When did you start enjoying holidays with the kids?

It's an easy mistake to make with your first holiday with a baby. Sadly, 'dream destinations' and small, mobile DC do not mix. All those shiny floors, unsecured pools and the kind of food and luxury aimed at adults are a fucking nightmare when you've got a 12-month-old to entertain.

You'll just have the make the best of this one OP. Can you ask the staff where is good to take small DC? At that age a gentle beach with plenty of shade, a splash park, a toddler pool, or a playground with sand pit are really all you need. In future, keep your expectations low and book something that you know your DC will like. While they aren't of school age you can take advantage of cheaper prices in term time to take them to sunny resorts out of season (when it's cooler), and pick places that come highly recommended by MNers! That's what I did for the first few years with my two. SC in a property with toddler-safe pool, play area, fenced, car-free grounds, etc is ideal and will give you a bit of time to sit under a tree reading a book while you keep an eye on your DC. This is the difference between a shit week somewhere (or, god forbid, two or three weeks), and a pleasant, if a little dull, holiday. Head over to the MN travel reviews for inspiration.

Oh and reading a book on a lounger, unmolested for a bit, your kids need to be at least 4 and preferably able to swim without flotation devices. It's well worth dragging them to swimming lessons weekly in between holidays to achieve this.

Going fully inclusive helps, as people stay around more during the day and there are more children for them to make friends with.

Don't they have a creche?

My kids are 5 (DS) and 6 (DD) We had a genuinely good holiday with them 6 months ago (when DS was 4).It was the first good holiday in 5 years! Excellent holidays up till DD was 9 months old. Then awful and stressful until youngest was 4.

I love the judges comments about kids clubs. Our ds loves them. He goes when he wants and stays with us when he wants. This usually means he’s off having fun in soft play, doing arts and crafts doing treasure hunts, making friends from round the world, learning to be independent without parents clinging to him 24/7. If he doesn’t want to go that’s fine. More often than not though it’s us telling him he can’t go one night so we can do something else. At no point is he dumped, it’s what he wants to do. I don’t need my child to need me every hour of the day. Surely the aim of raising a child is to make sure they don’t need you so can go off into the world, happy and confident of their own abilities.

I am with you, I find going on holidays is such hard work. It got better when he was 8 to 11, when they do not need too much supervision and find it easy to make friend to play with. Then comes teenage and you start missing the child you once had! 😁

Oh dear! I have refused to go abroad with my children untill they are all four years old, it’s so much work. Try and enjoy what’s left and put it down to bad experience. I can’t recommend centre Parcs enough with little ones so much to do and usually short travelling times.

We've done a week abroad every year since eldest DC was 1.5 (they're now 3 and 6). We enjoy our hols, but its definitely about managing expectations. The days when holidays consisting of traipsing around art galleries and eating in nice restaurants are gone. For us its worked to...

Go self-catering and stay somewhere geared up for children
Go short-haul
Stick to somewhere fairly cool (when ours were really little they got ratty enough in UK heat...really wouldn't have fancied Greece or Spain in August)

We have taken the dc on holidays home and abroad from when dd was 3 months old, I've enjoyed them all except 1 and that was difficult because it was just as ds was diagnosed with autism at 3 and the holiday was too much for him. He is 10 now and we have continued having a couple of holidays a year.

For us the key to a good holiday is planning - the resort needs to suit everyone. Happy dc = happy parents!!!

I would say around 4-5 it gets better, then gets a little bit easier every year after that. We never spent money on holidays other than a caravan in Devon until youngest was 4, didn’t see the point as none of them liked kids club.

I'm probably not the best person to ask. We took 2 teenagers to a fabulous hotel in the canary islands - they argued constantly and the eldest was too busy pining for her boyfriend to enjoy herself

holidays with young children are just work in a less suitable setting without your support network.

I started enjoying them when the children started to have an interest in the types of things you do on holiday - so things the kids naturally enjoyed doing that I could go along with (so for us its all swimming, bike rides, beaches, boats)

They also improved massively when they slept through, so I wasn't just over tired and worried about the crying waking other guests. And other improving factors were them being more robust and able to self care a lot more.

so probably around 3 years old.

Now they are both school age, holidays are brilliant.

