Does it really have to be like this with babies?

We didn’t have a strict nap routine. We all slept when we were tired. Also managed to take them out a lot to socialise. We had a big pram that they could sleep in. Having my kids close together meant I was very busy with them; so I wanted to keep a sense of normality by seeing friends and still having a social
life. Lots of my friends were similar. Although, even now the kids are older, we all still tend to meet for a long lunch, rather than supper. Have also flown with them as toddlers - including one with a disability. Holidays are hard work! Same workload, different location. But worth it for a change of scene. People parent differently. No judgement, either way, from me.

Depends on the baby and can also depend on the parents. DC1 was portable, she slept in the pram and we took her out for dinner often. We went on an international holiday when she was about 14 mths, she was very easy to travel with. Very happy, placid baby.

I was also happy to be led by her. So we didn’t have a routine or schedule. One of my friends who had a baby around the same time nagged me constantly about routines because she couldn’t cope with not being able to plan her day in advance. Whereas it didn’t worry me at all. DC slept through the night from an early age, she just didn’t always go to bed or get up at the same time.

Our child was in a routine from birth but also just went with what we did, we went on one very long haul flight when they were a young baby and other week long holidays away for bank holiday weekends so we pretty much stayed with the routine on holidays, and our baby was out and about daily from birth so just got used to it

This.

Theres a sweet spot for long distance travel 0-6 months old (aKa immobile) and then 2.5 years plus. In between is complete carnage in my experience on flights. I say this as someone who did a 6 hour daytime flight with an active, angry at being caged up, 9 month old during Covid, and then took our children “in the sweet spot” on a 13 hour flight. They got norovirus the day we flew and we had the worst holiday and flight of our lives. The older one threw up on my husband, an air stewardess and another passenger in one go. My DH finished the flight in airline pjs. We then got the bug and spent an expensive holiday in our beds. I’m not in a rush to repeat that again 😂. We now stick to drivable trips until they’re both 3 or so. Then pray for the best!

My baby was waking up to 25 times a night; he sleeps through now and I will not break the routine for love nor money. Also, babies and children are hard work! Meals and snacks and clearing up the high chair and breastfeeds and napping them at the right time and woe betide the parent who forgets the blackout blind on holiday and fresh air and playground/running around time and whining if they’re hungry/tired/bored/overstimulated.

Going on holiday just relocates the work and isn’t half as fun as it was pre-kids. Mine aren’t the kind who can stay up a bit later so you can go out to eat, they turn feral. They wouldn’t sleep in a pram at a restaurant. Supervising a baby in the pool is fun but not relaxing. There’s no afternoon nap and reading a book and having a lie-in. Plus they hate the heat so going abroad in summer limits the options.

My youngest is 5 and still not taken him abroad, because what's the point? He's just as happy in a caravan 30 miles up the road, and honestly I don't want the hassle. Probably going to do it next year for an extended family holiday

I think this is a really good point. There are so many compromises and choices to make within a family, and everyone lands on a different way of making parenting work. Dc probably don't care if they're paddling in the English channel or the Mediterranean, but dh and I really did, so we compromised in other ways instead.

We've flown with our children from 3 months because much of our family lives abroad. It's not as easy as getting there solo, but it's still very much possible if you want or need it to be (first flight with tiny dd was to visit a dying relative). We changed the way we travel, but we still travel - some trial and error involved eg we ruled out city hotel breaks after one attempt but discovered that an airbnb apartment with kitchen/high chair/travel cot can work really well as it let us work around our children. I can't imagine enjoying a pool holiday with small kids who won't sit still. We sometimes persuade lovely babysitting grandparents to come with us too, which is a win win situation.

I guess it depends how much you enjoy going places and how much you're prepared to juggle what you expect from a holiday vs what your dc will need while you're there. One dc needed to nap in the afternoon and napped best in the pram while walking so we planned our time around that. One hated long car journeys (discovered that on a long car journey...) so we avoided that for a while and now we stop more often if we have to drive. They both did best with an early bedtime and often took a while to settle, so we didn't eat out in the evenings, instead we bought nice food and nice wine and enjoyed some lovely long evenings together. Dh and I travelled a lot together before children and it's a thing we really value, so we've found ways to make it work with dc. If we didn't enjoy the journey so much, perhaps it wouldn't have been worth it, but we've had a lot of fun over the years even with our non-sleeping, nap-avoiding, fussy eating, ND children and I feel really lucky that we've been able to have these experiences with them. Is it hard work? Definitely. And completely different to going away before children. But it's hard work at home too and for me, the change of scene was something to look forward to and to look back on. You've just got to weigh up how you balance everything and what works for you when you start feeling your way through life as a parent.

It is dependent on the child

Your thoughts were mine before I had one to be honest, then we had a fairly high needs child due to severe reflux as a baby, allergies in regards to food, and harder to settle than some. There was a period where he was almost exclusively having to be held upright constantly due to excessive vomiting when laying down so mass exhaustion at the start, and I think the amount of effort it took to finally get him sleeping in a cot meant that once we got there we didn't vary it too much.

That being said we would visit houses etc for visits, but he wasn't a 'buggy sleeper', nor one to just sleep on you in a busy environment after he got used to sleeping in cot/bed over 6 months or so, and if over tired we would have up to a week of shite sleep afterwards so ended up actively avoiding that happening.

These things impacted our decision to not holiday abroad - effectively we felt it wouldn't be a real holiday for us until naps were over and we could have a good 12 hour day without serious repercussions! If we had done it earlier then we'd have had to either factor in naps alongside airport/luggage/travel to accomodation/flights - or miss the nap, and have multiple disturbed nights with night wakes due to over tired child!

