To take separate holidays from now on

[Copenhagener]

I’ve always travelled a lot - sometimes with my partner and also solo. We prefer busy itineraries and lots of sightseeing rather than chilling out at the pool.

We now have a 6 month old daughter. Just took her on her first trip to Puglia in Italy with my partner and it’s been underwhelming. His choice of destination.

Our daughter has been great, sleeping through the night and excited by the surroundings which was a pleasant surprise - but the itinerary was too full on (4 hotels, driving every day to new spots, meals out) and he’s quite annoyed by how unrelaxing it is.

There’s the 1-5pm siesta, which doesn’t help with flexibility. He’s now saying he’s sick and grumpy and tired and just wants to chill. I’ve cancelled the last hotel so we can stay in place, but I feel his expectations were unrealistic. I also offered him the chance to fly home early but he didn’t want to.

I’ve told him that in future I’d prefer we holiday separately (at least until daughter is older) as this trip felt like hard work and I’ve not enjoyed it much. I booked a solo trip to northern Greece in September and will take a week off while he stays home with daughter. He’s off to a music festival for a week in July so I feel it’s fair. He says he’s sad we won’t holiday as a family in future, but has barely cracked a smile the whole time we’ve been here.

Am I being unreasonable to take family trips off the table for the next few years and go solo?

Holidaying with young children is just parenting in a different location, without access to all the supplies and facilities you do at home. If your baby doesn’t usually sleep until 10am at home, they won’t whilst away.

I did a similar trip when my DD was 2 and it went great so it’s not long before you can stop taking it easy. At 8, we have now been camping, doing city breaks and lots of adventures for years. Whilst we head off on lots of adventures, we rarely travel with her dad. He doesn’t enjoy it so much anymore and my DD has gained my sense of adventure. Children can love a beach/pool but can also love more active holidays. They gain that love through experiences we give as parents. As long as a playpark and gelato appear at least once a day, we have a good balance. You will too in time

I have to say, eight years in with three kids and frankly a generous budget, I haven't yet found a holiday location/format I prefer to being in my own home. It all feels very much "same shit, different location".

The most successful have been simple bucket and spade holidays on the nearby coast, and driving holidays into France/Belgium with the Eurotunnel.

Yy to time to yourselves each.

It's a huge generalisation, I know, but men often can't envisage the reality of being somewhere with kids until they've been somewhere with kids.
He thought he knew what he wanted, but the reality was it overwhelmed him because he's tired from work. Rather than admit that he got it wrong he's lashing out and being miserable.
You're reacting to his lashing out and going down this no more holidays route.
You are both stressed and you've carried a lot this holiday.
In one way your "do separate things" holiday plan is good. It will give you non child time. And coming back energised is wonderful. But don't let it take over your life - too easy for a gap to grow that might be filled by someone else.
You don't have to decide now. He's exhausted you're upset. Book a date night fir a month's time to mull it over and decide what was it that actually went wrong and what do you both need now from holidays.

it totally IS relevant, it's never that enjoyable to be all crammed together in one room

It's even more relevant with babies and toddlers than with primary school age ones.

I feel like you missed a complete stage - where you both look at what’s needed now - instead you’ve gone straight to him carrying on as he is - something is really missing

We have never done an all inclusive nor a resort we do mainly sightseeing holidays but we get to relax sometimes and do some more child related things also, we just remain flexible and go with the flow

We all pick some things we want to do and do them and other things fit in with this, none of us would enjoy resorts

I’ve had a solo holiday nearly every year since my first was born 12 years ago. Not to say we don’t ever do family holidays and we both take the kids travelling individually. But a big holiday with all of us is a lot of work and not as enjoyable.

Now he does sound a bit miserable and you both need to manage expectations, but solo travel is great and there is nothing wrong with leaving dc at home and going. As they get a bit older, if you’re a seasoned traveller, you’ll also find your feet. My dc have been all over Europe, to museums, to botanical gardens, the markets, churches, little tavernas, from babies, never done AI or seen a hotel buffet. It can also be done. But you deserve to enjoy yourself and have a break too.

The kind of holiday you’re describing is our kind of holiday. But when our son was young we just did all inclusive resorts. Much easier and you can do some day trips etc. They weren’t our ideal holiday but we had a good time and lots of great memories.

Once he got to about 7 we started doing our self-organised trips again but finding a balance between pool days and sightseeing days.

He’s 15 now and he didn’t spend much time in the pool last year so this year we’re back to having more typical holidays for us with lots of sightseeing etc.

You need to rethink what you do on holiday. Sightseeing with small children can be difficult as they get bored easily. I think you can have holidays together you both just need to agree. Life changes when you have children it sounds like you both need to prioritise what your child needs. But obviously you can holiday separately but it won’t be great for your relationship if you don’t have time out together.

We are well out the other side now but we have had lots of interesting, memorable holidays with our children. Some were not the type of holiday I'd choose as a childfree adult but we always made sure there was some aspect we could enjoy.

Otherwise we always put their needs first and made sure the holiday would work for them first and foremost (happy child = at least reasonably happy parent!)

