sensible accommodation advice needed for me/hubby and 12 month old baby.

[marthamay]

Hello,

Would greatly appreciate any advice on this as both myself and DH are a bit confused about the best options.

In September we are going to Lille for about a week and were planning to stay in a hotel. It has occurred to us that once we have put DS (he will be 17 months old) down for the night at about 7 - what do we do!!!!??? Do we have to go to bed at the same time...sit in silence....read in silence....?
Do people normally leave their babies in a hotel room and sit in the lounge with a baby monitor (The thought of that makes me really, really nervous).

So, do we need to book a two-room suite or something like that? Do most hotels have cots????

Is it much easier to try to find self-catering?

Sorry, these questions sound so stupid it's just never really something we've thought about and now have to try and book something and nervous about the kind of questions I need to be asking.

Thanks for any advice or input or experience!!!!

We pretty much sat around the hotel room. If you can afford to book adjoining rooms or some sort of "suite" I'd do that. We're back in the States now where suite-style hotels are pretty easy to come by. DS would stay in his area of the suite and then DH & I could quietly watch tv in the "bedroom" area. DS was a lousy sleeper so we couldn't watch too loudly or laugh too much. These days, DS is 3 and still a light sleeper but better than what he had been. We just got back from Florida (without DH) where we stayed in a "traditional" hotel room. Once it was DS's bedtime, I plopped myself down on my bed with my iPad and read, surfed the net, or watched a movie with headphones. If you get a room with a balcony, you could always retreat there.

I personally would not leave my DS in the room alone - even with a monitor - although I know some people do.

My experience has been that hotels have cots; however, read the fine print to verify and make sure you request one when you make your booking. Sometimes they won't put them in your room until you actually arrive.

I can't answer about self-catering in Lille. We rented a few gites & apartments when we traveled through France and found it pretty easy. Some were more family friendly than others in the amenities provided. The space certainly made bedtimes much easier.

I found this: www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/p663414a. It certainly looks family friendly!

Good luck.

Oh, go sc, definitely. We have done it since dcs, and if you get somewhere with a balcony or terrace, you can sit out once ds is in bed... bottle of wine, book, view/people watching ;)

We use holiday rentals

Or

owners direct

Or

holiday lettings

Flights from budget airline... and holiday sorted. It has always worked out brilliantly for us :)

Oh Thank you so much guys! Good responses and I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back on here to read them.
laraeo it's good to hear from someone who also has a light-sleeping DC.
I too don't think I would be able to leave my son in the the room - just in case someone noticed that we were hanging around without him and worked out that he was upstairs alone - just too, too risky I think and you'd never forgive yourself if something happened.
I think I am going to try and look at SC. I will check out all those links.

Thanks again!

we tend to either go on holidays where we can get a large family room with seperate childrens bit, or at least have a balcony to escape too, or we go sc... never ever leave our dc alone... for me it's not just the someone taking them risk, i'd be more worried about fire etc..

have you been to lille before? I only ask as we went last year on our way somewhere and there is very little in the way of things to do with children there, but maybe you are going for other things/know it well.