To think hotels and restaurant meals are not suitable for DC?

[FirstTimeLucky]

Me, DH and our two DC, aged 5 and 3, are being forced to stay in a hotel for two nights with MIL, FIL and SIL for FIL’s milestone birthday. We are staying in a family room which MIL has booked. I have no desire to take all the chaos of Home and put us all in one room. On top of this, they have booked a 6.30pm meal for us all in the hotel restaurant. AIBU to think this is totally unsuitable for a 5 and 3 year old?? And then what will we do? Sit in the dark in our family room while they go to sleep? We’ve never stayed in a hotel with DC before. Added to this, neither DC are great sleepers and so will inevitably be difficult to get to sleep and up early. AIBU to really not want to go, or should we just suck it up for FIL’s bday?

I get it, it won't be fun for you. But I would go, let kids eat dinner then put to bed and either stay in room o your husband can stay up chatting with his dad - or see if there is a hotel babysitter.

YABU and I hope my dses don't marry someone like you.

We've just got back from visiting friends which meant a 2 night hotel stay with our 2.5yr old and 10mth old. First time with both but have stayed in several hotels with the eldest. It was fine we kept snacks and drinks in the room and both children went to bed at normal time although you would probably consider my children's bedtime late at 8pm. and we just watched tv quietly or read by the light of a lamp away from the beds.

Am I missing something?

I lived in a hotel for 3 months when DS was 3 (not through choice)! We didn't sit in silence in the dark every evening after his 7pm(ish) bedtime!

If you're going to end up seething because your routine is thrown out of whack for two days, just don't go. But in my experience most children absolutely love hotels.

Well OP obviously not coming back.
Been travelling with my DC since they were literally weeks old. They always loved hotels. If I was OP I would be checking out if there is a spa and get myself a massage etc booked whilst DH looks after the DC.

As my husband and i share looking after our little girl , i dont think 2 would be a problem and i definitely will go and i would say i know that as being early years teacher im regularly in charge of 30 under 5s 😊 i see it as family time , its obviously not the same as going to hotel without children.

For goodness sake of course it is possible to do it. But posting that you are amused at someone worrying about it, as a smug-mum-of-one, is just - well - amusing. You have no idea who you will get as your next child.

Just order the main courses for the children to come at the same time as your starters and their pudding at the same time as your main courses. It should be a doddle.

And yet I have 5 children and we travel, eat out and stay in hotels and always have.

Lucky you. As I said before, clear my deficient parenting meant I had a v light sleeper and a toddler with a balloon phobia who we. Ours t take anywhere new.

I wasnt amused at the OP it was more the reading about hotels and children going to them while i was siting in a hotel.

Also im not sumg about it its just something that i appreciate doing as a family and not in the dont like it camp. Everyone has different likes and dislikes and its a forum to discuss

Ours are 4 and 2 (and crap sleepers) and we often do this. Meal in the restaurant, slightly later night than usual (not much as they’re crap at staying up late) then bed. Not the most exciting evening for us as we have to stay in the room, but to be honest we usually take a bottle of wine up and read on our phones!

It's a one off, get over yourself & go

I would also have hated 6.30 evening meal in a restaurant with my dd (now 10). However, using the benefit of my hindsight, I would say "suck it up and go". I totally get your concern- it can take a couple of days to get back to your normal. Tell your kids it's good to go crazy now and then.

Not caught up yet, but primal I'm not saying your parenting is deficient. Or that all 3yr olds are the same and quickly adapt, or that everyone regularly stays in hotels from newborn stage.

I'm just saying I find it a bit odd that anyone would tie themselves down to such routines unless there is some additional reason. Not just hotels, but I always considered it as everyday life that dd would sleep at friends on an evening/ overnight visit, and meals out would just be a normal activity from the start. Obviously I wouldn't have taken a baby/ toddler along to a bar or similar, but otherwise I just carried on with my pre child activities with dd with me.

I don't care if you do it differently, I'm just confused why anyone would choose such a rod for their own back.

When our 3 dc were young, it was generally hideous sleeping in a hotel, but we still did it. The dc loved it, all of us sleeping in one room (they didn’t share normally, but loved any opportunity to share a room together), the toilet being so close, the breakfast, the excitement of somewhere new, possibly bunk beds, eating in a restaurant where they could choose what they wanted even if it was different from their sibling. For us, it meant a late night and early morning start and possibly a difficult wake up in the middle of the night, trying to shush one child so they didn’t wake the other two, but we did it time and time again. (The worst being a wedding, we had a family room for me, dh, dd aged 1 and my adult brother (saved cash to put him with us). Dd wouldn’t go to sleep despite the lateness, dh snored most of the night and woke dd, and dd was awake by 5.30 for the day with us taking shifts to walk her round the gardens).
Much easier now they are 7,9 and 11, but I’d still take them away if I had my time with them as babies again.

I think your in laws have really thought about you by booking the meal at 6.30, excellent time for children in a restaurant.

Routines are great, but they have to be flexible sometimes.

Thehogfather - some babies are just happier with a routine. It is almost because of the routine that we managed overnights with baby 1 (until said baby developed separation anxiety and a difficult phobia), but baby number 2 just simply didn't sleep when in a room with others. It is luck. I could go in to DS's room and put clothes away when he slept, etc. DD actually is a total party animal and was running round the streets first footing at 1am on Hogmanay, so it is not as though we wouldn't have liked to be able to do it. Dinner would have been fine, unless there were balloons, but the sleep aspect made me want to cry. When you are on your knees with tiredness and dread every single night, a hotel break is the last thing that will help.

The OP got a very hard time, so it is no wonder she didn't come back.

Zzzzz - show me where on this thread I have said anything like that. In face, my whole point throughout has been that all children are different so the opposite of saying that my choices are universal. I was responding to everyone slagging off the OP with not being confident with a hotel stay just because it worked for them.

Primal I think most of us thought she was being too rigid. And she never came back to tell us what's wrong with restaurant food. DS2 (6) had 3 courses in an Italian restaurant on Wednesday. And he had 2 puddings and an extra scoop of ice cream because the manager liked him!

Maybe so, but people just loved telling her off.

I'm afraid that AIBU tends to foster a pack mentality. In my case, it wasn't intentional, and I'm sorry to the OP, if she's reading this.

YABU. Unless your kids are demons or something that prevents them going out in public. I’ve got five kids and done plenty of hotel stays. It’s for FIL not you and it’s 2 nights. Your kids will love it probably. Everything is an adventure at that age.

A superior little well you mums of one child couldn’t understand.

Who seemed to be doing her own massive put down to the OP.