As they got older we introduced the idea of moving location and varying the activity more. But when younger, we always stayed in one place for the duration and checked on places we could visit from there.

Having a family involves compromise.

There is a reason that even some of the most hardened ‘travellers’ find themselves booking an all inclusive when kids arrive despite having sworn blind for the past decade it would never be for them…

kids are hard work- people often just want holidays to be as easy as possible to get a bit of downtime. Culture vulture style holidays are very different with kids in tow. My eldest is turning 9 and I think is now at the age where she’d love to go to Rome for a city break and get something out of it. Her sister at 6 would still be quite hard work for that sort of trip so want to wait another year.

Used to love holidaying with the kids back in the day, but we’d base ourselves at a nice private gite / house in SW France or north eastern Spain with a pool and just mix up days out in the car to various places (zoos, old towns, castles, even vineyards 🤣) with staying at the house somedays and playing in the pool/reading etc.

It would have been a nightmare to up-end to a new destination every day!

He was being unreasonable to sleep till 10 every day. He chose the location, he must have known about siesta time? And one lie in is fine but you were trying to entertain a 6mo in a new place every day for hours??

You say you were both prepared for parenthood, it sounds like he was not prepared for the fact that a holiday is not like a holiday before.

I'm all for separate breaks and continuing to be your own person but I wouldn't jump to separate holidays forever after one bad one! You learn and do differently next time.

Can’t imagine my family not going on holiday together. I think you need to recheck your priorities. A 6 month old is very easy to move around, but as they grow up you should (!) enjoy watching them experience new countries/ food/ events… making memories for them and you.

Try to consider that this is a whole new family unit you have and clearly your partner is on a different page to you ATM and maybe you both need to communicate better with each other your own needs, whilst also compromising to ensure you’re all considered. Every holiday will be different as your baby grows up in the next 5 years.

You can still holiday together just plan it differently and be more realistic in expectations.

You need to change your expectations and routine with a child. Your holiday seem exhausting. I would not take separate holidays, apart from the occasional trip. You are a family you need to adjust and not pretend that you can keep doing the same as when you were childless.

When the kids were small we had holidays that would suit them. Often holiday cottages in France where there was a pool. We then did a trip out in the morning then back for lunch and time by the pool. If you want city breaks or more adventurous stuff do that bit solo.

Did not mean to quote you there !

It sounds like he hasn’t accepted that holidays massively change when you have children. He cannot “chill out” without you having to pick up the slack and therefore making it an unfair arrangement. By all means tag team a lie in but for him to insist he sleeps until 10am because he’s been stressed at work is ridiculously selfish in my opinion.

To be totally honest, I wouldn’t attempt the kind of holiday you’ve done here until you have at least a school age child!

For our DS first trip overseas when he was a baby we rented a small villa and a car and had that as a base with day trips. All the packing up doing multiple hotels was a mistake. We did still have the occasional holiday apart but not often. DH also traveled overseas with work loads, knee jerk reaction is an over reaction.

Wait ... he even got to have a 2-3 hou lie in every single day of the holiday while you had poor sleep and got up with the baby and dealt with her to enable it? On top of you dutifully planning the holiday he insisted on?

He sounds selfish.

I do think you both need to reconsider what holidays look like with little ones. And he needs to be fairer about the childcare element of them.

We also prefer self catering with children than hotels; we eat in the apartment or out when we want.

You both found it too exhausting. Simple answer would be to book a relaxing holiday together next time. Booking separate holidays from now on seems like a weird solution, when you're BOTH wanting more relaxation next time. No way would me and DH even consider this - we spend all our holidays together.

It’s the first holiday with the baby and you have to accept you won’t be able to do what you did before.

Honestly you don't need to resign yourselves to fly and flop or AI with kids clubs while they are young if you wouldn't like it provided you change your mindset and plan appropriately. But as a PP has said every year it will be different as they grow and are capable of/interested in more things. When ours were small we would usually limit the number of accomodation moves so a 2 week holiday would be 2 places. We're also go, go so we would choose places that had plenty to do. And always stay somewhere with separate bedrooms and with our own catering facilities. DS2 had a definite "best before" time for the evening meal so if we ate out it was lunch time and then an early snack in the evening. As they get older we found that doing half day outings was best and we always picked somewhere to stay with space to run around, space was more important than a pool for ours. Eurocamp/canvas holidays type accomodation fitted the bill perfectly for us. We also did a couple of Explore group holidays. We also did a couple of big rv or camping road trips when both DC were primary age.
Before 5 you probably need to reduce the sightseeing or at least pace more slowly and break a session up with treats/play areas but we never abandoned it entirely and our 2 were abseiling at 3 and sitting on the back of bikes for long rides at 1. First holiday abroad for DS1 at 13 months was exploring Loire chateaux. With tinies backpack carriers are a massive help if a venue isn't buggy friendly. Ours enjoyed sightseeing provided we incorporated their interests and they knew what to expect. They loved Egypt, especially the mummies in the Cairo museum. They loved wildlife watching in Zimbabwe because they had their own binoculars and we made "I Spy" sheets for them. Fossil hunting was always fun whether is was Charmouth or Colorado.