aibu to expect that if I'm sharing a bill for something I've attended with my children, I should pay child prices for them and not a per-head split?!

[Notmyidea]

have had this twice recently. At a Christmas meal where the dds ordered from a children's menu while adults had several alcoholic drinks and now mil is trying to arrange a family holiday cottage per head; same price for adults and the grandkids who will range from twenty year-old students to babes in arms.
I'm pretty sure I'm nbu but if anyone would like to help me formulate a diplomatic response I'm all ears.

No, you pay for what your family cost, when there are children involved. It's daft to do an equal split because there aren't equal prices.

To be charitable, perhaps the organisers can't do sums easily. To be cynical, they are trying to get you to subsidise them.

Whilst I agree with you on the meal front, I don't see how you can argue it for a cottage - unless they're co-sleeping with the parents/in a cot in the room, they will require a bed and a bedroom, and that needs to be paid for - if the owner doesn't specify a reduced rate for children then the money is still due for the bed they're occupying.

So in your latter example I think YABU. Sorry!

For the holiday it should be split per person needing a bed.

For the meal you pay for what you have eaten

We go away a lot with my brother's family and we always split depending on size of family. So when he had one child and we had none he paid 3/5 of the cost. Now we've got 2 and he's got 3 we'd probably just split 50/50

Meals out are different.

to be fair a childless person was sorting the restaurant bill and another guest spoke up for me. Going to have to be brave myself over the holiday, though.

Re cottages, we have always shared the bill based on the number of bedrooms you occupy - which is logical because the price of a cottage tends to go up with the number of bedrooms.

So if you have a babe in arms, they would normally share the parents' bedroom and so are effectively free. On the other hand if you have two children who need their own bedroom, then it's only fair you pay for the extra bedroom.

To put things diplomatically to your MIL, how about saying you're up for it in principle but can't commit to it until you know the price - and that you're willing to have your children share your bedroom to help keep down your share of the costs.

Well for xmas meals just pay the child price, pointing it out if necessary, but for a cottage, pay per bed or per room so babies pay for a cot or go free, but children probably cost as much as adults

the babies will be in cots in their parents' rooms.

For the holiday, I would suggest that children are .5 of a person. We have done this and all in the party agreed.

When out for a meal, roughly tot up what people had and round up for a tip. Wouldn't dream of suggesting a head count split with children in the equation.

So YANBU.

Re the cottage how are you being charged by the rentor, per person or for the cottage as a whole?

Presuming its the cottage as a whole the appropriate way is to split by rooms so if it's £1000 with 4 bedrooms that is £200 per room and so a couple sharing pay £200; a single adult in a room pays £200 and if you put four kids in a room together the appropriate fee is £50 each.

If the rooms vary enormously e.g double en suite v single with bunk beds then you either draw straws for rooms or agree that some rooms attract a premium.

Fair enough to not charge for babies in a cottage, but yes, any other children in a bed should pay the same as an adult. The price is usually per accommodation not the amount of people going.

Similar to Yami - we tend to have two prices when sharing self catering accommodation - one for adults and children over 11 and one for primary age and below.

Then again we don't have babes in arms anymore, so would think there should be an exception for those in cots.

Agree with everyone else - at a meal, I'd expect to pay less for the childrens meals, but for a holiday, then it's a 'per bed' - or, if applicable - per plane seat division.

I would suggest doing it by the rooms occupied rather than per head.

When we stayed in a cottage we worked it out per bed.

It's the counting babies as whole people that's bugging me. Quite happy to pay for a bed for the bigger kids.

I don't think you should split the bill if children eat of the children's menu and the meals are a lot cheaper. And absolutely not when alcohol is included. As for accommodation. Doesn't sound right that babes in arms should pay the same as 20 year olds. If I came up against this kind of thing from family I think I'd be arranging my own holiday. I couldn't put up with it.

Mind, if you (as an extended family) can't agree on something as basic as this, I don't think I'd want to go on holiday together anyway - what will you do every time you nip to the chip shop, or someone fancies an ice-cream? How will you split the grocery shop, etc., etc. ?
Have you thought about maybe getting cotaages / apratments / caravans together on the same site, but maintaining your own boundaries, as a compromise?

cotaages cottages
apratments apartments

If it's just the babes-in-arms that you object to paying for, and I agree with you on that, you're just going to have to point it out. Can you look at the property online and see the charges? Often it says free/low cost cot, so just tell mil that babies are either free or x cost.

Get your DH to talk to his mother and say 'great idea - we just need to sort out the principle by which we work out a fair share of the bill, could we do it by bedroom needed or full sized bed needed? Otherwise we're paying a big whack for the babies'.

When we went away last year there were 4 couples,3 kids & a baby. We did it between 11,so baby was free as not needing own room.
I know one person felt a bit put out that when it was suggested to be between adults,leaving out the kids. One person insisted she got the best room as she paid more for the holiday (she paid more as she had 2 children).
Tbh it was a pain in the arse,from shopping costs to taking it in turns to cook. One couple scoffed themselves silly with all the treats so other people didn't get a look in. Not to be repeated!!

When we go out for family meals, we split the food cost per adult head and buy alcohol on an individual basis.

If we go out with childless friends, and our children are with us, we pay the food cost of our family group and they split the rest depending on what they want to do. And again buy alcohol individually.

Depending on the rental, babies can count, as for insurance purposes there can be a maximum occupancy number. So a baby may not be a free extra even though they are in a cot rather than a bed.