to have not enjoyed this family holiday? am i completely selfish and just an AWFUL parent?

[dirtyface]

went away last week with dh and our 2 dcs aged 4 and 7

its the first time we have been away as a whole family (for various reasons) and i was really looking forward to it. but mostly it was hard work and pretty shit.

the kids are usually pretty good at home. but on holiday, they played up, fought, acted spoilt, constantly demanded things, moaned that things were "boring" , pissed about at bedtime till all hours as they were so excited, woke us up early every morning, we barely got 2 minutes together. and managed one shag the whole time so i was grumpy and irritable, as was DH. and we absolutely haemorraged money on god knows what so both of us were a bit stressed cos of that.

and most things we did were pretty boring for us as they were child focused. so i was EXHAUSTED and miserable by the time we got home and had never been so glad to be home from a holiday in all my life

is this what its like? i bet we spent two grand all in (that includes paying for the actual holiday itself). and for what?

the kids had a good time at least i might add!

sorry if i sound a massive ungrateful so and so - am prepared to be told i am

When my dc were small holidays were basically childcare without all the conveniences and safety measures we had at home. It was a huge disappointment to me, before children holidays had been a highlight of life.
Now my dc are a bit older (tweenie age) holidays are not as dire as when we had 3 under 5, but still, I can't help noticing that my children are generally happier and better behaved in term time, including evenings and weekends, than they are on holiday. I guess they're just thoroughly institutionalised and term time seems to suit them better.

Undeterred, we do try reasonably ambitious holidays these days but I know they'll usually be a pale shadow of a "real" holiday, and far more tiring than just going to work.

i have tentatively suggested to dh that next year we go with one of the sets of GPs

but as DH is not keen on my parents (and i am not keen on his either tbh) not sure that will be an option :(

QuintessentialOldDear You are right - campervanning is perfect with kids. Lots of fun and easily mobile so you can chase the warm weather or move on easily to find interesting places. We have taken the kids from when they were babies - we have done Australia and various European countries in a van and I have loved it. (The only tricky stage is crawling babies in a van and sometimes logistics of sleeping arrangements with very little ones!).

Take one parent each, OP? Or all of them?

We do self-catering. My expectations of enjoyment are confined to:
i) watching the kids have a good time (which they do in short bursts);
ii) the vague novelty of the same old chores in a different place;
iii) a few treats, and expensive Waitrose prepared food so I don't have to cook from scratch like at home;
iv) once the kids are in bed (good sleepers, thank God) I might get in a bit of reading;
v) holiday shags.

When I do go to bed on holiday I dream of idling on a yacht off Jamaica with Denzel Washington drinking cocktails.

About ten years ago when my father was in his early seventies, he apologised to me for not really considering us (his children) when he and my DM chose/went on their holidays with us. I was astonished (and touched). I was able to reassure him that I look back on the holidays I had with them quite fondly - they were mainly rural self-catering - I expect I did some major moaning about the country walks.

He seemed to think that I thought much more about my own children when choosing holidays - but I'm not sure it's true. We couldn't afford to go away very much and when we did it was the sort of place he would have absolutely loathed (think Butlins/Hoseasons) so I think he thought I was very unselfish to put up with it! In fact, the holiday activity my children loved the most was on our doorstep and cost next to nothing (a local "show in a week" sort of thing) so we were really lucky to have that and they did it every year for several years - a real highlight of every summer holiday.

What I did realise quite quickly was that my children didn't enjoy the same things that I had as a child. They were not particularly interested in sand castles or rock pools, I discovered, so they didn't feel deprived of the seaside holidays we could only very rarely afford. Once I had got over the idea that they jolly well OUGHT to enjoy rockpools - because who wouldn't - I found that letting them do what they enjoyed meant that I could enjoy myself too (I looked after them on my own for most of their childhood).

I will never, ever, ever go on holidays with GPs again. It took us until the first service station stop to realise that rather than taking GPs to help look after DCs, we had taken DCs to look after GPs!

We had a beautiful VW camper van before dc. My pride and joy. It was great with just 2 adults. The freedom of parking up by an empty beach. etc. Nice with one baby. Hard work with baby and toddler. Hell on wheels with 3 small dc. We sold it before we could kill each and/or the dc in it.

It was like a small noisy restless tin of sardines.

