Holidays with young kids just not worth it? Holiday from hell incoming…

Sorry this sounds like a challenging time for you. How about changing types of holiday to self catering? We bought a caravan when DD2 was 9 months old, went to tiny farm sites where the kids could run around and be at one with nature. Our best memories are exploring nature, beach days even in winter, kids both learnt to ride their bikes when away in the caravan. Packed jigsaws, collected pebbles to paint, lots of time outside. DD1 has never got on with disco / kids club activity types of holidays and is now diagnosed ASD.
DD2 breast fed until 3 years and co slept and the front of our caravan turned into a massive bed.

Like others have said, a week is the most we ever did with kids that young. We did a eurocamp holiday when they were 3 and 1 and it was hell, 2 weeks in France and both kids were sick with a vomiting bug and conjunctivitis.

Our most successful holiday was a hotel geared up specifically for kids, kids buffet at the restaurant and the staff brought booster seats and bibs for the kids, but we didn’t get to sit on a sunlounger all week! We spent the days in the pool or beach, or day trips to the zoo etc, then early dinner and kids disco in the evenings and we then put the kids to bed and sat on the balcony for the rest of the night. I strongly suspect my eldest now 6 is likely on the spectrum to some degree and we had similar problems with him running off and not listening when younger so I do sympathise. But I also think your ages are a lot to do with it, mid to late 40s is hard going with 2 babies! We were early 30s with the same age kids and I just couldn’t imagine being 10 or 15 years older and still having to run around after young kids. Divide and conquer seems to be the way we managed. I would have got DH to take the eldest to the pool or playpark while the baby napped.

Also on the food is there a supermarket nearby? Appreciate you don’t want to be buying your own food in an all inclusive but it really can be a nightmare with food intolerances and my other advice is load up there on snacks and take some control back over what you can offer and will save you having to scour the hotel for snacks.

Holidays with young kids can just be harder than being at home. The only way we enjoyed it was to take my parents too so we could get some down time and they got to spend time with GC. The kids club doesn’t sound good tho and I would complain. There are some much better family hotels in Europe that do a fab job with kids.

Oops last one posted before I finished!
Lay down screaming for an iced bun he had never had one but liked the look of it.
An elderly lady came, I bough oh no! Now he has an audience. Thankfully the lady said “ get up you naughty boy” he did 😂. We have all been there, hold on!

This is going to sound to the complete opposite of what you would like but I think the absolute best thing you and your husband can do is reframe in your mind what the ‘holiday’ is.
I had a similar start to a holiday for first 24 hours when my daughter was 18 months old and we did solo abroad the two of us.
What I realised is that the holiday is from cooking, from making the bed, from coming up with the places to go because it’s all there.
The second thing I had to go was just let go of the rules. She slept late, there was no bedtime - and that resulted in 10-12 hours hours sleep but a different 10-12 hours than I’d scheduled. She also did not want to be in a high chair - or sit down - so we didn’t. The dairy is tricky on holiday - we have this too - ask the hotel if you can order the next meal at the meal before that could help you - but one of you could order it and sit with baby whilst the other isn’t at the table with your 3 year old.
my daughter - also a runner. The great thing is she’s now around the 70th fastest in the country for her age. I should be too given the training she put me through, but im
not lol. It sounds like your son is beyond excited at all the fun things around him and he’s not quite old enough yet to control the impulse to get involved. My advice - let him lead and one of you follows. This is what I did - the benefits - got the best tan of my life because I was always standing and lost 3 pounds. I didn’t get to read a book on my sun lounger until she was much older. It’s a different holiday, and that’s where the reframe comes in. Let go of the rules let him lead and see if you can get some pleasure on what you see (and at least you’re not having to come up with the next thing to do).
it sounds like one of you needs to have baby whilst the other follows 3 year old.
i think you can have a good time, but it’s the reframe of what good is.
to give you some hope, she has stopped running away from me and now at age 12 actually loves to sit next to me and read a book. Now the sunlounger holidays are back to a greater extent. We did the overseas holidays every year just the two of us and I have lovely lovely memories. They just look different to my old idea of a holiday.
my other suggestion if you have some willing relatives and can find the money book you and OH a weekend away for when baby is old enough that you’re comfortable to leave and have that downtime the two of you they way.
xx

You will get this! Next holiday will be better!
One of mine was a so and so! I just had a baby, he lay down in the supermarket screaming for an iced bun. He had never had

Just to say, I hope things settle for you. It's hard and it's always disappointing when other mums just pile on to say "what on earth were you thinking?" without finding anything helpful to say.

