When did you start enjoying holidays with the kids?

My hack has been to take at least one other family member with if possible - grandparent, aunt/uncle (& a cousin) or god parents. It can get a bit intense otherwise as kids are just so demanding of your time and energy. Also to let go of the pressure and expectation of creating a beautiful and perfect experience for everyone (women are more socialised to do this), and accept that there will be some shit moments, for everyone, and that’s ok. My twins are 8.5 and it’s now getting better and better every time we travel. 🙏🏽

That sounds tough. It takes a long time to move on from the grief of lost freedom and it especially comes into sharp focus on holidays.

I guess my advice would be once the mourning ends (and this is a real thing) to carve out time to enjoy small things. If you’re taking turns, what can you do/where can you go with your time? How can you best make use of that time? Where can you go that would be enjoyable for you all that you perhaps haven’t considered? Perhaps hire a car and find a pretty quiet hill village with stunning views and a nice cafe with an area DC can run around in safely etc?

When you can’t do anything, even go down to breakfast together due to meltdowns. Maybe my case is a bit more specific though.

Resurrecting this thread! It’s so painful! In a beautiful location but tied to the room, taking turns with a child who more recently can’t deal with cafes, busy market squares, anything! He won’t even go in the pool. I’m also a sahm and mourning my old life more than ever!

My kids are 16...21 and 22 and they stay behind now when i go on holiday...its my one week of the year when i can switch off and think only of myself...it also makes the holiday so cheap when its just you and your partner going.

DS is 17mths old.
So far we’ve done 10nts Majorca, 7nts CenterParcs and 5nts Disneyland Paris.
He’s been walking since 10mths. We’ve absolutely loved every single second of our holidays, they’ve all been amazing.

something else, not some think else.

when would you not enjoy a holiday with your children?

personally I think it may be better to avoid beaches and very hot weather with babes. Just do some think else until they are 3 or 4.

We've never been ones for lying around by the pool so self catering (eat out at lunch time, ready cooked chicken or cold meat and salad in the evening) worked well for us. We've walked and in the Lake District using carriers and kiddy seats, visited Loire Chateau , been to Paris, Rome, roadtrip in the States etc. Somewhere with a pool to visit for an hour or so each day is great, we can cope with being life guards for a short while. They particularly loved castles when they were small and used to lark about pretending they were knights on horses.

I think it can also depend on how much you're enjoying that stage of parenthood. I did not enjoy the baby and toddler years so 7 days straight of that was never going to be enjoyable, wherever I was tbh. I started enjoying both parenting and holidays when the youngest was three.

We started travelling with my ds from 3 months. By the age of 2 he was so good at it that he knew exactly what to do on airplanes as well. He is such an easy going little boy, hes so much better on holiday than at home. I remember doing an island holiday for his 1st birthday, he was so happy to play on the Sand and in the water.it was actually such an easy one. We just carried on our routine from home
He napped and ate at the same time so it wasnt bad at all.

We had 3 under 5 for three years (twins shortly followed by a spare!). We stopped hotel resort type holidays when the oldest were about 16 months because it was a exhausting keeping them alive, let alone relatively undisruptive to the other people around us. In the early baby stage we found that eurocamping was a big win. Playgrounds, kids clubs, on site restaurants with kid friendly food, and safe baby swim areas. They provide everything from cots to highchairs and potties for free. And having your own space in the evening is so good because you can self cater (so no screaming babies in restaurants 3x/day) and can sort of make it safe and also have a drink on the deck once they go to bed. We usually do a number of day trips on those holidays just to have a change of scenery, and usually they would sleep in the buggy or the carrier.

This year we are really noticing that holidaying is much easier now that the youngest is 3.5 years old. Everyone I see potty trained and can walk, and the youngest can have a little bit of autonomy at the pool with her armbands on. Nobody is trying to kill themselves anymore. We're testing a fly-and resort holiday in October for the first time in 3 years as it feels like we'd all enjoy that now!

We had our first holiday with dd at age 4 months .
We loved it, was one of the best holidays we’ve ever had .
Never really had an issue on holidays when she was walking or anything as it was the same as at home

Also top tip - make sure your accommodation is cozy, somewhere you want to be as kids need down time so tiny hotel rooms etc don’t work!