My rule if self catering is to create a holiday routine and break the day into bits. I would never ever plan to spend a DAY at the beach!

Morning - rise later than normal as kids stay up later. Go to beach for a couple of hours. Do not aim for more than 2-3 hours at a time (if it lasts longer great). Each parent gets 1/2 hour off to snooze during this time and avoid any meals on the beach.

Lunch - back to house for sandwiches without the sand. Toddler to nap, middle one DVD (have a selection of films he's never seen), oldest one ipod time (the only time its allowed). Parents take it turns each day to snooze each day, sometimes both get a snooze for an hour when toddler nap, DVD, ipod blissfully coincide.

mid - late afternoon. Swimming pool when cooler (if no access to pool would be finding a local park or beauty spot or back to beach (shudder).

dinner - either back at cottage then out for ice cream or out for dinner to a very child friendly, junk foody, only on holiday place.

Bedtime - later than normal but not so late that DH can't share a glass of wine and collapse into bed. Probably no sex all holiday but hey ho that's what the other 50 weeks are for.

Absolutely no expectation beforehand that the holiday is for the kids only.

Only about 4 days in 2 weeks will differ from this.

SMUG or what - remind me of this when we get back in a month's time!

In this, as in so much else, I am clearly not cut out for parenthood. The very idea of a holiday without books/wine/sleep is not a holiday worth having. I do usually get through about 14 books in a fortnight even afflicted by children...

We had a lovely holiday abroad with 3DC aged 8,6,4. Really relaxing.

The trick was to keep it simple. We went to Majorca. Stated by the pool, let them exhaust themselves in the swimming pool. Couple of trips to beach, let them exhaust themselves digging to Australia or building sandcastles. Hamburger, chips, coke for tea. Played pool or tennis with them in the evenjng.
But
Last year we camped on a Scotish island. dD1 had chickenpox, I had whooping cough (diagnosed later) dd2and dd3 threw up for two nights. In a tent. In the pouring rain. 10 mins walk from the toilets. When I came come I went to bed and was ill for a week.

Some you win, some you lose.

And yy chilly - that is pretty much our routine too. And also late afternoon, evenjng at the beach is great with small children, it just gets cooler, the sun us more gentle and they get a good run about before bed.

This is what family holidays are like! I just think it has been more of a shock for you as you haven't done a family holiday before.

Our best holidays when they were small were abroad(hot) in half-board hotels (so I didn't have to do anything) with a good kids club so they could spend the odd hour there and make friends. Or camping abroad (hot) with friends and loads of other children around so they could go and play with them for at least some of the time.

Now they are teens, all-inclusive abroad seems the way to go!

We've never had a bad holiday. Even the prisoner-of-war-complex-from-hell was a 'good' holiday. It set the scene for better holidays to come.

We always go AI to somewhere with kids entertainment on tap. Places like First Choice Holiday Villages, or Thomson Superfamily Resorts.

When we go through the brochures we look for:

AI
4*
Evening Entertainment
Daytime Entertainment
Kids Clubs

Then:
Sports
Gym
Spa
Distance from Beach
Distance from Town

It has to have everything in the first list, and preferably some of the second list. The main aim of the holiday is to keep DD happy - first list, then we can enjoy the stuff in the second list!

Last year we had all the above, and swim up rooms and an on site waterpark - For less than £3K.

We had such a great time we have booked the same place again for this year at just over £3K

Right now we can afford to do that every year. When we can't, then we will save up until we can, and if that means we go every other year, so be it.

*I have resigned myself to the fact that a family holiday isn't a holiday for me. There might be more wine than usual and more ice cream and a meal out or two but basically it's like being at home but with a different view and more uncomfortable bed.

Yup, I'm with Calabria on this one - particularly the bit about the uncomfortable bed!

However, we find that other DC are the key to having at least a little bit of downtime and our kids having lots of fun. Last year we rented a cottage in a complex with other British families staying and DS1 (aged four at the time), had a lovely time. This year he's five and DS2 is two and we're doing something similar, so I'm hoping that they'll run along and play and we can sit reading a book and sipping a glass of wine while keeping an eye on them.

We've never had a bad holiday. Even the prisoner-of-war-complex-from-hell was a 'good' holiday. It set the scene for better holidays to come.

We always go AI to somewhere with kids entertainment on tap. Places like First Choice Holiday Villages, or Thomson Superfamily Resorts.

