Rant about holidays with little kids

[YukoandHiro]

Fucking hate them. The absolute worst time of all. My DH isn't exactly a glass half full person so between us we're close to jumping out the window as we squeeze into another holiday rental and try to find some fun.
We keep doing it because we feel its important for the kids to see other places and get to the seaside but I come home feeling a total husk.
Reasons I hate it:

1. We always self cater because of dietary restrictions (kids', medical) but it means I do a fuck load more wife work/mental load than even falls on me at home
2. Eldest DC never bloody sleeps in another place so me and DH get zero alone time and she's always totally over tired
3. Someone is always ill. This time it's youngest DC with a fever. Which means I get no sleep either.
4. I'm bone crushingly bored. Of rain, of playgrounds, the freezing seaside, bloody UK hols in general, but refuse to spend so much money gojng abroad when the whole thing is a total shit show and I'd be worried about finding suitable meals for the kids all the time.
5. The constant bickering. At least at home their own toys distract them for a while or I can throw them out in the garden with a lot of water toys.

I travelled a lot before DC and I really miss a "real" holiday. Have just made plans to go away for two night with girlfriends in January and I'm counting down the SECONDS.

I'm waiting for the abuse now, "only got 18 summers with your DC" etc... but I honestly can't wait until they're teenagers. This is just throwing money away while being slightly miserable the whole time...

Erm this is why everyone else does AI? Have gluten intolerant kids and I am and its fine

Hot weather, free activities & kids club, dad does diving and I do spa, free drinks and food ..no wifework, no bickering about cost. Job done. Probably cheaper than a crappy UK cottage as well

AI is usually buffet though. We did it with DD who has epipens for a peanut allergy but I would be very reluctant with a serious allergy to milk or eggs, cross contamination nightmare. You'd need to know in advance that the hotel was willing to serve you direct from the kitchen, and that the kitchen understands the severity.

Yes, absolutely no way on Earth we'd risk AI - particularly abroad where we don't know the healthcare system.

DD had a lip swelling reaction requiring antihistamine today after playing at a playground where others had been eating ice cream and obvs left some on the ropes/slides.

Oof that's a very difficult level of allergy to be dealing with, I don't blame you for feeling anxious. Self catering does seem to be the way go.

Yeah it's tricky. Weird thing is she can tolerate baked milk up to pancakes on the milk ladder.... but pure milk is still an extremely severe reaction even on contact only .

That is strange! Hopefully a good sign they'll grow out of it eventually.

The question is do you want a holiday? If you are not getting anything out of it then I would not bother. The kids don't need holidays. Days out are fine at that age.

Thanks for making me roar with laughter!! Absolutely brilliant 🤣

Thanks, this is a really good tip. And yes I think because DH is a shift worker and we don't get much time all together we've felt our holidays are all about that, but more divide and conquer might be in order to make it more enjoyable for the two of us!

Can I ask for the rough locations and airlines you've found work well?

This. I can honestly say every holiday we've been on the kids loved and still go on about the memories now. Mix of caravan, self catering, AI , villa, hotels etc
If it was hard work and unenjoyable for me I wouldn't have gone on them.

Sure, we’ve found the canaries to be best for us, still feels like a holiday, loads of options for eating out and self catering accommodation. Personally we prefer Tenerife - las Americas or costa adeje as there’s a hospital nearby too (just incase!).

Flightwise I only go with Jet2 now. It’s actually better coming back into the UK. My DS’ boarding card sets off an alert when scanned and they check our epipens, notify the whole plane and personally speak to us and those in close proximity too.

Yeah, on Mon we got back from 3 nights at Bluestone with two 4 year olds and I could have written this. Sleep was shocking all round and although the kids had a great time we were bored, knackered and grumpy by the end of it. My top tip is go away with grandparents, if they're at all helpful like ours are. We had a much better break last year when the kids were outnumbered by adults!

Allergies is a whole other stress, our first trip abroad to France DD mainly existed on breastmilk as it was so tough. However we just did our first plane holiday which involved eating out for every meal and it was absolutely fine and has given me confidence - BA were great. You can preboard to clean seats and speak to crew, recommend 1 parent does it to get totally sorted, made it very easy

Nope, definitely don't feel like this.
Ours are DS5 and DD2. Our holidays are literally the best times of my life, love every single second, and totally believe in showing them as many places in the world as possible.

So far they (or just DS before DD was born) have been to Mallorca, Menorca, Salou, Holland, Belgium, Disneyland Paris x 4, Portugal next month, and literally 20-30 UK breaks including CenterParcs, Haven, Parkdean, Travelodges all over the place. We go somewhere at least every month or two. BUT we don't have allergies to worry about so can eat out, very lucky both kids travel well and are flexible, nap anywhere, not tied to routines out of term time etc All possibly just luck but if we weren't all enjoying the trips we wouldn't do them.

Everyone is different, 30hrs Road trip in the car is exciting for us, would be absolutely sheer hell for someone else.

Could you reframe the definition of a holiday? I see the kids have allergies and so self catering is important. However, perhaps you could try a city break? For example, when my child was young I took him to Prague and we basically found all the different city play grounds and did a different one each day. That also allows you to see the different parts of the city. The ones there are quite scenic so it’s more relaxing/ interesting than your average UK play area. The public transport is easy to navigate and cheap.
Many restaurants there also advise about allergens.

I highly recommend travelling by car to France by eurotunnel le shuttle. You can take some food but have to declare, just make sure you have a translator app for the supermarket. Allergens are in bold. Lait is easy,I think the usual app codes often do work. Eurocamp self catering is so much better than say haven here.

Sorry no sure what whey is in french but Google all the possibilities.
But at their age day trips or overnight only works best depending where you live.
Have you tried Google maps playgrounds and go to 2 or 3 fairly close in the car in a day, they find this more amazing than a holiday at that age.

Thank you this is encouraging. It's a stress that I think it's really hard to understand unless you're in it. Little kids eat five times a day minimum, there's no break from it at all

I hear you.

A holiday for me is not cooking and shoving them in the kids club for at least some of the time. And even then I'm not sure the payoff is great enough to outweigh the organisation/packing/travel/sleep issues in a strange place/food issues etc.

No suggestions. It sounds like hard labour tbh, undertaken because you love your kids and want them to have the usual childhood experiences. And they will remember some bits. My DC remembers haring up and down the beach chasing seagulls age 4 while I waddled after them, heavily pregnant, trying to get them to stop.

This year was the first time i actually properly enjoyed our family holiday, children are 5, 6 and 8yrs and for the first time we didnt have to pack so many extra things like bedguards and cups with lids.

We find caravan parks work best because theres always something to occupy them. This year we hired a caravan with a hot tub, we lowered the temp so it was like a warm bath and sat on the balcony with our feet up reading and supervising whilst they played in it. We took scooters so they spent hours playing on the grassy area outside with other kids and then they spent the evening being entertained at the club whilst we sat and chatted/watched them. We had a few daytrips, went swimming every day and they were so knackered they fell asleep by 9 and we chilled in the hot tub.

I did refuse to do any cooking this year as i am utterly sick of meal planning and cooking so we saved throught the year to be able to eat out everyday so all we had to make was breakfast (variety pack of cereal or toast) and a sandwich at lunchtime. For the first time in 8yrs i actually came home feeling like id had a break