream and whine about everything. There was nothing wrong with him but he liked to ake himself heard. I learned to let him get on with it. And he did it on the beach too. Wouldn't go near the water until he was 5. His loss. I wasn't going to spoil my older children's day because he was a bit of a turd. He learned to suck it up, my others learned that their happiness was just as important.

[kaitlinktm]

I only had two but the younger one was whiney sometimes - we had to take it in turns and sometimes he had to do things he didn't want to do and sometimes his brother did.

FWIW I was constantly doing something I didn't like on family beach holidays as I hate lying on beaches or sunbathing generally. Later on it transpired that the kids had decided they weren't keen either so it was only my ex having a good time.

[kaitlinktm]

Is it whiney or whiny ?

[GreatFuckability]

its difficult, because when you have a bunch of kids needs to consider its hard to juggle. If my kids hated it that much, i'd go somewhere else if possible. I feel for them, my youngest also hates the beach. which i didn't know until we went to the beach, lol. she refused to even sit on it and screamed blue murder when confronted with the sea. we havent been on a beach holiday since!

[DeathStare]

If I was them with a "distraught" child I'd remember that there are 6 people on this holiday not just 1 and that the needs of 1 don't outweigh the news of the other 5.

I'd also be beginning to despair because toddlers who are like this on holiday tend to be unsettled by the change and are like this through ALL bits of the holiday.

But more than anything I'd hope that on my hard-saved-for holiday I didn't end up next to Mr. And Mrs Judgey-Pants who were sure that they could parent my child better than me, despite having no experience themselves.

Does that answer your question?

[DeathStare]

*needs not news

[2016Hopeful]

It's a family holiday so it would be a bit miserable if one parent had to spend all day in a hotel room with the toddler! She may whinge there too anyway! I would make sure I sat my toddler in the shade (ie under a uv tent type thing), give her stuff to play with, plenty of drinks and would try and get her to try the water too every so often. It is must be their first holiday with her as a toddler and they were probably hoping she would love it. Beach is the best place for kids to run around and enjoy themselves though sounds like the boys behaviour could be curbed a bit so other beach goers didn't get water or sand splashed at them! But it is easier to be on a beach than by a pool with children of those ages as there is more for them to do.

[Cosmo111]

A solution is go to child free holidays if you want peace. It's half term now there will be kids on holiday.

[Lorelei76]

the thing is, you can't tell people like this anything
they don't care that their littlest one is unhappy
how much do you think they care about anyone else?

I do see a lot of babies being toted around in the heat and looking so sad. I feel sorry for them.