Would this be too much for your young kids ?

[toomuchfu]

I'm aware they're all different etc etc.

But I am just talking to my mum and how things were when I was little and what we would get up to on holiday and how we would behave vs how it is with my kids..

So I will outline a couple of days as an example

1. Get up after around 9 hours sleep ( kids are 2 and 4 ). Go to the beach until around 1 pm. From around 10 am. Then have a sit down lunch until around 2pm. Go home, 2 year old naps for a couple of hours and 4 year old goes in the pool. Go out to dinner at 8 or 9ish. Sit down dinner for at least an hour. Then go to a fun fair and let them go on trampoline, ferris wheel etc.. then home and in bed at around 11 pm.

1. Another day, get up after 9ish hours of sleep. Play at home and have lunch at 1, set off on 1.5 hour car journey. Kids nap in the car. Arrive at destination, go to friends house for 45 minutes . Wake kids to go into house. Then stop at hotel for 30 minutes, then go to buy some food at supermarket, then go to buy kids clothes at shop,then onto another stop and then a two hour meal. After meal at around 10 pm, go to an another place for a drink with kids. Then go home and kids in bed by midnight.

1. Kids up after 9 hours sleep. Off into the car to have breakfast at cafe, then quick play at playground and onto 30 minute journey ti have lunch at relatives house for two hours. The straight back to the car and journey home for 1.5 hours. Then just home time and bed.

I didn't cover bath time and story time but it's also I there.

Don't you think that this is A LOT for kids this age? Especially a 2 year old? And you'd naturally expect there to be some tears and tantrums with this kind of schedule ? My mum says my parents did even more with us and we just slotted in and didn't complain......

Yes it's loads, late nights aswell. If it works for you and the kids aren't tired and stuffing etc then that's fine. But I think that's a lot I was exhausted reading it

My eldest could have just about coped with those days. Probably wouldn't have cried unless she got hurt, but might have been fragile e.g. by day a a small bump on the knee would have caused big tears. Her brothers wouldnt have coped with it AT ALL and would have been screaming and miserable by the second day.

I used to have very intense holidays with my parents, but I was around 6 or older by then. Perhaps your parents are out by a year or two

I think if they’re crying when they normally wouldn’t then that’s not them coping or being OK.

In your first example at 4 mine would have needed a nap too. Even older they would still need to nap every other day.

At those ages most children should be having around 12 hours. Not having enough sleep is deprimental to people’s health.

I don't really see why the kids are going to bed so late and apart from the first day it doesn't look particularly fun for them either.

Why the late dinners and then amusement parks afterwards? On the first day there doesn't seem to be anything between the afternoon nap and dinner, so I have no idea why you'd go out for dinner that late rather than, say 6-7pm.

On the second and third day it seems to be mostly driving around visiting people and going shopping, which I'd think was a fairly boring weekend day for my kids, definitely not a holiday.

We are taking small kids on holiday in a few weeks' time and we've gone for holiday homes so we can eat in in the evenings and have a drink in the garden after the kids have gone to bed. If we go to restaurants it'll be for lunch. We'll plan most of our days around having a nap/quiet time after lunch, so kid friendly activities all morning and then again late in the afternoon. I expect my 3 year old will skip his nap a few times.

This would be too much for DS 6. He's an early riser no matter what. If he goes to bed late he wakes even earlier. A day like that would be okay and then another day with a few days of more regular hours in the middle. When he's overtired he doesn't enjoy things which means neither do I!

It sounds a busy schedule but for kids that age they'd be ok with the change in routine and a busy schedule, especially if they had a day to chill after coming home.

I suspect your mom is misremembering on how much you guys would fit in though, i don't see how you'd cram in more with kids that age.

All kids are different but if you're somewhere in southern Europe I suspect the reality is that those kids are on a completely different sleep schedule to your kids and have a 4 hour nap in the afternoon, waking up at 5 or 6pm, and they go to bed late every day.

Maybe in the 1800s.

I grew up in the 90s and I was a whiny crying brat. My mum used to tell me to play in traffic on a daily basis.

My oldest would have been absolutely fine with it as a toddler* but she barely slept then anyway, and went to sleep around midnight on a normal night, let alone while on holiday. I don't think my youngest would have coped at 2 but when he was 4 we went on a long holiday and we did a lot, with a lot of late nights (but not as late as midnight, except on travelling days) and he did manage alright. Now at 6 he'd bloody love that kind of holiday but his tiredness would show in being more prone to tears over smaller things.

*she'd hate it now as a teenager though!

