To not understand the "holidays with small children is just parenting in a different place" complaints?

If I’m staying somewhere other than my house, eating new food and seeing new places then it’s a holiday regardless of how the children are behaving.
This. It depends what you want from a holiday of course but I agree with this. It might not be particularly relaxing in the main but if I'm getting to see towns and natural wonders and museums I wouldn't otherwise and not at work then it's always worth it and it's a good holiday.

I think when people are struggling, it can be hard to listen to how great it is for someone else. Hence the comments.
Your 18 month old is great, lots of people's are. But lots of people struggle.

Even after all the comments on this thread, do you still not understand that different people have different experiences on holiday?

My sister would have agreed with you - her first was a charming little angel who just fitted in with whatever was going on. She was very smug and a bit critical of others that weren’t enjoying toddler hood as much as her.
The second one, well, not quite so easy. In fact she got a “child whisperer” in to see what was wrong with them, nothing was the verdict, just not to be compared to the placid first born.

Mine were awful toddlers, but lovely teens, so swings and roundabouts really. Everything good and bad is just a stage with little kids, it wont last!

Not everyone’s two or three year old is a nightmare though. My boy had his moments (and still does at very nearly five) but overall he’s very well behaved and holidaying with him is great. His sister is a little more highly strung so jury is out on whether she’ll be a terror as a two year old.

If I’m staying somewhere other than my house, eating new food and seeing new places then it’s a holiday regardless of how the children are behaving.

@LadyGreyjoy re camping, we first went when she was 16 weeks old, and have been a couple of times a year since, earliest is usually May and latest end of September and we’ve never had an issue with falling temperatures at night. This year was the first year she was out of her Mounts slumber sack (bit like a sleeping bag onesie 😂) and in a child’s sleeping bag on a air mattress and she LOVED it.

I think we can all think that we are the best parents at different stages . But it is so dependent on the child / location . With my first we had a really lovely overseas holiday when DC was under a year . Great bargain , all inclusive . We had people coming up to us and praising our parenting skills . Were quite smug - thinking what great parents we were . …
6 months later - we thought we would repeat the experience . Nightmare our DC was fully mobile , the resort wasn’t ideal for that - we even got into trouble by the hotel staff for the noise our DC was making !!!
Throw more children into the mix , more difficult . Was also too pricey for hotel rooms and booked cottages instead. I know we were really lucky as not everyone can afford holidays . But do agree that it does become childcare in a different location . It does get better when they get bigger and can be more independent and play together .

Also enjoyed having more space than a hotel room .

Our DC1 first went camping when she was about 10 months; DC2 was about 3 months on his first trip. Your 18 month-old is more than old enough to enjoy camping! If you’re worried about temperature, you could go somewhere in mid France Spring/Summer. Not cold at night and hopefully not too hot in the daytime. French campsites tend to have great facilities, pools and often activity clubs for kids too. Maybe not the clubs for an 18 month-old but as she gets older she might be interested. To be fair, neither of my children have ever wanted to do kids club on a holiday which was fine by me, I like their company on holiday most of the time (although we have had some less enjoyable holidays over the years!)

To be fair OP, 18 months isn’t really in the thick of it as far as toddlers are concerned. My eldest was an angel until 3, I used to smugly wonder what people were talking about with the terrible twos. Anyway he’s been very hard work ever since, in different ways. My youngest is 2.5 and in the throes of the terrible twos, I’d genuinely have thought people on social media were exaggerating until I’d seen it myself. He also has never slept well.

While in principle I agree with you about the whole just wait thing being annoying - you are on a parenting forum asking a question about parenting and people are simply sharing their experiences. A mum of an 18 month old is nowhere near as experienced as a mum of older children / teenagers, especially one with multiple kids. I get it though, I thought I knew everything and had it all cracked when I just had one your daughter’s age.

Come back when she is three and you will understand.

I love my DCs more than anything but staying in a hotel alone for the night is a level of relaxation that is unmatched! The only real time as a parent you can switch off and just sleep without thinking about small people waking you up at night.

Yep… you don’t know. You said it.

