to imagine recklessly that a 'self-catering' holiday will be anything other than forced labour for me now I am a Mum?

[Verso]

You can all pat me on the head now and say 'there, there', with the voice of experience.

Forgive me - DD is only two, so it's still a shock to find that the concept of 'holiday' now applies to her and DH only. When did the rules change? No one showed me the paperwork!

I will learn, no doubt!

Ooh, but I was (am?) bitter . Can anyone empathise?

Why does it apply to DH? It sounds like you're responsible for some enabling his not helping, aren't you? Your fault as much as his. Women bring this on themselves when they don't achieve fair and equal relationships but usually for both parents holidays are hard with children, harder than at home. My sister emailed today to say she now knows why my mother refused all holidays until I was 10 and now knows how right she was to do that.

We solved it with holidays with childcare like the Club Med, Mark Warner, Sunsail where you know you have 6 hours a day "free" - a happy comprimise for all. Some people hire an au pair for the summer and get her to help with the children on holiday too.

I do feel sorry for your Verso.

My DH is fab on holidays, he really does 50% and provided I nudge him every now and then we do each get some time off, like when we were by the pool, one person had an hour to do what they wanted, then it was their turn to look after rookietoddler.

I find Self catering much more relaxing than being in a hotel. DS is 17mths so it means I can knock up quick food for him such as pasta with ready made dolmio for kids sauce, cheese on toast or banana sarnies. Not the most nutritious in the world but hey, hes still alive and healthy. For our evening meals we go to M&S and buy from their expensive bung in the oven range, after all its still loads cheaper than going out for a meal ( oh and their kids meals are good too). We go out for lunch to somewhere that has a beer garden outside.

Oh and I wear ear plugs at night as DH snores, extra benefit is he tends to hear DS if he cries, before I do.

We love self-catering holidays, in fact so much so that we bought our own self-catering apartment. Hotels are fine for a couple of nights but a real holiday IMO should be self-catering. You can come and go as you please, have leisurely breakfasts on the balcony in the sun, nothing difficult some fresh bread, cereal etc or even better nip off to the coffee shop for a pastry and fresh coffee. Snack things on the beach for lunch and go out at night (or something very easy to cook in).

The worst thing I have found about self catering is having to wash dishes and handwash clothes so when we got our own place I made sure there was a dishwasher and washing machine and it is heaven. I spend no more than 15 mins on housework a day on holiday and usually get rewarded by DH watching TV or playing with the kids while I have a long soak in the bath and start pampering myself for our night out.

Bliss, I'm counting down the weeks until we go!

Befor we had ds, self-catering holidays always meant just that for breakfast and maybe lunch, but go out for a meal in the evening. However, after ds, we couldn't go out in the evening for several years (without babysitting), because ds just wouldn't be ableto stay up that late, and would be tired and fractious (not a recipe for a relaxing holiday).

Xenia, I don't quite understand your comments. It's fine if you have a dh who is switched on, and will look after the children effectively, but my dh (particularly when ds was young) just couldn't be relied upon. If I asked him to look after ds while I went for a swim etc, I would return to find dh reading a book, completely oblivious to what ds was doing. But that is dh's personality - when he lived on his own he would be sitting playing the piano, surrounded by a complete mess, and probably wouldn't have even heard the doorbell or phone if it went. He just seems to be ableto switch off from everything else in life and ignore it if he is doing something he enjoys.

We did have a look at holidays such as Mark Warner etc, which offer clubs etc, but tbh, there is no way we could afford that type of holiday.

We always do self catering holidays as we can't afford it any other way as there are six of us. I find them exhausting. It's far more work than being at home because you have to learn where everything is, the pans are the wrong size, the knives aren't as sharp as your, the washing machine and laundry system isn't as honed .... basically you have none of your own taylor-made conveniences around you.

Then there's the conflict to add to the stress. Whilst toiling there's an awareness that you are on holiday and ought to be enjoying yourself. This can, in itself, make you tearful.