We are the same ages as you and your partner. My LO has always been boisterous but not to a point she'd get a diagnosis I reckon. She's just turned 5 and I think we're only just past the point of her running away! She'll stop when we call her back now. Her nursery was on a really busy road and getting her into the car after a long day when she'd lost the plot was a NIGHTMARE! I was the parent refusing to let go of her hand whilst she screamed the place down.
Because of this reason, we have avoided holidays abroad and I think next year might be the first year we try. So I envy you in a way that you've already had some already that haven't been completely disastrous! I understand you thinking things should've improved with age. Sadly in my experience it did get worse before it got better and you might be in the middle of this now!

I think the divide and conquer ideas suggested might be your best bet. You might not be together but at least when you get a bit of down time, even on your own, you'll be somewhere nice and warm and not sitting in the house at home feeling like you're missing out! Make the most of evenings in as your "holiday" time. I've literally never done all inclusive. Could you have a meal in your room one night after bedtime for DS and have a date night (trying as best you can to ignore boob barnacle! I gave up trying to put mine down in the end and life became more bearable!)?

I think the reason we've not gone away is fear of the unknown. Like you say, reading reviews and the reality of the situation can be different. So I've let that put me off a multitude of things. At least you're out there giving it a go so try not to let the criticisms get you down. Hope your situation improves with some of the suggestions. All the best. X

My holidays with kids that age were never like that. And as you have read, the OP didn’t expect the kids club to have an open door, which I don’t think is unreasonable.

I'm sorry OP, that sounds really tough. I do think it’s time for your DP to spend some time being the one running round after him, and you chill with the baby. I know chilling with a baby isn’t exactly chill time either, but I’m assuming your 9 month old can’t run away yet so at least you won’t have that to deal with.

For the hotel door, can you get hold of a door wedge? The hotel may have one.

We went away with 2 children for the first time when they were similar ages to yours. We fully surrendered to the fact that these holidays are not going to be anything like holidays pre-children. They are very much for enjoying spending time together ,whatever that might look like, rather than relaxing.

I find all inclusive great for holidaying with children, but meal time are not relaxing. We have a routine that works of me getting the children's food (with 4 year old) then one of us will get dinner whilst the other helps children and visa versa. Whilst it is not relaxing, we all eat and I enjoy not having to cook or think about what to cook!

We make the day time all about the children and then we'd sit on the balcony and read for an hour or so once they were both asleep, something we wouldn't be able to do at home.

I hope that you can find away to enjoy yourselves, perhaps starting by adjusting your expectations or by taking it in turns to look after the children whilst the other parent relaxes.

So tricky!

Try not to despair you have time for things to settle and enjoy the rest of your holiday…

We had this experience with a holiday earlier this year. I think it’s really hard for kids to be taken out of their comfort zones at home and plonked somewhere completely different.. they need to have something to control.

Our favourite quote from our last holiday was ‘I’ve got thousands on my credit card for this shit?!?’ So you get the vibe!

We massively lowered our expectations and tried to talk our daughter through what we were doing each day and give her choice in activities too. She chose swimming everyday so we’d usually go and explore in the morning somewhere and back to our resort for swimming in the afternoons which worked well. We also tried to have informal meals to remove the pressure of a restaurant environment and we had lots of beach picnics which she much preferred. And lots of colouring books / sticker books / Lego / mini games in the bag in case of boredom whilst out and out about.

ultimately we did decide that we won’t be going on any more expensive holidays whilst we have a young family as we find it easier to just do day trips from home in the UK 😅😂🫠

best of luck!

I feel your pain OP. We tried a hotel when our two were a similar age. We only did it once. It just wasn’t relaxing. The eldest wouldn’t stay in kids club, mealtimes were a hassle finding something they’d eat, one of us constantly had to amuse the eldest, one of us had to go and sit in the room with the youngest for their nap. Both were tired and grouchy by 8 so we ended up putting them to bed and sitting on a tiny balcony with a bottle of wine and a bag of nuts! We decided for the same cost we could hire a little villa where we had our own pool and they could play happily whilst we supervised from our sunbeds! Yes it was a bit more work in terms of cooking but it was in all far more relaxing.

we went back to the AI hotels once they were 6 and 8 and they were much better.

Ignore the judging around buggy. We took our double pram away when kids were 1 and 4 and it was essential. Shade for when too hot, handy for when pavements were narrow, roads fast and a bed for later meals ‘alone’. Both kids wanted to be in it at times and it helped with us having time alone.