🤣🤣🤣 I know right! I bet it stopped you acting up in public though

🤣🤣🤣 at least she did that rather than give cuddles and say ‘I know how you’re feeling’ when you were being bratty 🙄🙄🙄

My 2 year old would be sleeping on his feet. I expect my kids to be able to cope with small changes in routine on holiday but this would take them ages to recover from.

I mean if it was an occasional day my 4 year old would probably be okay but if it was for a week or longer absolutely not. In fact he probably wouldn't cope with his routine being out for 2 days. He's autistic though so a bit different.
DD1 would have been fine on that sort of thing but knackered by the end of the holiday. DD2 would be okay during the day but not so great by the evening. She's 16 now and still likes to be in bed before 9 pm even on holidays

I don't get the question ? Is it the late bedtimes. Mine were never put to bed later than 7 pm. On holiday or special occasions they would stay up but otherwise no. If that works for you that's fine. You don't need us to tell you that surely.

Yeah my DD is 7 and we could do 1/2 possibly 3 days of this, but she’s normally sleep between 8/9pm and up at 7. Losing 2-3 hours a night would be too much and she can’t manage a nap in the day now.

I think there’s also an element of rose tinted glasses going on with your mum.

A one off day maybe. My 6 year old stayed up last night to watch the Olympic opening ceremony. He woke up normal time at 6.30 this morning and he’s an emotional mess and looks tired.

So for my child, that would be far too much

I think that sounds fine for a holiday. We did similar when we went overseas with our daughter for the first time when she was nearly five, and would have done the same if she had been younger. It just added to the excitement of being on holiday for my daughter to be out at 11 or midnight; she fell asleep a couple of times and we carried her back to our apartment, but she didn't come to any harm and just slept in until 9 or 10 the next morning. She was never the only small child who was in a restaurant at that time of night.

My DS often stayed up that late on holiday. Hes managed to reach adulthood with no harm done

They will certainly let you know, one way or the other if it is too much for them! Expect the odd scream and tantrum or sudden falling asleep at wrong place and time!

Strange how so many others perfectly understood my question, but ok..

Wouldn't have worked for mine at that age, unless there was a very significant later afternoon nap for both. At 4, mine needed more like 11-12 hours sleep.

Tbf though, that wouldn't even work for me - standing around at 10pm at a funfair waiting for shrieking kids to puke on the trampolines (at £5 a go)? No thank you!

Mine would have been fine with that kind of schedule at that age, but it doesn't really matter what anyone else's kids are like. What matters is whether it is too much for your children. If it is, then it's perfectly reasonable to dial things back a bit.

Mine couldn't have coped with that but some would and also depends how different it is from their regular routine. Mine were 11+ hours sleep a night kind of kids (plus day time sleeps until well over 3) and meals at 7.30, 11.30 & 4.30pm. One holiday we went on it was clear after a couple of days DD wasn't going to work well with later meals and later to bed so I just reverted to her normal routine and I ended up going to bed much earlier than other adults but I was going to take the worst of a tired and unhappy DD so made the best choice for her and I. There were comments from other family members but no offers to step in so I did what worked best for us.

In my experience grandparents have often forgotten an awful lot about what it's actually like to parent small children on a day to day basis.

My mum has rolled her eyes when I haven't let her give my children popcorn or toys which are small enough to choke on and said, "I have raised children myself, you know!"

Well yeah, fine, but I'm not going to give my kids things which are unsafe just because you don't remember paying any attention to that stuff and I survived to adulthood.

Similarly, I think they've most likely forgotten the naps, the weaning, the potty training, all the stuff that you have to structure your entire lives around for a few years while your kids are that young.

It's never helpful to compare your kids' ability to cope with that of children you don't know. You don't know when those children went to bed last night, when they usually go to bed, when they last had a nap, how long for, or when they had their last tantrum. @toomuchfu You say your child had three 20 minute tantrums in one day which sounds like a bad day to me. But anyone else looking at your child outside of those three 20 minute periods might have been thinking, "See, that child is coping, why isn't mine?"

All you're seeing is a snapshot of their day, whereas you know what's going on with your kids all day every day.

Ultimately your mum isn't the parent responsible for your kids so if you think the holiday schedule and late mealtimes and bedtimes don't work for your kids, that's your call, not hers.

My girls would have a had a routine like this when they were that age and we were holidaying with my parents. They'd get into the buggy when they were tired but most nights wouldn't have been in bed until 1130/12. They were fine. I did stick to their naps during the day. We always had a great time. Normal routine started again when we got home.