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

@LadyGreyjoy

oh and yeah playing in the pool all day every day on holidays would be fun for a lot of adults. That’s ok, it doesn’t make them any less good parents than you.

Why can’t there be a balance? Plenty of playing in pool with the kids with the odd hour here and there with the kids in kids club and the parents enjoying some down time on the sun loungers with cocktails or whatever they want to do. On a family holiday every single member of the family deserves to have fun, not just the kids.

@LadyGreyjoy

whats wrong with for example leaving the kids at grandparents to have an adventurous city break and enjoy some couples time?

Honestly, leave her alone now. If you are right this is going to be unbearable for her and you are bullying someone vulnerable. If you are wrong it's still upsetting. I don't agree with OP's approach but you are achieving nothing by continuing to goad her with fake sympathy.

I suppose a lot will depend on where you go and on the dcs - and on what you want to do.
We had a brilliant beach holiday with dd1 3, and dd2 3 months. Dd1 was already a water baby, would happily spend much of the day in a nice warm pool, so dh and I would usually take turns to watch her or swim with her, and there was a garden close by with nice shady trees, where I could put dd2 in her pram to sleep.

Dh and I would swim in the sea (dd1 didn’t like swimming in the sea) and water ski, but we took not even one trip out of the hotel. It was all very relaxing.

The hotel would provide babysitters, and an early evening meal for children, so we usually used a babysitter and had an adult dinner later.

No. That’s rubbish. Unless you make a poor holiday choice it’s STILL not the same shot different location.

no holiday I have ever been on investment over daily vacuuming, mopping floors, cleaning bathrooms and sitting in shit weather.

you have a 4 year old yes but you also have barely any housework other than light tidying if it’s self catering and you have a beach or a pool or a kids club or geeen spaces or a thousand other things you don’t have at home. And you budget so you aren’t cooking three meals a day. You eat out. How is this the same as at home

Me to - she sounds hugly insecure.

I'm glad you had a nice time OP.

I've had lovely hoildays with my three - but this is on MN ususally said to people who are having an awful time or just had one and are dealing with disappointment and guilt about money spent and not enjoying it.

It's not on here - though can be in RL IME - said to stop people going.

I've loved pre school years and school hoildays but I'm aware our circustances made that possible and others have different circustances that make that harder.

It all depends on your children's personalities, your family make up, the type of holiday you are on, your expectations for the holiday, your partner and if the holiday accommodation fits your needs.

It sounds like you have been very lucky, you were able to put your child to bed at a reasonable time and had a balcony and "adult time". Not all 18 months olds go to bed so easily. Some will fight for hours in unusual places, some will wake multiple times in the night, some will want to co-sleep whilst away. Some people find themselves sat in the dark in silence from 8pm every night because their DC don't sleep.

It sounds like you are blessed with an easy child. Some children have lovely calm personalities and are great company at 18m. They go with the flow, cope wonderfully with the change in routine and the heat. Some become absolutely feral turd goblins from 12m +, which when mixed with poor sleep and heat makes them incredibly hard work. Some children need their routine, their sleep and find the whole change of location overwhelming.

1 child on holiday with 2 parents who take fair turns and parent together, is wildly different to 2+ children. Also at 18m your child will go to bed somewhat early or nap in the day giving you a break. It is a whole different ball game with multiple children age 4 up who don't nap, don't want to go to bed early due to FOMO or overstimulation with entertainment. Are staying up every night until 10pm or 11pm and up at 6am raring to go. Bicker with each other and share a room so there is no away space, constantly ask for their tablets/ phones which don't work because the hotel Wi-Fi is only in the lobby so they constantly natter to go to the lobby. Complain they are "bored", pick over and at the food and only want pizza and chicken nuggets, but they are not the same as home ones. Mix that in with a partner who does f-all, takes themselves off, decides to sit on a sun lounger or in the bar or generally doesn't parent even when present and it becomes very stressful.

Then there is the expectation, some parents go abroad expecting it to be like their child free holidays. Then realise that holidaying with children means been at breakfast early, pool early and constantly playing, beach, finding things to do, finding something children will eat, going to the kids entertainment, dealing with tantrums/ bickering/ bored kids. There is little time to sit on a sun lounger with a book for hours sipping cocktails. You can't drink too much because a hangover with 2 kids who are on the go from the crack of dawn and overstimulated is a new circle of hell. Also despite having a kids club, the kids have decided they don't want to go or it's a bit shit and so now you have the kids full time when you were expecting a few hours child free.

If you are self catering, it can be very much parenting and been at home in another location without all the things that make life at home easy.

Basically, you are blessed with an easy going child, probably a partner who pulled their weight and the set up worked for you. Many of us are not so lucky.

Hey! Monash University is very highly regarded. It boasts the lovely Erin Patterson as one of its alumnae.

It's quite telling that you keep on ignoring all the points a lot of PPs have politely made about why holidays can be really, really hard sometimes. You keep on saying that people say they're not worth it because it's just parenting somewhere else, but literally no one said that.

We did. Had a fab time in a big static caravan in various places in France.

Me too to be honest.

But this isn't true for everyone either.

OP, like you I like cooking and I like parenting and I have one child who, thus far, is well behaved in general. We've been on family holidays to Madeira, Northumberland, Devon, Liverpool, Paris, Butlins, Lake District and Majorca. I've also taken DC at age four to Morocco and inter-railing without my DH! All of them have been fantastic. Some have been self catering, some using restaurants, one was AI.

I do plan activities around what I think both DC and I would enjoy. I don't expect DC to put up with a whole holiday of museums and art galleries, or expect to be able to sit on a sunlounger reading my book in peace.

My sibling also has great holidays as a single parent. Mostly planned around surfing and lots of water sports, which they all enjoy.

However, I also recognise that children and parents are different. Some children react very badly to being away from their normal routines, or sleep really badly, or don't suit the holiday they've been taken on. Or have multiple children who fight all the time. Or the husband is unsupportive and goes off doing his own thing on holiday, leaving all the work to the wife and breeding resentment. Etc.

I agree.

Have you read more than the headline op? Some possible improvements in quality of life, in one study, and results should be interpreted with caution as many didn't join in the follow up study.
I don't doubt your daughter will have a lovely life, but that's more down to how loved she is and how financially secure you are than how you conceived

I think you have been using a rather combative tone and have responded snippily at times to posters who weren't evern criticising you. I get it, it's hard when you start a thread with what you think is a perfectly reasobale point of view and then everyone piles in on you. Of course you got defensive, but there shouldn't have been any need for some of the personal criticisms (from you or some of the other posters) or any need to have to elaborate all the details of your life to justify your point of view. Unfortunately I believe your high-handed tone is what got people's backs up and the thread got completely derailed, sinking into mud slinging when it could have been an interesting discussion about what it's actually like to holiday with children - and how to make it better!

No one has mentioned you are less of a woman or a mother.

Pages? Come on now.