AIBU to think holidays with kids aren’t really holidays at all?

[GlowWithBalance]

We’ve just come back from a week away, and honestly, I feel like I need another break to recover from it. Between packing, cleaning the Airbnb before leaving, managing constant squabbles, and trying to keep everyone fed and entertained — it didn’t feel like a holiday at all.
Every photo looks lovely, but behind the scenes it was chaos. Tantrums, forgotten essentials, someone always hungry, and the endless “what are we doing next?” made it more stressful than work.
It got me thinking — are family holidays just an expensive change of scenery rather than actual rest? I can’t be the only one who secretly prefers staying home at this point.

Yanbu. And holidays with teens are just as non relaxing.

I have never felt stressed over anything but getting up early for flights or check out times. Not a morning person. But I can see how it could be if you are in charge and kids are demanding.

They are hard work OP, but I look back on them with rose tinted glasses and have nice memories of them so obviously block out the stress of it! My children are very small at the moment so maybe I’ve got worse to come though…

Ive seen countless threads on MN over the years saying this but Ive always loved out holidays with the DC.

We went self catering and I did spend the usual amount of time shopping and cooking (2 fussy DC both later diagnosed ND). BUT the rest of the time we had a blast on the beach, playing in the sea, the occasional short trip to a castle or something. Much better than our usual lives in a flat with school and work...

I always enjoyed holidays with my DC when little. 2wks in Tunisia when DD was 15 months and just walking wasn’t exactly relaxing, but we still had a good time. It got a lot easier as they got older, youngest is 5 months away from turning 18 and next week I go on a cruise with my mum, and probably will think back nostalgically on all the family holidays we took.

Absolutely! Def more stressful. The sun shone and it was hot ( hols abroad with DS x2) but also brought more stress. Too warm, fights to put on sun cream, the food being different, wanting juice, snacks, ices constantly, overtired. Family rooms OMG don’t get me started 🤦🏻‍♀️ I used to think it’d be easier to have just stayed put at home, we’re paying for this stress! They go on their own holidays now with friends and and at long last we enjoy our holidays. It will come to you too …….eventually

I don’t find this.
No day to day commitments like work/ nursery/ chores/ DIY/ appointments.
Therefore much more freetime
I don’t care if Ds lives off bananas and toast for 2 weeks.
Ds is now 5. He’s always been a good traveller tbh. Often long car rides or planes and trains combo.
He doesn’t like sleeping in own bed anyway so sharing hotel room or bed is easy.

We always go places with lots of things to
see and do, or travel around a bit though. 2 weeks in the same hotel just at the pool would probably have him bored by day 3.

We’ve always had great holidays with our DS, but I appreciate having one child is a whole different kettle of fish compared to travelling with 2 or more kids. I think the only time we found travelling really stressful was when he was a baby and had learned to crawl just a few days before a 7 hr flight, meaning he didn’t want to sit still at all and was constantly wanting to be on the floor of the plane. That flight felt a lot longer than it actually was! But the holidays themselves have always been fun.

You are certainly correct that the way you are doing holidays isn't relaxing but there are other ways to do holodays.

• we do a holiday "from home" every other year to avoid the exhaustion of packing and travelling, but the week is structured totally differently to an ordinary week at home so it does feel like a holiday.
• on holidays away, pick your accommodation more carefully. There are some airbnb owners that expect you to do a full clean before checkout but sod that, I don't do housework on holiday. I will wipe up any actual spills but anything beyond that is their problem and I won't book anywhere that expects more. Most are happy to agree a later checkout for a small additional fee to make leaving day less stressful.
• arrange a delivery of readymeals, luxury foods and ultra-easy-to-prepare meals sufficient for half the evenings you are away and alternate between those and eating out at restaurants. If it's you that cook at home, you don't cook during a holiday (same is true if holidaying at home). Don't do holidays where you are the only person capable of putting a meal on the table.
• pre holiday management of expectations is important - why should it be your job to keep everyone entertained? If being left alone in silence for 2-3 hours each afternoon is what you need to feel.rested, then include that in the plan. In a typical UK holiday we'll research the area beforehand and pick a daily thing-to-do (wildlife attraction, historical thing, fun activity) and do that in the morning. When we get back to the accommodation at 2-ish me & DP will divide the remaining time before dinner in half and I will get half to go down to the beach (if we are near the sea - or a park if not) with my book to not talk to anyone for a bit, and we'll swap half way through the afternoon - or ae might alternate days and have the whole afternoon. We don't often do full days out at attractions because such days are too tiring.

You aren't being unreasonable that the way things have happened before isn't relaxing, so do things differently.

