Is this holiday going to be a bit shit or am I just being fussy?

[AngeloMysterioso]

DH, DS and I are due to go away for 4 nights at the beginning of September. It’ll be our first trip anywhere since having DS who will be 22 months old. DH, being master of coin in the family, went ahead and booked the accommodation without really seeking any input from me (I did at the time suggest an Airbnb would be the most practical thing, advice he apparently did not heed), and only told me after he’d booked it- he said it was a hotel over the road from the beach, the room is on the first floor and there’s no lift which will be a bit of a pain but not the end of the world (his words, not mine).

I’ve just looked it up this evening. DH booked the biggest room we could afford, thinking it would mean more space- what it actually means is more beds, a double, a single and a foldaway- DS sleeps in a travel cot which we’re going to have to fit in somewhere. I will be 27 weeks pregnant so sleeping in a double bed (particularly when we’re used to being in a king size) is going to be a bit cramped! He also neglected to consider the fact that DS goes to sleep in a dark room with his white noise playing at around 7:30 pm- this room has no living space or a sofa or anything, so every evening once DS is asleep is going to be spent sitting on a bed in the dark a few feet away, trying not to wake him up. Not exactly relaxing.

When I pointed all this out to DH he got all huffy and defensive, saying I should have pointed this out when he was booking it (I mean why the hell should I have to? He’s as much a parent and an adult as I am!). I had a look for alternative options but it’s only 5 weeks away now so everywhere is either booked up or way too expensive- I found an Airbnb which looked reasonable and appeared to only cost slightly more per night, but when I went to reserve it the cleaning and service fees came to more than £100, so in total it would be a 40% increase which is just too much.

DH is all pissed off now and saying I should just book the Airbnb anyway despite the extra cost because I’m only going to be moaning all the time otherwise, which I feel is a bit unfair- I’m only pointing out stuff he should have thought of in the first place. AIBU?

Have a look on booking.com or similar to see if the Airbnb property is listed on there. Many are listed in multiple platforms and are cheaper. Also if not, email the Airbnb people and see if they will negotiate a little. We got 30% off our Spain villa by paying up front. Worst they can say is no.

If you end up keeping hotel room contact the hotel see if they hve any other options for rooms. Explain. They might be able to help. Ajoining rooms or similar?

When ds was really little we used to put his travel cot in the bathroom, although at 22 months yours might be a little old for that…. Could always wheel him in when he’s asleep. Or put him in a little black out tent thing….

If none of the above works just grin and bear it. It will be what it will be and being miserable will only spoil the entire holiday.

I find it odd people just book things and don't discuss......i am the holiday organiser but before booking anything I show my dh and see what he thinks, see whats suitable.
All you can do now is see if you can get something more suitable or just have to manage that... Sept shouldn't be too bad as schools are back.

Maybe you could just try it and see how it goes. I have two kids who don’t sleep that well and we have managed in hotel rooms (just).
The first night is always awful but it is in self catering too because it’s a new exciting place. After that it gets better. I would by preference have an apartment on holiday but it would be nice to be next to the beach. Maybe just put the baby to sleep an hour later for a few nights. Take a laptop, some headphones and a splitter and watch a movie after he’s asleep. Bring a plug in cool box for some drinks and snacks.

My best advice is to take a fan with you, white noise for the baby and helps block out other hotel noises and keeps the room cooler.

On the other hand it might actually work out cheaper (but more work?) booking the air bnb as you don’t have to eat all your meals out

He was unreasonable to book it in the first place. I agree with you that it's not a good solution.

But it sounds like you are being unreasonable now to keep complaining about it but not agree to a change. Between you, you should either to rebook and pay more, or cancel and go another time, with more notice.

Ok, the master of coin thing was meant to be a joke, clearly it didn’t come across that way!

The hotel is actually a guest house, no bar/restaurant or room service, there’s a little dining room but they only do breakfast. So not sure what we’ll be doing about dinners, just eating early I guess!

The beds thing isn’t that big a deal, I know.

So far we’ve not really had the chance or need to try and get DS to sleep at night in his pram since he was a little baby- he naps at the childminders when he goes there one day a week, he’s slept over night at PILs a couple of times but that’s it. When I try to get him to nap in his pram during the day he’ll generally only sleep for half an hour max, whereas at home he can nap for up to 3 hours. We could try a few dummy runs between now and then to see how he copes with being kept up later, but I suspect it wouldn’t go well…

@IamMaz

I think it's unfortunate that you have conditioned your DS to expect certain conditions for him to be able to sleep. It creates such a problem later on...

Ugggh I hate this sneery nonsense from someone who has had a certain type of baby and can’t comprehend that they’re not all robots that you can ‘train’ to be the same way!

I tried everything to make my babies ‘flexible’ and would have loved nothing more than to be able to pop them anywhere in broad daylight to sleep while I ate dinner etc. but they were both just super alert and curious babies that saw no appeal in switching off and going to sleep. So I had to switch the world off for them by blacking out the room, white noise etc. My mum used to trot out the old chestnut about how a baby will sleep anywhere if it’s tired enough....until she spent time with mine They would just get more and kore hysterical with overtiredness and funnily enough didn’t just close their eyes and drop off after getting in that state.

But more fool me for not leaving them to it and ‘creating such problems’ for myself later on

Ok, just make sure that if you stick with the hotel that your DH isn’t assuming you’ll stay in the room or bathroom while he heads for the bar.

Yes, try out dinner at a pub near home over the summer one evening.

If you can't do the 'just take them in the pushchair while you go out for dinner and a walk so you have to sit in the hotel room whispering in the dark from 7 pm' then a hotel seems completely unsuitable and a waste of time and money.

