To go abroad with a young baby...

[Rowenleaves]

We're planning our holiday and I'd love to go abroad but don't want it to be a stressful experience. There's me, DH and our baby who will be 5 months and we want to go either end of August or September.

We don't want to fly (so drive or Eurotunnel), we would love to stay in a cabin or cottage or something like that, we love nature and countryside but not too remote and as cheap as possible as I'll be on SMP.

Is there anywhere you can recommend or things to make it as stress free as possible?

If you don't think it's a good idea, is there anywhere in the Uk you can recommend?

We are in a similar situation to you! Our baby will be not quite 3 months old when we go to Cornwall for a week in a static caravan in August (we live in Lancs so a 6 hour drive but we will need to stop every 3 hours minimum to feed the baby and get him out of his car seat for 45 mins at least!) We are also hoping to go to South West Florida for 3 weeks over Christmas and New Year and he will be 6 months old then! I'm a bit wary about travelling for so long n both instances but we do live for our holidays and vowed we wouldn't stop doing what we love when we had the baby and we'd just adapt instead so that's what we're doing!

It's much much easier with a small portable non-mobile baby than a toddler so do it! I found flying easier than long car journeys, though that does have the advance of being able to take more of their stuff.

Have done channel crossing with little ones. Would say ferry is better than eurotunnel to have a proper break for them. And it's cheaper.

This is the best time to go! But be aware, it may not feel like much of a holiday. More that you've just transported your family and life to the new location for a week or two. No sleep ins, long boozy lunches or late nights with a young infant!

We traveled with my GD, from a young age. We found that if there were people about, on a plane, as said, Ferry, it was easier because it was more interesting.

Baby TV has helped at times.

Is there anything that you can get 'abroad', that you can't get in the UK, including Wales, Scotland and Ireland? Or is it the guaranteed dry weather?

We went on holiday with an eight week old, we flew short haul though and there was only an hour or so drive at each end. The staff at the airport were really helpful and kind, the flight attendants made a fuss of him and everything went pretty smoothly. As a pp mentioned we were still sleep deprived and sober but at least we were exhausted somewhere sunny and beautiful!

We rented a canal boat in France when pfb was 5 months - easy and fun. She was mobile a month later and for the next decade we always had a mobile baby/ toddler/ preschooler and by now the kids would probably find that kind of holiday boring (nobody to play with except siblings, no pool) so it was the ideal time to do it.

We took DC3 to Italy when he was 4 weeks old but that was a holiday chosen with his 5 & 3 yo siblings in mind.

It's perfectly easy to holiday with a baby. Have fun.

Go self catering though - hotels are no fun with small kids.

The hardest age to holiday with is the very tiny toddler age from about 9/10 months til about 18 months old.