Found first baby holiday so stressful

[Gretnafrew]

Booked a short UK break in Lakes with 11 month old baby, DH and dog. First holiday together for all of us and really looked forward to it.

Planned out one activity and dog/ family friendly restaurant lunch per day but in the end plans just went out the window as we found it harder to do baby's routine in new place and it just wasn't enjoyable. We were both exhausted by 6pm and ready to go to bed at same time as baby.

We've ended up coming home early and I feel like a bit of a failure tbh. I wasn't expecting anything super relaxing but I feel like we struggled to adapt even though DH is very hands on and we brought all the items we could think of for baby.

We could manage things like a short walk in baby carrier or stroll around nearby town with pram but going a bit further to do something for several hours like a day trip just felt like too much. Maybe I had unrealistic expectations but I've seen/ heard of others doing similar without too much trouble.

I've probably seen too many travel Instagram accounts where they make travelling with a baby look like a breeze and just really wanted to start doing some trips together.

Maybe IBU and just don't know how to travel with baby or was I silly to try and plan too much? We're not planning anymore holidays for a while now as feels like a waste of money but I'm feeling like a bit of a rubbish mum for not being able to take baby on trips successfully and finding it all so stressful.

We have a 3 year old and 1 year old. Have been on several UK holidays with one or both and we also had a weekend away with them to get married. Tbh for us being out and about or on holiday is probably less stressful than being at home. 3 year old is the least chilled child possible (loads of emotions, full of energy, low sleep needs, everything is a battle) but when we are out she is much better. We only have loose routines e.g. they both nap/napped as and when they are tired, usually in buggy or car, and betime moves according to how naps went. As others have said, I think not having a strict routine is helpful when it comes to holidays as we just go with the flow.

I remember my first holiday with a baby. I was used to chilling out with a book on holiday and the change was a shock to me! I have enjoyed holidays since though, including with DC2 when they were a baby. You have to adjust your expectations about what you're going to do while you're away and I found self-catering accommodation best. Also I didn't travel in the first few months. Better to wait until baby is at least 9/10 months IMO.

@Gretnafrew we haven't done much traveling with our little one. The holidays we have had have all been in the UK. We've rented a holiday house / cottage for a week or gone to centre parcs. Own space / bedrooms / meals can be in or out. Can take other family / friends along easily for help. We do fancy a beach holiday, but probably not for another few years. Lots of time for more adventurous holidays once kids are older and easier to manage (hopefully). Saving a few pennies for now.

Also, I don't follow any kind of baby / child stuff on social media. I can imagine the fomo the makes you feel awful, so I don't bother with any of it.

IME babies generally don't like holidays. They like familiar surroundings and routines, usually get very unsettled and don't sleep. After the first one, we didn't bother any more until dc were much older. Self catering with babies/ toddlers is more exhausting than being at home.

I 100% relate OP. I have a friend who's constantly gone on holiday since her son was born - Disneyland, cruises etc. However they ALWAYS go with the grandparents.

However when me and DH took our then 6 month old on a package sun holiday I wanted to tear my hair out....😔 I too felt like a failure.

We always stuck to self catering accommodation when the DC were little - home from home is so much easier. As a PP said it’s the change of scenery we craved so we weren’t fussed that we still had to sort our own food. We loved our holidays 🥰

We liked all inclusive in the Canaries.

Someone else would do all the cooking, someone else would come into the room 3 times a week and sweep up all the sand, the pool was warm enough to go in for hours even with a baby, the out of pool temperature was hot enough that the toddler didn’t ever need drying as she just dried in the sun (recommend sun suits), beach nearby where the toddler would happily dig for hours (once she had got over her fear of sand - originally we had to carry her to the right spot, the put a towel down for her to stand on while she dug and then keep moving her and the towel so that she could keep digging without ever actually touching the sand 😂 but it worked!)

We also found taking one or other set of parents ridiculously helpful as well. It wasn’t that we expected them to do lots of childcare (we didn’t and they didn’t!) but just having extra adult bodies makes life much simpler. For example my dad tended to look at babies like they were unexploded bombs but he was quite happy to sit and read the paper in the airport whilst surrounded by two trunkis, three rucksacks and a half eaten sandwich while I took ds to change his nappy and Dh took dd to buy water.

Everything is easier at home. We took our 1 year old to Mallorca, what a living nightmare that was. I couldn’t wait to come home. All these people said ‘oh she’ll nap in her buggy in the shade and you can read by the pool’ or ‘take the baby out with you in the buggy at night and then she’ll sleep in late in the mornings!’ What a load of tripe.

As they’ve got older I’m not sure it’s even got easier, well actually it probably is easier but it’s never ever relaxing, whenever we stay somewhere new the excitement levels are through the roof and getting them to bed is always hard. Holidays are just hard work, they are rarely relaxing anymore.

I'm currently sat feeding my son to sleep in the Lakes, and unfortunately it's just the wrong age to have a baby holiday here.

Unless they like the car, there will always be a limited amount in immediate range of the Lakes, so you're toying up naps Vs energy Vs entertainment etc.

The trip at 10 weeks was much easier!

For your next holiday, I recommend picking your nearest seaside town and get generous sized accommodation in case the weather is crap. Then take half a day off each whilst the other tires the baby out on the beach.

Oooh - also massively recommend the sun tents that you can get for tiny ones. Baby ds could feed or nap in them, dd could come in if she was feeling too hot or we wanted her to sit down and have a snack.

The only snag was that my dad discovered that the tent was far superior to a parasol for reading his paper in and so basically moved in!

What part did you find hard? Maybe people could suggest things to help? Are you particularly rigid with naps?

