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

Yams, you nailed it.

Our holidays are in the UK but are mostly just extensions of how we like to spend time at the weekends so they are relaxing but not that much of a change of schedule.

We walk/hike, bike, picnic, explore in the woods, read the papers for a bit and treat ourselves to food in a pub beer garden if it's nice weather. Later on we might add a zoo/safari park/ theme park day just for ds but it would be one day in the week.

yams I'm not going to disagree with you, I said somewhere upthread that I accept that not being on a shoestring allows you to grease the wheels a little.

Having said that, our weekend away earlier in the year was two nights/three days - we spent £450 including fuel, hotel, all meals and days out and that included a couple of bottles of nice wine, lunch out, a small handful of activity books and new pencils for the DCs. I think that is pretty good value.

wow. 3 people agreed with me! Wasnt expecting that

I think those of you who think that we are BU for not liking holidays with children just have easier children than us. For example, some of you have said "later bedtimes for the kids and a nice lie-in!" but it's not that simple for many of us. My kids wake up at the same time (often 5.30am) no matter what time they go to bed - so we're up at silly o'clock in the morning with overtired children. That's just one example but there are many things I've read on this thread and gone about, thinking "yeah right, my kid would NEVER do that". I am not being a misery-guts to say that I don't enjoy holidays with children and I'm certainly not expecting to be able to lie on a beach and do nothing - my children are just very, very hard work and if I gave them to you for a week's holiday then I guarantee you wouldn't enjoy yourself either :)

yamsareyammy Wed 10-Jul-13 18:09:14
"I feel the need to say that some of the posters on here who enjoy the holidays with dc the most, are the ones who have more money than others"

Not in our case. Apart from one week in Spain and two French cottage holidays, our holidays have been cheap cottages in the UK and self catering. A French gite with ferry passage for a family + car doesn't really cost more than a cottage in the UK. And is considerably cheaper than an all year round habit of weekly take-aways and meals out.

I think it's more that some people are less sensitive than others about being physically comfortable, some people genuinely enjoy small adventures like sheltering under a tree in a downpour, some people are natural story-tellers and have fun taking dc round places because they can make them come to life. My mother scores on all these. I'm not too bad myself. And both of us have husbands who do their fair share without grumbling.

It does help to spend a bit. Although didn't resolve the trailing thing, but that was an age thing.

Thinking back a lot of our best holidays involved lugging dd on and off public transport in her wheelchair. Which probably counts as hard work. But they were still good holidays.

oh yeah if we had unlimited cash it would have been fine :o

we would have gone all inclusive somewhere with a kids club so we would have had the best of both worlds then. cos i do love my kids (of course) and i do love being with them, seeing them happy and spending time with them. its just so RELENTLESS on holiday.

must admit did quietly chuckle at a post a while back that suggested taking a nanny next time ;)

Cory all that story telling and tree sheltering works on small children (if you are lucky) not babies. I do expect a much better time now not at the baby-face. Unrelenting bfing and night waking does not make for perky von-trapping on the alp in the daytime, no matter how great your storytelling.

Part of the issue was DH expecting to 'be on holiday' and basically checking out of any kind of domestic chores or parenting during the week and getting unpleasant and obnoxious about anything at all dd did like not sleeping or needing entertaining

same

Ha yes think it was mine. I going to put a but it would be handy

We had kids' club option. Would have used it, not all day or anything but a couple of hours so can relax and recharge. But ds2 just wouldn't at the time.

It's not money, we had lots of holidays in very cheap gites - gites that were cheap because they were falling to bits and 350 miles from the nearest cow, and they were still good. We went for walks and watched a dog dig up and eat a load of baby moles (a little upsetting for dd), ds fell in a river, and we drank lots of wine and played lots of games. But we laughed all the time and enjoyed each other.