We wouldn’t have used a buggy at all at home at the ages we used on holiday. 5/6 year old who can’t stay up late being in buggy when 9 year old wants to watch fireworks at eurodisney - yes please! Same for the ‘Greek night’ in the hotel when one wants to stay up and dance and one wants to curl up and get sleepy- oh yes!

So we always did foreign holidays with ours but yes they are tricky and you learn what works just to get glimpses of happiness/fun.

We always took a pram of sorts for both for a long time.

Toys toys toys and more new toys. We had a budget each day for a little crap toy to buy to play with at dinner.

Lots of swimming where we would trade off between kids.

IPads when needed. It’s a holiday and you do what you can.

We always made sure we had a nice time for an hour on the balcony once they had gone to sleep. Took a little speaker (on low) and got nice snacks in the day.

I would have half an hour or so once I had got ready for the evening to sit at the bar and get a drink and read my book while he finished getting ready and then brought the kids down.

Meals could be hit and miss. We would always be ready to take turns going for a walk and one of us would usually go back earlier with the kids and the other one get dessert alone.

We would often get food for room picnics and had the best night once with kids asleep and us in comfies with plates brought back to the room watching Line of Duty streamed on the iPad. My need for a perfect holiday had crashed and burned at that point after days of bad weather (abroad) but giving in to it felt like such a relief 😂

We would do a couple of kids club sessions a week and absolutely make the most of these. I would complain severely about the kids club issue - it has ruined your holiday - be firm on that.

We also found hiring a car was really good when they were a bit older than yours. Gave us all some downtime. They were used to chatting in the car and listening to music and shock sometimes watching a film in the iPad. Then we could also go to more quiet beaches which lowered the stress.

I’ve had many a happy time on holiday with the kids tired after a stunning active beach day and strapped into their car seats with us stood by the car with the door open, eating an ice cream and enjoying the view while they were safe for a minute 😂

If nothing else you will look at the photos for years and always remember the best bits. Solidarity!

With all the love in the world, this isn't a family holiday issue, this is life with a child with additional needs. A nearly 4 year old wouldn't normally escape from kids club, or run off and not sense danger in a strange environment, or be totally unable to sit for a meal despite having food and you providing entertainment. My son is ND and some situations are really hard, and difficult and not what you wanted/needed/expected/everyone else has. You both need to come to terns with it. Research some strategies for supporting him, especially in busy environments. Find places to holiday that aren't busy and that are easy environments for him.
Stop getting cross, it's not his fault the holiday isn't turning into what you wanted, the fact he's normally well behaved makes me think he's really struggling. Try and get into a holiday routine as the predictability might help and try and do active stuff in the day to help let out some energy. Can you find a restaurant with a play area so he can get down and run (with supervision).
Give everyone (yourself, dh, rhe holiday, your kids) some grace. Holidays can be wonderful with kids, but they're never perfect, kids can horrid, parents can get things wrong, couples argue. It'll never be like Instagram.

From experience, kids with adhd or asd gradually peak at age 4 in terms of overactivity. Youve got a mix of more freedom out of constraints of buggys etc and more awareness of how to get out of these things but still a lack of danger awareness.

The kids’ club staff do have a duty to keep the children safe, but when you have a child who’s as an extreme a Houdini as your son, it’s then not feasible to keep him contained as well as look after all the other children in the club. It sound like your child would need a 1:1 in this situation, which I’m guessing the hotel just can’t accommodate. There will be certain behavioural expectations and your child clearly doesn’t want to be in there if he keeps trying to bolt. You admit you and your husband struggle to stop him from escaping, so personally I’d either speak to hotel management about his potential SEN and see if there’s anything they can do, or knock the kids’ club idea on the head and tag team looking after him. One sits by the pool with the more chilled out DD, whilst the other takes DS to play in the pool / on the beach etc. It’s not ideal and I do really feel for you as it’s awful anticipating a fantastic family holiday that doesn’t come off, but you need to make the most of the time you have left there.

Hi OP that sounds so tough and it’s so frustrating when what you imagined with kids (nice family holiday together) doesn’t seem to be working!

I would personally say it does sound like your DS does have some individual needs going on. The constant running at nearly 4 is not what you would expect at that age. Nor is the lack of attention to sit. I think trying to ‘wear him out’ is not going to work if he has ADHD or something along those lines as actually pushing them to their limits so they are so tired can make it worse.