We took our eldest from 3 months on short breaks in the UK but never for longer than a long weekend. We also realised that we couldn't be out all day, for instance she might nap in a sreollee at lunchtime but then needed to be back at the hotel room for bed so we ordered room service or a takeaway. If we let her nap in the hotel room at lunch them she would be fine whilst we were out for dinner in the evening, however we would eat early eg. 6pm so we could be done dusted by time she started to get tired. We had a rough itinerary but we're very much child led. I also didn't consider self catering as neither of us wanted to cook or clean as we did enough of that at home.

This thread just shows how different everyone is. All inclusive stuck round a pool for a week isn’t my idea of fun but plenty of people love it. For us with DC, self catering holidays with plenty of our own space have been great from when they were very small (we first took dc1 away at 6 weeks old). It’s the change of scenery for me and being able to explore different places; I also like being able to take plenty of home comforts with us so cottage + driving (in Europe) have been our main hols. DC1 definitely wasn’t a chilled baby, but in a way that was easier as they didn’t nap well so I never felt I needed to be wedded to a routine with that. Bedtime we did stick to but then being in a self catering place means you aren’t stuck in a hotel room being silent or in the bathroom drinking wine which is what some of our friends always end up doing 😂

Now you’ve done it, OP, you’ll have more of an idea what to expect next time and it won’t feel so tough. And it’s ok for us all to like different things & make different decisions.

Agree with posters saying it depends on the baby and it depends where you go. We went on an all-inclusive beach holiday when our second DD was ten weeks old, and older DD was a couple of months away from turning 4. It was great - I lay on a sun lounger feeding/holding sleeping baby, watching DH play in the water with our older girl. Sometimes DH would hold the baby while I splashed about with the elder in the pool. As it was all-inclusive, meals were relaxed and available whenever we wanted; obviously we didn't drink much but we ate our body weight in ice creams and cakes. Bedtime was usually 10pm for everyone (baby would fall asleep in buggy as we watched the shows in the evening) which is much later for our older daughter than at home, but she coped fine on it and just slept in a bit later than usual in the morning (8am).

It was a fantastic week.

HOWEVER . . . we're going away again next month, when the baby will be nine months old. I think it might be a bit harder with a baby that will want to crawl around and eat some solid food at mealtimes, but we'll see.

Your basis for reality being Instagram was the first problem. Half the people there have shown the one photo of the day they managed to get where the baby wasn't screaming, and the other half have an entourage of mum and nanny.

Also a holiday involving a dog and a baby sounds generally hellish.

I think you did well all things considered.

Another reason why I don't have kids.
Finding at least one a day.
😁

I think this is one of those things where it totally depends on the child and your parenting style.
travelling with my kids was super easy, but they were all fairly laid back kids and I was a very chill parent that didn’t sweat the small stuff, or panic over routines, force them to sleep in dark rooms with silence etc. they were used to restaurants etc. but when I then took my nephew out for a day it was a whole different experience because of the life he was used to and his temperament.

I think maybe you over planned things. We’ve got a 12 week old and already been to Devon. We found the best thing to do was not plan stuff and see how little one is feeling each day which then determined what we did. We also don’t really do a day time routine with baby. She gets fed and naps when she wants. 7pm is always bath time and then bed, but in the day it’s all baby led so I suppose in a way we let her lead our holiday too and we found it relaxing.

We didn't go on holiday at all until he was 3, and that was a bit of a nightmare 😳 . He had his first foreign holiday last year at 8 ( cruise from Southampton, so no flights). It's really good.

Now I am pregnant with number 2 and had to transfer the cruise we had booked to next year or lose the deposit . Baby will be 10 months, and I am dreading it. At least there are no flights .

I looked into cruises as I thought it would be a good option with a baby but the cruise lines I was interested in didn’t allow babies under the age of one.

That might not be the case with the cruise you plan to take but just wanted to flag it up so you can double check.

Bon voyage!

We did stuff with ours at that age but didn't worry about routine. They slept in carrier etc They ate whatever we found that was suitable eg bread sticks, cheese. Drank cows milk.
We also camped and they bathed in a flexi bucket lol.
I think it's a killer if trying to stick to routines

I think it’s very dependent on the personality of the child. We had quite a portable under one year old and also not too bad as a toddler. We never had a very rigid routine. Naps at nursery were regular but we kept things more fluid on non nursery days. He was used to being out and about in the afternoons. But a very easy baby and toddler in general. It really is luck whether you get one of those or not.

@DifficultBloodyWoman checked with P&O babies, must be 6 months plus to travel, but can't access the kids' club without an adult until the age of 2. But you can go.in with them and have a play, just can't leave them.
They do have a night nursery they must be asleep . You have to settle them . Then the buzz you if they wake . Knowing what my oldest was like it probably won't get used !

We laugh about it now but found first holiday as parents such a shock! Just the realisation when we got there that it wasn’t time to open a beer and put your feet up😂
we love holidays with the kids now (two still toddlers and one older) as it gets easier every year. Gradually less stuff to take and kids able not handle more spontaneous stuff.

Don’t be put off giving it another a go! Not always a popular opinion but I found mid week term time centre parcs great for this age, full of other tired parents and everything geared towards kids but with a Starbucks thrown in.

Either go abroad when they're pre 6 months and completely portable with lots of naps, or don't go away until they're at least 4 UNLESS you go away with family with lots of willing babysitters.

We took nice holidays with babies. Not as nice as without! But equally I couldn't bear not going away at all. Kept it v simple, all inclusive resorts so no cooking for us. Made sure we got a brilliant shade for the buggy so baby got proper naps and stuck to their routine. So. Up early, walks, paddling, lunch, nap, more play, dinner, bed and finally a well earned wine on the balcony. Repeat for 6 days. I think self catering or a cottage in the rain would be much harder. Once you have factor 50 sun suits and plenty shade then sun is easier. But you do you !