Of course I wouldn't change him for the world but we aren't all blessed with super easy going children who can sleep wherever and have their routines messed with too heavily

I do still think people can be too rigid (e.g. certainly we moved nap/bed times by 2-3 hours to attend parties etc and just got him up a bit early or had a lay in the next day etc to let him catch up, some people seem to literally stick to times like clockwork) but ours couldn't just go out all day much as we would have liked. Though we tried! Quite a few times, but overall knew the price was too much and gave in eventually as we had to work and if he was over tired he would night scream probably every 30 minutes for 5-7 days!! Most the time he barely woke but you definately did when you heard it!

I'm not trying to put you off but it's worth bearing in mind before you have a little one that even the best made plans can just go AWOL!

It's always going to be oh how long's a piece of string until you have one yourself and you get what it means. Do report back on how portable your baby is.

Ime (six kids and lots of kids amongst friends) some people take huge comfort in a routine. Its often more for the mothers sake than the childs. They are scared that if they do anything outside of The Routine then it will all fall apart, especially after they have experienced the first few weeks of "WTF?!!!!!" when they are learning about being a parent. They have found a way of living that works and they are terrified of it not working, so they stick to The Routine rigidly. I can understand it, I was a bit like that when DD1 (second child) was tiny as she had colic and it was only by doing certain things at certain times that it was manageable.

It may not work for you, but also you may find yourself doing that. Yes babies can be portable, but frankly holidays abroad where you spend thousands to sit in a dark air conditioned room singing the Wheels on the Bus for hours on end, aint worth it! You could but personally, I wouldnt. Lots of lovely places to visit in the UK, cheaper (usually) and if anything bad happens you speak the language and dont need health insurance. Oh and you can always get their favourite cereal!

I just fed my dd during take off and landing. The sucking equalised the pressure in her ears and she wasn't in any pain.

I took my baby to Spain at sus weeks. I had a fairly strict bedtime routine but daytimes were pretty much as and when, but there was definitely a pattern to them. I certainly didn't need silence and full darkness and own room - how restrictive and would have felt like setting things up to fail!
But people make their own parenting choices. All I can say is my two slept well at night with minimal fuss (after three months of our routine it clicked), and were able to sleep during the day through noise, at a café, at a friends house, in the pushchair.
Soon enough your routine will revolve around a child - at about 18 months they are no longer a passive addition, but demanding and requiring entertainment (not to mention mobile)!

I have 3, my first was a dream - would take her anywhere and everywhere and she was always able to nap when she wanted. She was so easy going. My 2nd was not easy breezy beautiful at all and it shocked me as I just presumed other parents were just not as good as I was at parenting! My 3rd is pretty chilled and easy - but not as much as my first

Apart from anything I wouldn't like to inflict pain from cabin pressure on a baby for the sake of doing baby stuff in a different, less convenient location.
But horses for courses.

Haven't been abroad since having kids (6yo and 1yo) would have been up for taking DD1 between her being old enough for it not to be really stressful on the plane etc (3/4) and us having DD2, but covid and not having enough money stopped that happening.Won't consider going now til DD2 is at an age where she can sit still and concentrate on something for awhile (like a film) on the plane, and is at an age where we won't need to take loads of equipment.
A friend took her 18 (ish) mo DD on a plane to florida disney afew months back though....I really don't know how she coped! 😅

I wanted to take that approach but my dc1 needed a strict routine and a lot of sleep otherwise he’d be inconsolable and as he got older, wild and angry. DC2 was much more chilled and portable sleep wise. I think it’s a nature one rather than nurture.

I didn’t have a routine, had my boobs and baby slept when tired and fed when hungry. I managed to take a just turned one-year-old backpacking around Sri Lanka for month, as well as having local camping trips in Wales before then. Other friends refused to go as far as the park at any given time because that was when little Johnny would nap. I couldn’t live like that.

Ipads/tablets are a gamechanger for long journeys. The first actually enjoyable flight (3hrs) we had with our older DC was when they were old enough to be plugged into headphones and a tablet. I actually got to read my book and enjoy a drink in relative peace. You will get many folk claiming that it's your parental duty to entertain them with finger puppets and colouring in. Of course these things have their place, but a metal tube at altitude in close proximity to other people and without space to bend over and retrieve dropped pencils isn't it imo. Especially after the stress of packing and navigating the airport. It's your holiday too.

And of course travelling will be a lot less stressful if you no longer have a lap child trying to grab the scalding hot coffee of the grumpy passenger next to you or haring off down the aisle slap bang into the food trolley.

I flew my the seat of my pants while I was on maternity leave. I let her nap when she wanted to to a certain extent and was really relaxed about going out with her, she a would sleep in the car/ in her buggy/on me.

However when I went back to work then napping at a certain time meant she would sleep at night at a certain time and the whole day and night was much more predictable. I need her asleep for the night by 7/7:30pm because I need to get myself sorted for the next day and off to bed to get a few hours sleep before she wakes up because I’m still feeding her at night.

So I suppose I’ve been in both camps depending on what suited us all better.

Have a DS5 and DD2. Stick to routines during the week for school, but holidays are relaxed and flexible. DS has been abroad 7 times (8 next month) would have been more but Covid! DD has been abroad 4 times.
We've never ever planned around naps and possibly down to luck, we now have chilled kids who are flexible and can go with the flow whether it's watching sunrises on the beach at 4am or Fireworks at Disneyland at 11.30pm! We just have a nap when needed. I couldn't stand being rigid and inflexible but apparently some kids just are.