When on holiday with a 9 month old, do you stay in your room from 7pm?

[pollyinyourpocket]

Baby will go to sleep at 7pm. Obviously we wouldn't leave her in the room and go off, but I was thinking to attempt putting her in pushchair asleep and going out for dinner. Is this unrealistic? (Baby is very hard to get to sleep and wakes at minor sounds). Or do we just keep her awake until late? Or do you actually just stay in your room from 7pm?

We’re currently on holiday with an 8-month old. We take him to dinner with us. Normally he has a little bit to eat, but once he was tired and slept in his pram. We give him a bottle once back in our room and he goes straight off.

When mine was that age the routine shifted by about an hour on holiday due to travel there and time zone.

My LO also was set in their ways of how they slept and woke at minor noises. So we ended up waking at about 7am and then we would be able to get LO down for a nap at the beach or in the buggy round the pool. At night time we then went to eat at about 6 and was back at the hotel to settle LO for about 8. By then truthfully we were ready to chill. After a full day of keeping a baby happy on holiday (eating sand / heat / suncream / finding safe spaces for crawling and exploration) we didn't necessarily have the energy for 10pm dinners!

We used to spend from 8pm on the balcony listening to the downstairs entertainment with a beer and a deck of cards!

I'm sure we probably could have taken LO with us past 7/8pm but they wouldn't have been happy at 9mkntjs being overtired and overstimulated and would have lead (for our LO) more night wakings and a disrupted day the next day.

You can only try and see how they manage. My son will sleep anywhere with any amount of noise. My daughter won't and she is awful when she is over tired, she is 2 now but has always been the same. There have been many times where we have left meals earlier than planned because she is over tired and has screamed the place down.

We are going on holiday in a couple of weeks but we have booked an apartment with two bedrooms so dd can go to bed when she needs to. I don't think DD would cope if we all had to share a room.

We just took them with us in the buggy at that age. Luckily they were all good sleepers at 9 months old and rarely woke once they had gone off.

Most of our holidays when ours were very young were at my MIL's apartment in the Balearics. So if we needed to stay in we could, with a takeaway and books to read out on the balcony. Babies could go to bed as needed.

@dustyhedge when we go away and stay in hotels we take it in turns to do bedtime with the youngest and the eldest goes with the other parent somewhere (sometimes have a pudding in the restaurant)

We haven't stayed in a hotel since the DC were born, we always use self catering. Our DC are older now (aged between 13 and 8) and we eat out once a day (and do a mix of picnics or takeaways or easy meals like pasta and a bought sauce for the other meals. In Paris we took the kids out for breakfast to test all the local patisseries). I'd much rather do self catering and have the space of a full house or apartment than stay in a hotel.

Of course you only have 1 tiny DC but I think your plan to take them in a push chair is sensible. Eat earlyish in the evening and don't stress too much about routines etc. If you DC is BF then just stick them on the boob if they squeak (I always think of BFing as the baby reset button, it solves every issue except a dirty nappy). If bottlefed then take a bottle and be prepared to give lots of cuddles if need be. Give them some fingerfood to play with if they are awake and just go with the flow. Enjoy!

Where are you going / thinking of going? I have no experience with my own children but I would suggest Italy.

If you child wakes up in an Italian restaurant / cafe they will be cooed over and possibly taken off to look out the window, meet the chef.

Yes, at that age we would put DC in the pushchair and go for a walk before dinner hoping she would nod off. If not we would just take her with us for dinner anyway.

We generally always go self catering for this reason. But yes, the one time we didn’t ds and I went to Spain (just the 2 of us, he was 8 months). We went out for dinner/tapas nearly every night and he went to bed later. It was fine. Didn’t make any difference to sleep.

When ours were little we went on holiday with Luxury Family Hotels (mainly in south England). £££ but worth it for us. Your child has an early dinner (pre-ordered so no waiting), put them to bed then there is either a video monitor you take with you to the restaurant downstairs or there is a room listening service. Just remember to turn it off later!

We used to go a couple of time ones ahead then keep the DC on UK time so we got dinner and a lie in!

Caravan holidays are handy when you have babies and toddlers. You can put them to sleep in their room without having to creep around until adult bedtime.

Many moons ago for me but we used to go self catering and had a nice meal at lunch time then made something simple in the evening and sat on balcony playing cards etc

We'd keep to UK time, so they'd stay up later, sleep later.
In Europe it's perfectly usual to have kids up and about in the evening.

Not at all, let them sleep in pushchair or have a late night whilst on holiday that's what I did my son was 1. Worked great. We had earlier dinner so he could join in, then watched hotel entertainment with some drinks while he slept. This was alcudia x

Slept in pushchair to clarify

Yep recliner buggy or pram. We would get the baby to sleep then go to dinner. Ewan the dream sheep on loud, firmly next to the baby’s ear

Did a holiday when DS was 12 months and he would come with us in pushchair for early dinners - 7pm and he had his tea but grazed at dip things on table and he just slept later in the morning. However from this point we have always had self catering holidays , mainly eurocamp style stuff when we got to two children as we found it much easier. X

We stayed in a hotel earlier this year and left our two (both under 3) in our room with a video monitor on them.

We dined downstairs with the video feed on our phone.

I always got my two ready for bed then them out in their buggies. Sometimes they’d sleep sometimes not but in Europe lots of other kids/babies were up too.

Christ no!! We tried that one night and it was completely miserable.

Give the baby an early bath and tea, send DH out to walk them around the block until they fall asleep, then go out for dinner.

If they wake up they'll be fine, plenty of people will have babies and children and there will be new sights and sounds to keep them amused.

At that age one of us took a walk with the baby in the pushchair, dc went to sleep and then we went out for dinner, or did whatever with the older ones when it was dc2/3. We also found they napped more in the hot weather, so some nights were awake and alert in the cooler evenings. They were always warmly welcomed in any restaurants. We never had to sit around in hotel rooms from 7pm.

We used to eat out for lunch rather than dinner. Then have a snacky meal in the evening, and stay in self catering so you're not confined to your room.

We’d go self catering and eat our dinner after we’d put DS to bed, in his bedroom. But we never really wanted late nights out so it wasn’t a hardship. Like other posters, we’d eat out at lunch time instead.

Now he’s older, we all go out for dinner at 7ish.