I would get dh helping though. Even if that just means taking the children away to allow you to work in total and utter peace.

Verso it really sounds to me like your DH was not pulling his weight. Mine didn't totally on holiday, but did enough to get away with it. And we had our best holiday ever with DC, self catering in the south of France. The weather was lovely and the children (6 and 3) were great, and we didn't have to take any baby kit. Just a back pack of toys each and buy two cheapo bucket and spade sets and a football on arrival. So maybe there is hope for next year. DS was not so good at age 3, but that was due to 6wo DD, I think. We ate in/out on alternate nights. I did the shopping and cooking and DH did the washing up and floor sweeping. We did alternate baths. But I also did a the washing, tidying and probably more children entertaining.

There is no way I would go sc without a washing machine btw.

Xenia yes, not everyone can afford Mark warner.

Also I don't want to go on holiday to give my kids to someone else all day.

Sorry if that sounds rude to those of you who do, but I guess it's cause I work most of the week, so when I'm not there I want to be with them, even if it is a lot of work. It's work I really enjoy.

I wouldn't do Mark Warner etc, both because of the cost and because I like looking after my own kids (usually), but I think Xenia has a good point about the husbands/male partners. I am constantly astonised by how so many mothers run themselves ragged while their DH/DP lounges around scratching his balls. If you don't give your DH/DP the impression that your time (and your leisure) are just as important as his, then it's a rare man who will come to this conclusion on his own.

Thanks, Xenia, for your splendidly helpful comments. It may seem a bit mad, but I never thought I'd be an 'enabler'... full of Susan Faludi and Naomi Wolf, not to mention Germaine Greer, and then I got married and had a child. Oh well.

I do in fact love my husband and my daughter very much - just didn't appreciate being a f*ing skivvy for a week, which I think a lot of other people here understood (for which, many many thanks).

I honestly think that young children prefer being at home with their normal routine, but I agree that things do get better as they get older. Our children take books, paper and crayons, sellotape, scissors & glue, also card games & small toys eg Playmobil people. It's amazing what other stuff can be made from scraps/how you can improvise if you have the basics.

This year we went to France, but they accidentally left behind the toy boat & the Playmobil they were going to take. However, we found one in a supermarket full of Breton biscuits, & once we'd taken them out they could sail it, using a few Playmobil people we'd bought from the supermarket. The biscuits came in handy for snacks on the beach! We also ran out of reading books, but managed to find a few children's titles - a very odd selection! - in a French junk shop, which was an experience in itself as they had great fun examining the other artefacts on sale!

Last year we found a Fimo kit with clay, paints and varnish in a charity shop, and they made some figures to go in the plastic lifeboat they bought in the RNLI shop in the village where we were staying.

Our worst experience must be the year we went to a holiday cottage near Shrewsbury with dd aged 8 months and dsd aged 13. We were also provided with a cot that looked as though it wouldn't have been out of place in a Rumanian orphanage, although when we told the owners that we were concerned they went out and bought a travel cot. Difficulty with that was that dd had never slept in a travel cot, and that just made her more unsettled. Consequently she woke up every hour during the night for the whole week, and the only way we could keep her quiet & get her back to sleep without waking dsd was for me to feed her. However, instead of sleeping in, she woke up each day at 6am, and in order to enable me to catch up on a bit of sleep and not to waken dsd, dh had to take her out in her buggy around the country lanes of Shropshire for a couple of hours! There's one wonderful holiday photo that says it all: her holding a fluffy toy snake and beaming at the camera while he looks about 90 and as though he's not slept in years! Happy days!

Save up and go to a hotel for 3-4 nights instead.

It gets easier when they are a bit older though - you can eat out more easilky.

Also, lots of sc places now offer homecooked food you can order in. Maybe consider going somehwere that offers that next time?

I do remember out first holiday with DS - he was 14 months, and ill, we were up at night with him, and on the last day, DH got up off the sofa and said "well I've finished my book" - he had managed to read a novel about 3 inches thick. I hadn;t even read so much as a magazine, in 6 days!

