To wonder if holidays with small children are a waste of time and money?

[Waitrosesaysimessential]

We have two small kids, 2 and 4, and are just back from a short break at a family hotel. Whenever we go away, first few nights they always struggle to settle in new beds, so we are all tired during the days. Their behaviour gets bad and us parents are grumpy and any issues are heightened. Is it just me or is it pointless bothering to go away? Maybe we would just be better staying home til they are 7/8? Everyone else always seems to have such a fantastic time...or are they fibbing?

Some of it is awful. Plane rides are never good, DS is a fussy eater so we can only eat places that'll do something with chips or pasta, and we can forget a lot of the things we used to enjoy such as looking around old buildings or museums.

We usually have a compromise and take it in turns to do parenting duties, while the other one relaxes. Last time we went to a place with a separate adult pool, so I spent a couple of mornings on a lounger sipping cocktails. When we went out into the city, we'd take it in turns to go off shopping etc. OK, it's not as relaxing as a childfree break, but you get half a holiday each!

As much as I'd love to do authentic and cultural trips, we usually end up in family friendly resorts, ideally with a kids club so DS gets worn out. You just have to adjust your expectations and countdown the days until they go off to uni enjoy holidays for what they are.

They are fibbing! I never tell the bad bits to people, but there are bad bits alertly. Never mind the dc, I have never slept well in a bed on holiday, I just enjoy the bits I can and forget about the rest. Nothing to do with the dc but I'm not a fan of holidays.

Depends on the kind of holiday - a cruise over to Stockholm to spend the day wandering around the old town was not fun but a campervan holiday touring various amusement parks and science exploratories was lots of fun. And a spa holiday that had free babysitting in a soft play type room was great.

Same shit different place as a PP said.

I think stull worth going on but make life easier for yourselves. Don't travel too far, don't try and do too much, don't expect too much. I think when ours were younger it was more of a holiday for my DH (change of scenery, no work) than me (SAHM when DCs were younger). DH did do half the parenting when we were away - so I go a break to a degree - but in someways having to explain what did/didn't work and be the one to still be the time-keeper/routine keeper meant more work iyswim.

We had some great holidays with DS when he was little. He was an easy child though ate and slept well and loved a beach. Never put him in childcare. For us self-catering always worked best but that would mean pub tea or fish n chips etc not me at the cooker every night.

Personally, I found holidays with small children were only fun if we went with another family. This meant that not everyone had to be on child duty all the time. We always went self catering and one of the big pluses was that once the kids were in bed, we would have a lovely adult meal - made it feel different to just being at home, doing the same stuff.

Realise not everyone wants to holiday with others, but it was great for us. In fact, we still do it and get a lot from it.

The key thing is to get away from the grind isn't it. Quite what 'the grind' is for you,will be different to someone else.....so if it's cooking, it's important to escape that, if it's cold weather, escape that. I think most people whilst loving their children and wanting time with them for special family moments on holiday, find them exhausting, so 24-7 doesn't feel relaxing. Being able to have a bit of escape time seems important - if that's a couple of lie-ins, or an afternoon at a spa, or an afternoon in to cafe with a book. All of it is easier if there are more adults.

Incidentally, I think lots of men who work full time find family holidays difficult with small kids. They are less used to long drawn out time with small children and can find it stressful.

Holidays with small children are definitely never going to be like those pre-children blissful holidays - some of it is is about adjusting your expectations.

I think self catering is a far better bet than hotels for young children, they can have familiar food, have space to spread out and play (living room), a separate room to sleep in. We always tried to stick to regular mealtimes but no regular bedtimes, let them stay up till they are ready to sleep. Also just accept that the holiday revolves round them not you, so it isn't going to be either long days of sightseeing or total relaxation.

I would say yes, for us, for now (6, 3, 2).

Last year we did what they call a "staycation" - we just did lots of nice day trips from home, but it was easy enough to do as we live within an hour of a city on the coast, so we had both sea and city and all the usual farms/attractions to keep us busy, and we had only moved to the area the year before so it was all fresh (and we were lucky with the weather). I think we'll probably stay with this and trips to grannies/uncles/aunties until next year at least, and maybe even the year after.

YANBU.

Same shit.....

Mine are 8 and 9 now though and we did an activity holiday at a family hotel. They LOVED it, and it was fun. Still no sitting around relaxing time though. I've sort of given up on the idea of ever getting any of that!

I find hotels and everything associated with flying a PITA (getting to the airport, going through security, miserable security staff with no manners, the flight itself, hanging around to get the bags on arrival; cannot understand why people pay for this experience).

Separate room for a child is essential for us, so static caravans are the entry point.

Hoseasons in this country, Europarc in Spain (we went by sleeper train due to my hatred of flying, got little sleep but had our own compartment).

We go for parks with loads for kids to do. Hoseasons have some humdingers that will exhaust even our DS.

The other essential is handing DS an I-pod playing a movie if he wakes up early. We go back to sleep for at least another hour and we're all happier.

Hotel with everyone sharing a standard bedroom: not fun!

Hotel suite type thing with slightly separate area for children, great. Self catering or room service, perfect. And lower standards - for a very long time our definition of holiday was chips and ice cream every day. That kept the smalls happy; we adults enjoyed being together even if it wasn't always wonderfully great quality time.

These days, the routine which eorks best for us is to have lazy mornings self catered - special cereal for smalls who like change, regular cereal for smalls who need routine, posh coffee and treaty breakfast however that looks for grown ups.

Up and out once things start getting hairy, lunch in a cafe or picnic, longish drive after lunch to induce naps in them wot needs 'em.

Tea earlyish for smalls and shot them into bed, adult meal (takeaway, room service, or just nice something if one of us will cook) plus wine for the rest of us.