When the youngest is about 3, give or take. Maybe 2 if yours isn't that much of a dick. But they'll be very different holidays to the sort you had pre kids.

Agree cheap and cheerful works. There's nothing like paying to go somewhere amazing and not being able to enjoy it because you're shackled to a stupid toddler. At least if you have a crap time and you've not spent much you mind less. 1 is the worst age, I'd say.

Ragwort has elucidated one of the issues here as far as I am concerned ( not speaking for others). If you are a SAHM being in a warmer climate but still cookin/ bag packing/herding is not a holiday unless your partner steps up. If you WOHM then it is a treat to do all of those things and 'a change is as good as a rest'.
As stated above I have enjoyed all holidays with the children (26 years now) but my DH who does little in terms of keeping DC company in the usual way of things really steps up on hols . Do activities that offer something for everyone as best you can and don't do things that feel onerous. We are not holiday club or campsite people because I want to be with the children on holiday as I miss them when I am at work and we like privacy but my best friend adored eurocamp type holidays when hers were young as they disappeared to make friends on day one and she could lounge with s book or play tennis unbothered which was a luxury she never had as a SAHM.
Try again OP

I love you Queen. I'm with you!

Holidays are basically childcare in a different location. The first ones with children are particularly bad as you suddenly realise that the word "holiday" is never going to have quite the same meaning.
The toddler phase is hard work. The bit which really took me by surprise was the "just swimming and thinking that they are much more competent than they are" or that they've been in the pool for ages and suddenly get really knackered but are in the middle of the pool.
No doubt there is going to be another worrying stage when they're teenagers.
As it is, mine are 8 & 5 and we had a really enjoyable holiday at Easter... although DH and I still spent a lot of time talking about the proper holidays we'll go on by ourselves when they're older.

I loved all my holidays when my children were young. Went every year abroad starting when my oldest was 3 months old. Even went to the Dominican Republic when son was just over a year and I was pregnant with the second.
I know they are not popular now but I used wrist straps a lot when we were out and about, going through airports etc. As they got older they did sometimes go to the kids clubs but it was left up to them and we were quite happy for them not to go even if it had been paid for.
Taught both of my children to swim on hoildays just by playing in the pool with them.
Yes the holidays didn’t involve a lot of laying on the beach with a book, late nights drinking and eating or long shopping trips but they were still great and even though my boys are adults now we all have a lot of great memories.

My DS (an only child) has always loved holiday clubs - in fact even last year on a Neilson holiday he enjoyed the teenager 'club' at 16.

He's had loads of 'family time' with DH and I (I was a SAHM & DH worked from home) - he probably wants a change of company . You don't need to be tied to your DC (or DH for that matter) 24/7 - in fact I can't think of anything worse.

orchidinthesun - what's the point of going away to 'shove them in holiday club' as you say

They might enjoy it for a few hours? It gives you a bit of adult time?

You don’t have to spend every second with your child to prove you’re the best ever Mum.

Love holidays with the kids! From babies up. Its all great

A few hours in a holiday club for the kids has a lot of good reasons behind it, meals with DH, couples massages, adult spa trip, quiet chilling and space for sex. Dc are great on holiday but a little adult only time is great too.

I enjoyed holidays with mine always. Took the second away when she was just 3 months!

It’s harder when they are toddlers but I still enjoyed it. No cleaning or cooking, warm weather, fun times in the pool or sea. Letting them have chips and ice cream for tea because we were on holiday.

what's the point of going away to 'shove them in holiday club' as you say ????

Er, the point would be the delicious alcoholic beverage you get to consume in the sun while enjoying childfree time with your partner . Easiest question ever. Or in my case, the bike rides round a Greek island or the windsurfing while my kids are entertained.

[Hoiks judgy pants]"Well, I don't go on holiday to dump my kids in childcare! I ENJOY my children's company!"

Good for you. I do, and I'll toast you from the bar with my Kindle and my bellini.

I started enjoying them when I moved my own goal posts. Pre kids I wanted s wild beach with no one else on it. After kids I wanted swanage, with a Punch and Judy booth, town a minutes walk away, and accommodation handy.

orchidinthesun - what's the point of going away to 'shove them in holiday club' as you say ???? No point going away