I only have one (2.5) so I may have a very different tune next year when the second arrives, but I loved holidaying with our 14m old at the time. It was so lovely, we saw family, no work, no stress rushing around in the morning, no house renovation stress, just slow mornings and lots of family time.
We leave next month for another one and I can’t wait. Not gonna pretend that the flights aren’t a little stressful, but it’s all worth it in my eyes.

Self catering is just the same shit in a different location.

Depends on the kids. Early years I agree but we got lucky and have two well behaved same sex who got on with each other and liked reading. So from when the second was about 5 onwards holidays were relaxing again. My friends with more ahem high energy children would say different.

No we've never felt like that, I wonder if it would be worth booking somewhere without the need to clean or self cater. It might be your preference generally, but a change may be more relaxing.

I think part of the issue is people often have unrealistic expectations of what it will be like. Ds has complex needs so in a lot of ways holidays can be same shit different location but we plan carefully and have a fantastic time within the constraints we have.

No I don’t relate to this. I love holidays with my kids and always have done. My job is extremely stressful so spending time not at work doing nice things with my family is joyful. We’ve always done a mix of activities so there is something everyone likes. Kids are not fussy eaters and have been taught from very young about how to behave in restaurants. Now as teens they can enjoy long meals, are great company

Depends on the kids, how old they are, how they adapt to change, also the holiday type and destination. I agree the preparation and packing is stressful but I always find about 3 days in everything seems to settle into a holiday routine. It helped that we tended to go back to the same place for a number of years. This reduced the stress of getting our bearings, finding supermarkets, restaurants etc and the DCs also settled very quickly. As they get older it certainly gets easier as a grumpy teen can be left to sulk indoors while you relax by the pool. They will emerge eventually

YANBU. My DC, last summer, were absolute pains! 7 and 10. Constant squabbles but with a sunny ocean view. We’ll probably do it again next year 😂🤦🏿‍♀️

Yes agree, it takes a few days for dc to settle in and if we are lucky we get a few nice days then home. I find a hotel less stressful then air bnb /villa where you are cooking /cleaning

When the kids were young I found this to be true for anything that didn't have holiday clubs or other childcare built in. But once they turned 8-ish things started to get much better. Hang in there OP, better to come (even if things don't get better as they age, eventually they will stop wanting to come! ).

It depends imo. In an Airbnb / long-haul / not especially kid friendly location - yes.

What works for us is any of driving to the Kent coast and renting a house as domestic as possible; homeswapping with friends in Europe so we know what we are getting; driving somewhere using Eurostar.

You can have a good time but it might be harder to have a relaxing time. Those are two different things really.

depends on how well you "function" (not sure on the right word here, cooperate? work together? etc.) with your children..

Reasons are irrelevant.. if you couldn't spend a week at home with your kids and partner and enjoy it, get on well, work together well, enjoy each other's company, have fun etc. Then changing location isn't going to change that. And it could well make it worse if you have a stressful amount of travel planned.

I think a lot of parents are disappointed because what they really want is a holiday away from their kids, and they end up realizing that holidays mean more of their kids, and if that working-dynamic isn't there, it won't be a fun week.

I would agree with FenceBooksCycle. Managing expectations is important, and not just on holiday. We had 4 and they knew there wasn't the money to be asking for ice creams and treats all the time. It helped to discuss what we were going to do before so they knew what was happening. We would explain what was on offer at the place or area we were staying and each choose something we wanted to do while away. When they were very young we went to a holiday park for several years so they had the kids club and it was easy for one of us to take them to an activity while the other had a break.
Foodwise we try and do a mix of self-catering and the odd takeaway with a meal out. I take some pre prepared stuff so bolognaise sauce, casserole and a pre cooked chicken. If you take one frozen and the other prepped the night before then I pop the unfrozen one in the freezer at the air bnb for later in the week.
My dh and I took turns with the cooking and each had the kids on our own for a period most days so we had downtime.
A quick hoover through and I wipe round in the bathroom after a shower or bath as routine anyway. Same with kitchen so it doesn't need a major clean at the end. As long as it's basically clean and tidy that's enough. We're out most of the day anyway so it doesn't get that bad.

They are exhausting. That doesn’t mean they aren’t enjoyable but they are relentless.

We went to center parcs last month with our recently turned two year old and four years and nine month old and it wasn’t as knackering, we got some time to ourselves in the evenings and took turns to go to the pool, it was actually really lovely. We did have to divide and conquer a fair bit though!

I agree with this really..sorry OP. Other than when they were really tiny and I needed to think about sterilisers and such, it's not been that bad. I took my then 6 and 8 yo as a single parent by train to Eastern France and with careful packing of a rucksack each and some very hard headed decisions about how to manage one or two situations it was both doable and fun. Mine are no angels and DS has some SEN but very firm expectations, zero tolerance of whining and a strict bedtime at that age meant it was fun for me too. Now teens, they leave me alone to read, like water parks and I don't mind if they screen it for an afternoon.