Haha! I cried on our first ever family holiday as was so busy parenting a one year old that it just didn’t feel like a holiday!
He’s 6 now and we all love going away as a family whenever we can 😊

We have had a couple of lovely UK cottage breaks - one in Norfolk when DS was 2 and one in Pembrokeshire when he was almost 3. In fact, the Norfolk holiday is probably one of the best I've ever had! In both cases, stayed in a cottage cluster where there are extra facilities e.g. outdoor space, indoor pool, playroom, animal feeding etc. DS loved these places, there was no problem keeping him entertained at all. The Norfolk cottage had a massive, fenced outdoor space with playground equipment so we could sit on our terrace drinking wine while DS ran around. We enjoyed visits to lovely sandy, toddler friendly beaches where DS just ran around in the shallow water and made sandcastles. And we mixed it up with visits to local attractions etc.

I do think it's a case of figuring out what suits everyone though. Last year we had a weekend at Centre Parcs when DS was 3.5 and DD 4 months, but it really didn't suit us, we couldn't wait to get home! DS doesn't really like organised activities, so apart from the swimming pool there wasn't much to do.

This year we have tried something different - just got back from a week in Italy on Lake Maggiore. We had an Air BnB, and we went out each day visiting gardens, cable cars, boat trips etc. DS is almost 5 now and DD is 20mo and both were really excited about the boats etc, and we enjoyed the beautiful scenery. The only thing I would say is that we spent a fortune eating out at lunch every day and it was a stressful experience and a waste of money - DD wouldn't sit still and wanted to play with glasses and water bottles, and DS was constantly whining about when his food was going to arrive.

I could have written your post OP. We are on holiday at the moment. I have a 3.5 year old and a 6 month old.
We had got to the stage where my three year old is excited by being on holiday and during the journey is happy to amuse herself.
Now we have DD2, I had forgotten that you end up taking half your house with you while you're away as well as the crying because she is hot or bored in the pushchair. She is also crawling so wants to be off everywhere so we are constantly dragging her away from hazards.
I'm sure it will get easier again when she is older but I definitely find holidaying with little ones stressful too OP!

Oh wow, I haven't RTFT but had to reply OP because I know exactly how you feel.

We booked a holiday, nothing fancy just to a lovely bit of Cornwall for when our first baby was 12 weeks old. Silly naive pre-children us, thinking it'd be the same as our previous holidays, just with a baby in tow. We had a horrible time!

We've been away in the UK several times since, said baby is now 2. It is better now, we have a nice time but it is most definitely not anything like pre-children holidays and I wouldn't exactly call it relaxing. We weren't even wild before or anything either!

Baby number 2 is due soon, and I've resigned myself to not having a relaxing holiday similar to our previous-children ones until they are old enough to go to kids club or (preferably) be left at home for a few days with Grandparents (we would of course take them on anther holiday with us too!).

Good job they're cute isn't it!

I agree with someone's comment upthread re watery holidays with non swimmers. I've found that now they can swim it's life changing - well holiday changing. Prior to that they used to splash around in the pool for 10 minutes before starting to complain. Now they swim it eats up hours!

Our recent holiday is the first one that has really felt like a holiday and hasn't been very hard work. Dcs 3.1 and 5.3.

We didn’t have a pool/beach holiday between me being pregnant with our eldest and our youngest being 4.

In those years we went to Center Parcs and Disney.

I know no adequate relaxing would happen and we’d just be entertaining small children all day. So it was easier to go to places where there was plenty to do but also nice options for down time.

(Helps we love CP and Disney anyway so didn’t feel a sacrifice. But holidays are definitely very different now.)

I found holidays with dcs under 3 a horrible experience. I used to feel so envious of people lying there reading while their dcs swam and played.

Now it's me and I thoroughly appreciate it.

Yes we’re going Monday - Friday this year as I find that’s the right length for us at the moment, then after we’re back we’ll do a couple of days out.

Likewise, I have had some lovely adventures with my DS, which have mostly been related to his interests at the time. For example, Ireland for beautiful beaches and rockpools, Italy for ice-creams and pizza, Norfolk to see seals and steam trains, Brussels to see the Mannekin Pis and eat waffles.

I have never used a kids club though, as surely if we are on holiday together, we should be spending time together? Just aim for shortish breaks, and turn it into a little adventure.

To be fair, they can be great but they’re different - you’ve got to do your research, and understand that a ‘dream destination’ pre kids is not going to be that with a 1 year old! I remember sobbing on our first holiday with DD, she was 7 months and I looked at DH about 3 days in and said ‘this is just the same shit in a different place!’. Now they’re 3 and 6 I’m so looking forward to our holiday this year - but it’s a holiday park in the Netherlands! The dream destinations can wait until they’re bigger (or even better have left home 😬). I hope things improve for you and you can have some fun times.