Yes I'm surprised more people haven't mentioned money as well tbh

If we had more money enough to get a decent-sized hotel, flights that don't leave at 5 am from remote airports, babysitters and so on I'd be more willing to take DS abroad more often. DH and I traveled all over the world pre DC but on a shoestring. It's certainly possible to travel that way with a toddler but I don't think we'd really enjoy it. I'd rather wait until DS is older and/or we have more travel funds.

It doesn't really matter now as we live in a nice part of France anyway

It's all what you're used to, surely? For example, Alibaba's weekend for £450 -- maybe it was good value for what it was, but we couldn't personally justify spending that much just on a weekend right now. Someday I hope

I have been on one AI holiday. Everyone else there was European, the only "native" people were the staff, there was AQUA AEROBICS in the morning and hideous hideous entertainment in the evening.

And people queued for tea and cake at four so they got their money's worth.

We ran away after three days.

Never ever ever again.

Feeding, clothing and arsewiping is hardly the largest part of the day, whether on holiday or not. Is it an attitude thing? Are you thinking you will have a magical holiday and everything will be perfection? Or are you being realistic, accomodating your plans to suit the whole family, and taking your fun from the little things?

As for the rest, you can hardly blame either your children or your holiday if your DH is a lazy twat who does nothing for any of you. I think you're focusing on the wrong problem here.

Oh, and I spend very little on my holiday, compared to a lot of people. It's not really about the cash.

Reading this thread has made me a little anxious about our first family holiday to south of France in September. With a six month and 3 year old.

Then I remind myself of the times that reading mumsnet has made me anxious.... Threads about weaning, threads about potty training, threads about going from 1 child to 2.

And then it actually happens, and I find out that it was a storm in tea cup and my experience was actually absolutely fine. So fingers crossed this applies to holidays too!

Did they need more sleep? Might have been worth doing time out for bad behaviour each time. Sending them to their rooms until they can be nice. Most of our hols are nice except for loading the van

curryeater Wed 10-Jul-13 18:45:01
"Cory all that story telling and tree sheltering works on small children (if you are lucky) not babies. I do expect a much better time now not at the baby-face. Unrelenting bfing and night waking does not make for perky von-trapping on the alp in the daytime, no matter how great your storytelling."

Sorry, afraid I do also have good memories of walking in the hills above Bath with dd in her backpack (so much easier than later, with the wheelchair). Before story-telling, she always responded to singing.

Not in the first couple of months after the birth, no. But once they turned 6-8 months, they seemed quite easy and portable. Ds was just under 4 months when we went on his first holiday, staying with relatives at the seaside.

I've had some lovely hols with the dcs, incl me travelling on my own with 2 under 3yo.

The key for me was:

• routine when they were babies
• doing something that I knew I would enjoy and that the children would enjoy too so that stress levels are as low as possible.

For me, it means being in the middle of nowhere, going camping, 'sporting' type of activities.
What has always being impossible to do is ... to do nothing.

Ok Cory you are a better woman than me. Lugging wheelchairs I guess trumps bfing in exhaustion terms. And hindering von-trapping about the place.

OP

Holidays with very small children are NOT holidays - you can't switch off. THey are work away from home and invariably in worse conditions than at home!. I confess to not having taken mine anywhere on holiday until they were six and eight. I got their grandparents to stay in our house a week and DH and I went away for a week on our own. (that was my whole baby minding from grandparents for a year as I live 250 miles away from them). KIds were taken on days out by grandparents and had a whale of a time.

We then went on family holidays to Club Med where there were clubs for the kids for part of the time. The only way to have any "holiday" with kids is to pay for them to have some of their entertainment provided.

Lovingmybabiesbottom Wed 10-Jul-13 18:55:34
"Reading this thread has made me a little anxious about our first family holiday to south of France in September. With a six month and 3 year old.

Then I remind myself of the times that reading mumsnet has made me anxious.... Threads about weaning, threads about potty training, threads about going from 1 child to 2.

And then it actually happens, and I find out that it was a storm in tea cup and my experience was actually absolutely fine. So fingers crossed this applies to holidays too!"

I think you're onto something there.

Occasionally take turns having the kids so that you each get an hour or two to yourself