When we go through the brochures we look for:

AI
4*
Evening Entertainment
Daytime Entertainment
Kids Clubs

Then:
Sports
Gym
Spa
Distance from Beach
Distance from Town

It has to have everything in the first list, and preferably some of the second list. The main aim of the holiday is to keep DD happy - first list, then we can enjoy the stuff in the second list!

Last year we had all the above, and swim up rooms and an on site waterpark - For less than £3K.

We had such a great time we have booked the same place again for this year at just over £3K

Right now we can afford to do that every year. When we can't, then we will save up until we can, and if that means we go every other year, so be it.

I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility that your parents did enjoy your holidays, OP.

I am not lying when I claim to have enjoyed ours. I like dc's company, I think they are funny, they say interesting things, it is interesting to see things through their eyes.

They don't have to be lovely and informed for a holiday to be a success: some of our best memories come from a series of family jokes which grew out of ds' moaning in the car on the way between Granada and Cordoba and gradually being jollied out of his bad mood: they have absolutely nothing to do with his (non-existing) appreciation of Moorish architechture.

When dh and I visited Spain several years earlier we did all the grown-up things, reverently walking round the medieval churches, drinking the regional wines, staying out till all hours in the Plaza Mayor. I don't think there were as many laughs though.

I liked what Fillybuster said: "I started enjoying family holidays so much more once I decided that what I wanted to get out of the holiday was lots of time with my dcs, rather than escaping from them"

My sister and her husband have a set of photos of their DC sulking in various beautiful locations. They made the kids' reluctance to do anything cultural into a family joke. Every holiday had a 'here are the children sulking in front of...' picture. It was a case of hard cheese, Mum and Dad want to see it, so we're going.

I have to have a villa with lots of space, at least 3 bedrooms (there are 4 of us) so dcs get own room, and minimum 2 bathrooms.
There has to be a dishwasher and washing machine.

I have a nice house so am not prepared to compromise on a holiday by staying in less what we have at home.

Holidays with small DCs:

"Washing up with a different view"

or, as I say to DH:

"Imagine you have to spend two weeks doing your usual job. But without a phone, a computer, any of your colleagues you rely on, in an office that is slightly cold and uncomfortable and smells damp and musty. And you can't do a bad job, no, you have to do a slightly better job than normal, despite not having the tools you need to do even a halfway decent job. You are not permitted to get grumpy. You get home with a sigh of relief and contemplate going back to work on Monday with dread. You check your bank balance and find to your dismay a lot of money appears to have been withdrawn. You wonder when you might be able to have a holiday. Then you are told the dreadful news - that WAS your holiday. "

I actually find there is less whining on holidays now we travel with dc. Dh does have a tendency to get a bit moany when he is tired or hot or we get lost. Nothing like a teenager with a curling upper lip and a fine line in repartee to bring middle aged moaning under control.

What was that line from modern family? "You don't get it do you? For me this isn't a holiday as a stay at home mom this is a business trip" not sure I agree but did a wry smile!

I've found every holiday with the kids stressful except for the one we're on now. I'm lying by the pool in an all inclusive aparthotel so no thinking about carrying enough money or what to do for meals. our DDs have their own room adjacent to ours and come and go as they please. the only thing is that by the time we've got to stage of being able to do this in terms of their independence combined with affording it we've had to wait until they are 19 and 16 with the eldest broken up from uni and the youngest finished her gcses. So all in all this holiday is relaxing and carefree. the past 18 yrs, not so much

We've done villa with pool, city apartment, city hotel, 5* resort with restaurants and beach.

There were little things that were good and not so good for each.

I don't think we've fully cracked it. Not sure what the best scenario is with young dc.

Big villa or resort?

Or just taking a nanny of course.

They had kids' club but two year old screamed place down, no chance.

He's been at nursery for a year now part time, I'd try it again next time.

other smugsville tip is..Kids Do Not Do Faffing (from adults, are clearly experts in this skill themselves)

Our holidays improved no end once DH realised this. So when differing from normal holiday routine below, we must have a plan we can articulate to kids which includes some wins for them (even if just plans for ice cream, a swim when you get back etc) and the day must be broken into chunks so the kids know their time at the market/museum/historical landmark is time limited and know what's coming next. Don't just start the day and see where it takes you - unless you are in fabulous hotel and have unlimited funds!