Try to give up on what you think he should be doing and try to make some adjustments to try and make the rest of the holiday as manageable as possible e.g divide and conquer so one adult gets regular breaks, small meals on the go rather than expecting big sit down meals. The buggy sounds like a godsend and otherwise it’s hand holding or reins. When you get back home, phone the HV and see if you can start the process for an assessment. If hes in any childcare liaise with them to get the ball rolling. I’m not sure how easy it is for a diagnosis (it’s always a shocker SEN services) but keep insisting and advocating for him.

It sounds like your DH is getting very stressed with it all and I can understand it’s disappointing when they are not acting like a ‘normal’ child. But hopefully getting somewhere with a diagnosis or help at home will help with strategies, meeting other parents in the same position at SEN groups etc.

I feel for you OP. I did one holiday with a verbally (rather than physically) ‘active’ DS when he was 3 and I never did it again. When I then had more DC with a new partner we just did self catering in Wales. That way we could keep to normal routines, feed them healthy food that they knew and liked, go to some not too busy beaches, and call it a day when needed. My youngest are now mid teen and it’s only now that I feel like holidays abroad are worth it and in any way relaxing for me. For adults who maybe care less about the impact of their DC in public places, and are less ‘on it’ in terms of safety, maybe they can ‘go with the flow’ more, but that didn’t feel relaxing for me. I’d try to find when the restaurants are quiet when you are and have one of you sit and order early, eating at that point themselves and only bringing DC to the table once the food had arrived. That way you don’t have the difficult wait at the table and one of you has eaten in peace to manage the DC when you are at the table together.

No advice sorry just solidarity. I hear you.
it sounds like you’ve had a really hard year and completely understand the feeling of desperately needing a break and almost romanticising a holiday only to go away and feel even more stressed because it’s been such a build up and stress to get there and it’s just not how you envisaged it to be. My friends and I call holidays “same shit, no kit 🤣.”
Also ignore people having a pop because you have put your child in holiday club - different strokes for different folks- I was desperately upset that my child was too young for holiday club at 6 months 🤣 Whenever someone complains about being overwhelmed with parenting, work, relationship etc the comments always suggest getting a babysitter / time away from the kids to recharge - I don’t see why people feel the need to dig at you for wanting an hour or so of your holiday to relax without your 4 year old whilst they would be having a great time too (obviously different if they hated the kids club)
I also completely get the wax - I am deeply disorganised, type b mum (not saying you are) but that would 100% be me even before I had kids 🤣 - so solidarity.

sound alike you needed to vent and glad you have. There’s been loads of good advice already and it sounds like you’re taking those on. Hopefully rest of the trip will be easier. Like others have said don’t put too much pressure on yourself, try to carve some time out for you and DP where can as well as one on one time each kid. It doesn’t feel like it now hut one day you will look back at rose tinted glasses with fond memories of this time. Only thing I would suggest and others have is maybe some UK holidays in future - not necessarily exclusively but loads of gorgeous places that are v family friendly that come without the stress of a long haul flight etc and means you don’t build it up as much so less chance to have disappointment when things invariably go up the shitter as they can with kids abroad. I know you said no GPs - maybe if you really want a family holiday abroad could consider a villa with another close couple / family where it feels less intense and everyone can share the load a little bit more. Might be better for both yours and your husbands mental health.! hope you get some sleep soon and enjoy what’s left

The OP hasn't said she's taken her child on this type of holiday before. How he would react in a noisy AI buffet resturant may well have come as a surprise. As has the fact that the kids club isn't suitable. If DS was able to sit and eat regular meals and could have a few hours in KC the holiday may well be looking very different.

I would also say to plan the day with a decent walk, perhaps play in the pool until three and back for a nap we found our were too over tired after being in the sun and playing. The nap before dinner made a difference we did too. If they have entertainment they were alway great with children at the shows . Often that reset bedtime too

Well,depends on the kids, I think, OP. I've seen some really well behaved toddlers and very calm babies on holiday this summer. I didn't start taking mine abroad until they were 6. Your holiday does sound very stressful, but if you've been on holiday 8 time since you 4 year old was born , surely you must have known what your ds's behaviour was like.

I have to say boys are wired for adventure. My Ds was a loud bold lively little boy. I read “raising boys” by Steve Biddulph and it really helped me understand that this is a massive development stage. Don’t start labelling his so young, this is quite normal and my DS when through tics and lost speech at this age, it all passes but raising boys is exciting and they don’t always fit into our expectations he is a baby until age 5.

I agree get his food at the room and take a few snacks to the restaurant, we played snap endless games of eye spy and those water painting books were a god send. Let him kneel up in a chair if he is not eating and he can be a big boy!