Is this in the UK? Are there no caravans, serviced apartments or anything available at all even if in a different area?

Cancel the guest house..........you will just be miserable and it's going to be a disaster! Holidays with young children require appropriate accommodation and planning.
I always preferred self-catering when mine were little, put the child to bed and relax watching a film, playing cards etc in another room. Much easier to be able to make snacks or meals rather than paying a fortune to eat out all the time.
Hopefully your DH will learn from this!!!

Cough up and get an airbnb.

@Kalvinette

Cough up and get an airbnb.

Any available This short notice By the coast Will be… awful

Much easier to be able to make snacks or meals rather than paying a fortune to eat out all the time

That's a good point. While a self catering apartment might cost more, you'll probably save money on feeding yourself because you can get a load of nice ready prepared food and pay supermarket not pub/restaurant prices for alcohol.

Any available
This short notice
By the coast
Will be… awful

Not necessarily. It's past the main summer season, so demand is a lot less. Plus they don't need to go to the same place, they could go anywhere.

And this place has a sea view, so somewhere just as nice, but without the premium for a sea view could be available. It would be worth knowing if the OP has looked anywhere except AirBnB, which doesn't have very transparent pricing, and isn't always the best value.

All being in one room and having to sit in silence when your son is asleep will be hellish.

He's absolutely cocked up there but hopefully lesson learnt.

Definitely book the Airbnb if you can.

On the flip side, I'm guessing the Airbnb is self catering and has kitchen facilities? In that case it will work out cheaper as you won't have to eat out all the time, which costs a fortune on holiday.

Hotel rooms with babies and small children are horrible. However we didn't realise that until we'd tried it
So your dh is not unreasonable to have booked it not knowing what it would be like. Bit weird that you weren't involved in the booking process though.

It's like the time we took our first baby out for lunch, thought we'd packed everything we'd need. We forgot a spare outfit and he peed all over his clothes while my dh was changing his nappy. You live and learn.

I find it odd people just book things and don't discuss.

Me too, I find it odd & also inconsiderate. We've got a caravan booked in a few weeks, I like researching holidays so found a few options & showed DH, he did a bit of his own research then we decided on one together. I'd find it really rude if he made a unilateral decision.

So dramatic on here.

Give it a go OP or let your husband take your son and you stay at home. Complaining about having 2 beds for 2 people just makes it obvious that you're determined not to like it.

I've travelled the world in hotels with babies, it was wonderful. Never "hellish"

The biggest take away from this thread for me is that a significant number of parents of easy sleepers appear to have zero concept of how fortunate they are and instead of thanking their lucky stars that they got children who could sleep anywhere they inexplicably judge parents of children who aren't naturally such easy sleepers

My eldest spoke in full sentences from an unusually early age but I didn't go around judging other parents whose children didn't and telling them they should have just "trained" their child to speak earlier! If anyone ever commented on DC's advanced language (which they did often) I made a joke about how I talked a lot so it wasn't surprising if they wanted to have a chance of getting a word in and made sure to point out that they walked late. Have some empathy, people.

The advantage of the Airbnb will be the kitchen facilities, you could have your main meal at lunchtime (usually cheaper than dinner anyway) and the have buffet/sandwiches in the evening so that it doesn't feel like a busman's holiday.
But it might be worth checking that you couldn't change the room configuration at the hotel, often they will not allocate actual rooms until the day before. Perhaps 2 interconnecting rooms would improve the situation (keep the external door locked with do not disturb sign up and put suitcases etc in front of it). Or a ground floor room and take a couple of folding chairs so you could at least sit outside and chat of an evening.

Not RTFT but we just recently bought a cot sized SnoozeShade, which is great for room sharing. We can even have a light on.

Another option is you also book a single room in the same hotel just for you

Congrats if you were LUCKY enough to have an easy going child in the sleep department. It has very little to do with your amazing parenting skills.

YABU - It’s a four day holiday. Can’t you be a bit flexible with regard to sleep and let your DS stay up a bit later? I genuinely don’t see the issue here. We stayed in a big hotel room in the US for ten nights when DD was about the same age. For that time, bedtime rules were sacrificed for the sake of having a relaxed family holiday. And it was glorious. Go and enjoy it.

Haven't RTFT in glorious detail but have skimmed.

Ooh I have done that! To the extent of sitting outside the bedroom door with a book once DC were in bed. (Pre-mobile phone entertainment days.)

I totally get why you are annoyed, OP. If the already-booked room is your only option, it seems to me that you should have the double bed and DH can sleep in the single bed (so you can be comfortable in the night).

Does the hotel/B&B not have a residents' lounge? Could you ask to use the dining room, given your circumstances (depending on whether a baby alarm would work?) Wait till you get there and ask - poke out your big tummy and look weary, it's worth a try. I know it's not the same as going out to bars, clubs etc, but presumably you wouldn't be doing that in an airbnb anyway. And I remember not being willing to even go to the bar together as I would not leave the child in the room without some supervision even just from the other side of the door ["what if there's a fire?"] so it was tag-team all the way. We just had to pack in all our holidaymaking during the day, and then we were quite tired anyway when it came to the evening!

Hope you get a solution that suits.

I think the people commenting on how the OP shouldn’t have conditioned her baby to need a quiet environment are people who have older children and not lockdown babies. My baby is a lockdown baby and hasn’t had the experience of sleeping anywhere other than in his own house. We’ve had one night in a hotel when he was little and two nights at my parents more recently. There not really been the opportunity trail round with him in his buggy on holiday!