After that, I decided we would NOT be having anotehr holiday like that

An enclosed garden is a must as well. I love self-catering actually. But then my partner pulls his weight far more than me really

I love self-catering holidays and find them much more relaxing than hotel ones. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a hotel or B&B for long weekend or whatever, but for a week or longer I'd much rather self-cater. More space, more flexibility as to what and when you eat, easier to be spontaneous.

No drudgery at all, we share what work there is (kids included), but make as little work for ourselves as possible. Eat out a few times during the week and cook or prepare simple but tasty meals the other days.

Holidays can be tougher with little ones, but then most things are, that's life and it does get easier. We have always gone self-catering, even with 3 children aged 5, 3 and 1 - and actually that year we decided to go by train and only took what we could carry ourselves.

Holidays are what you make them, but it must be an equal relationship with everyone pulling their weight. So as soon as kids are old enough, they help with washing up etc. And your husband must pull his weight too. Mine wouldn't dream of not helping, it's just what we do at home anyway, so holidays are no different.

It's the sexism which annoys me, though. Men don't help, they share equally. That should be pinned up in all kitchens in the land. If a man is "helping you" you need therapy to sort out that issue. Men have an equal responsibility for their children and may be you go away for a week on your own sometimes so that he has no choice but to learn how to change nappies, keep children safe and feed them. He will learn but not as long as you treat him as a virtual child and enable his sexism to flourish.

Xenia, how did you manage the total domestic equality? I'm asking seriously because I think many women just give up. There is a book by Barbara Einrich (not sure about the spellng) which asserts that women frequently lose this battle and just resign themselves to hiring other women to do the bits they don't have the time for. I know, to my shame, that I'm in that category. So how did you pull it off?

So agree with Xenia on this thread.

The earlier post about someone dh's not being able to look after the children whilst the mother goes for a swim

Agree wholeheartedly with Xenia

Verso - I can empathise. The thing is, when you have a baby, no-one tells you that there isn't an off button. Before you had kids, holidays were a break from whatever job you did. Once you have kids, unless you have very nice grandparents you can leave them with, you never get a break from your job of being a mum. And it is absolutely exhausting because it's unrelenting, 24 x 7 x 365.

I'm definitely one of those people who can see the benefit of a Sunsail/Mark Warner holiday. It's not that I don't want to spend time with my children, but I just want a chance to not do exactly the same stuff I do at home.

That said, if Sunsail holidays are too expensive (which they are) then self catering is definitely better than hotels - but you have to go there with low expectations, don't expect to lie on a sun lounger actually relaxing. I would recommend going with friends who have kids of similar age. And i would recommend going somewhere that has all the kit you need so you don't have to take it with you and some nice optional extras to give you time off.

For future reference, do try Tots to France - they have a bunch of self catering places but some of them are very swanky (boutique gite syle) with all the kiddy kit, plus english speaking babysitting and some also provide home cooked meals so you don't have to cook.

I agree with Xenia. I just haven't been able to make it happen.

I don't settle for anything less than half board hols. I have done the self catering crap before. I am a full-time mum and once a year I want to be pampered. No cooking, No cleaning etc.

It just gives a bit more flexibility. We did self-catering last yr & ate all our main meals out & just made breakfast & sandwiches in the villa. It's also nice sometimes just to chill out around a bbq or takeaway.

But would definitely not go self catering if it meant I was cooking everything!

Also hotels are a bit of a pain if they only have one posh restaurant in which dc won't eat anything. Luckily the one we went to this year had a child friendly menu which was served by the pool!

I refuse point blank to go on any sort of "holiday" that involves cleaning, catering or doing any kind of domestic chore, for any member of the party .

But I know I am very lucky to have the means to do this.

Not sure how I'd tackle the issue otherwise... In my ideal world everyone would get a proper holiday from all work so that families can enjoy themselves without the stress of labour.