Surely it’s obvious that different people have different experiences? I’ve had three holidays with my 18 month old; one was lovely, one he had tonsillitis and we came home early and one the weather was so hot I worried about him being outside, he didn’t sleep properly and had a dodgy tummy that had me changing nappies ALL day.

Oh OP it's very easy with one little one, it's not so easy with two or more, especially if you have age gaps and different interests, and especially if they are neurodivergent or disabled (or both in our case).
I used to think like you when mine were small, it's much more challenging now one has a health condition and they are older (and they are ND).

Maybe save the smugness?

It has never been my experience either

Sun, cocktails, someone making my bed, bringing drinks to my sun lounger and serving me food in a resteraunt - yes I’d rather my toddler be tantruming in this environment than at home! But I guess it depends on the child, the parents and the type of holiday

I absolutely love being a mum. I even reduced my hours at work to spend more time with my son but I’d still jump at the chance of a quiet night away.

Doing bedtime (and nighttime if your child doesn't sleep though) 365 days a year has it's lovely moments but it's also relentless. Wanting a night off doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy parenting, but that's hard to fully understand until you’re in it.

She wanted an odd night of proper sleep and a chance to relax, perhaps her kids didn't sleep great and her husband didn't get up with them. She didn't sell them on EBay. I love my kids, I enjoy parents them, but I also enjoy a break. I love DH and love being married to him but I also enjoy a weekend away with friends without him. I love

You are clearly a superior mother

Oh I see! Yes all the ages are different for holidaying!

yeah I had an opinion of how easy parenthood was at 18 months… my easy kid went WILD at 20 months! She‘s much more settled and calm now at 3.2…!

I remember my mother being pretty miserable on family holidays and I totally get why - now... Due to available funds and my father being difficult these were pretty much always self-catering apartment holidays where my mother had the usual shopping, cooking and cleaning to do with the added disadvantage of limited amounts of towels and clothes due to luggage restrictions and yet lots of work to clean up all the sand and greasy suntan lotion we left everywhere, and no dishwasher like at home so having to wash up after the cooking. During all of this my father did his usual nothing. Absolutely fuck all to help. So yes, she had all the work of home but under more difficult circumstances and no TV to plonk us in front of occasionally while she was doing it. Why the fuck would she enjoy it?

If repeatedly engineering work commitments so that you get a night off from your kids is not a sign that you don’t enjoy parenting them, then I don’t know what is!

Hopefully it will be, 4 is a lovely age. I guess my point was to have a 4 year old you need to have been through the 1s, 2s and 3s and have gained a lot of experience and different personality changes. Then IMO you get to have an opinion on holidays with young kids but not before.

That’s great you had that experience. And that’s probably the experience I would have going on holiday with our easygoing 6 month old baby. But we also have a 4 year old with SEN , and as much as we love him, it is challenging going on holiday with him and has been that way even when he was a baby. We still go on holidays because he does get a lot out of it, but bloody hell is it stressful

I often think how I wish I could go back to when my eldest was younger and have a holiday like you experienced, I can imagine it’s lovely. However once they get older it does get holder and even more so if you have more than one! Two kids on holiday of different ages is a different ball game. That said still beats being on home.

We’ve done various types of holidays as a family: camping, caravan, glamping, holiday cottages, self catering abroad, all inclusive. Sometimes it’s been brilliant, other times it’s been much harder work than staying home would have been.
Obviously you know your going to still be parenting on holiday but sometimes the parentings much harder depending on cooking facilities, accommodation, weather, dc’s mood and its difficult when you’ve sometimes spent a lot of money to be stressed out.
Last time we were all inclusive DD caught a sickness bug and couldn’t keep anything down, not ideal when you had to try to clean up with you’ve no cleaning products and have to ring reception for clean sheets in the middle of the night, trying to get food that she could keep down and in the end having to navigate communicating with a doctor when you don’t speak much Spanish and he doesn’t speak much English.

If you have ND DCs holidays can be a nightmare if they can’t cope with change. Also not all DC appreciate parents having saved up to take them away- i’ve been lucky as our DC are fairly good & appreciative but i’ve witnesses DC making their parents miserable because they’d rather be home with their friends than be on holiday with their parents. Totally understand why some people don’t think holidays are enjoyable with DC.