We usually holiday with good friends who have similar holiday expectations and similar parenting styles. So it's as much about enjoying stretches of time together as it is about anything else.

Mine would struggle with the kind of holidays I loved as a child; they need routine and structure. So we don't do different places every night. And we do usually go back to the same place. So we can build up the nice things to do before we go - even feeding the ducks in a different park can be special.

That said, no 2 year old is going to be deprived forever if they don't go on holiday; if you'd rather save the money for a nicer holiday when they're old enough to remember it, or split it to take solo sanity breaks sans enfant, why not?

And yy to working out what your personal grind is and getting away from that. So I find cooking and cleaning terribly boring, so on our "staycation", we had lots of nice meals and were out of the house from morning to night to reduce the load, and sent a bag of clothes to the laundry at the end of the week. That worked a lot better for me than being away.

The most stressful part of holidays for me is the money, by which I mean I'd love a holiday all inclusive as I hate cooking, but it never happens as we don't have the money, so we end up staying in someone else's house (when they are not there). I get stressed as my husband wants to eat out all the time, which I totally understand as I do too, but we don't have the money to do so. The thought of having to sort out food under canvas is just beyond what I could be bothered to do on a holiday.

I like staycations and do them a lot, but it is nice to go somewhere different, we do go abroad and I'd say they are half nice, half stressful holidays. I think the stress is more on me though, due to cooking/cleaning.

No we ne ere had any issues with the dcs going away at that age. But then we also picked our location/style of holiday accordingly.
And that meant camping or holiday cottage.

Dc2 was a notoriously bad sleeper (at 2yo he still didn't sleep through the night and any changes with bed etc had to be well thought out before hand) but we still had some lovely days out.
If you wait until your youngest is 7yo, you will miss plenty of opportunities to do really nice stuff with them.

I don't think they are a waste of money, but I agree with many that holidays with young children have a danger of being "same shit different view" depending on the type of holiday you go for.
We prefer SC as it gives you flexibility, never book hotels as it has zero appeal to us. DC would probably quite enjoy a hotel complex type thing but they aren't getting it.
We do have very children friendly holidays, most days (abroad) spent either at a beach (I can relax a bit more now older ones are 10+11, dp makes the sandcastle with Ds and takes him for long walks up and down the beach) or a water park, go kart track, mud baths, theme park type places, etc.
It's a compromise.

I can be hard work, but it can still be fun. We don't eat in other than breakfast, I don't want to be cooking and cleaning on holiday.

We go away a few times a year but work around kids. Keep the expectations low regarding how much you'll do and be prepared for a few rocky nights of sleep.

Get to the airport early and pre armed with pens and pencils and keep some treats in store for a meltdown (including your own).
If it's first time on a plane, practice in advance so they know what to expect.
Bring sweets for taking off and landing to pop their ears.
We always fork out for a meal on the plane so kids can choose something and it occupies them for a bit. We like the Easyjet kids options, Ryanair is a bit hmmmm....
We book valet parking and transfers in advance so it's a smoother journey. It's not much more.
With hotels, we go for a suite where we can afford it. That sometimes means travelling out of season to get a better room rate (think Prague in winter rather than high summer). That way you get some privacy in the evenings after they have gone to bed.
I don't expect kids to carry luggage or be responsible for anything-they don't and it will be a battle point you don't need. Kids get rucksacks I can put on me if need be.
Do some stuff they will enjoy as well as your stuff. The thing my kid remembers most about our last trip was the sweet shop we went to.

Relax and enjoy!

The best age for taking a small child away is approx. 12 weeks old. They will still sleep lots and you only need to take some nappies and your boobs.

I'm still waiting to find the next age at which it is actually a holiday

DD is only two, we've been away with her twice so far, but stuck to the UK. It's been brilliant. She has always been a fairly adaptable child, so late bedtimes and new places etc hasn't been an issue.

We've had loads of fun just getting out and doing things in the daytime, DD is always exhausted at the end of the day and goes to sleep easily (especially when she dropped her nap on our last holiday!). We do self catering too, which means it's not completely relaxing, but it's still fun. And for us the key benefit is time spent as a family and not at work.

I loved holidays with dc when they were little - but we never stayed in a hotel.
You need to self cater, then you don't have to worry about them disturbing other people, and you can feed them their comfort foods or take their favourite blanket or whatever.
We made some lovely memories holidaying when ours were small.

I've never had a relaxing holiday with children, but the holidays we do have have been worth every penny.

It has recently dawned on me that I won't be able to have a relaxing holiday for quite a while. I have an 18 month old and we've done a couple of self catering uk holidays. We just spend the whole time trying to help her away from pulling everything out of cupboards, breaking stuff or climbing on furniture. The places we stay are not child proofed, it's much harder to contain dd. I just it will get easier in a couple of years, but that's when we hope to have another child.

Yeah going on holiday when young HARDWORK,

I agree - holidays with small (or large for that matter ) children are not relaxing at all - I recently had a holiday with a girl friend, just the two of us and it was soooooooooooo wonderful and relaxing, I had forgotten what a 'real' holiday was like. I have booked again for this year.

We have drastically reduced our expectations about holidays since having children - best ones for us were EuroCamps when DC were the right age for the childrens' clubs - and enjoyed going to them.

I never went on family holidays once I was over 13 but it seems that children still expect 'family' holidays well into their teens or early 20s .

The best holidays I've had with the DC have been when everything was centred around them. We went to Centre Parcs last year and we all had a lot of fun, especially as we could go back to our cottage in-between activities and chill out for an hour, feed them their favourite home foods, have a nap etc. Camping is only fun if there's an adult to help distract them while the other adult sets up/cooks/does the washing up/clears away. Otherwise it's like being at home but harder work!