Kids and hotels, what do you do in the evening ?

[Peetle]

I was just wondering what people do with their kids when they stay in an hotel. I don't mean on holiday with kids clubs, entertainment, etc, I mean in a regular hotel.

We occasionally stay in a reasonable place when visiting my in-laws (their house is too small for us all to stay. Plus FIL smokes like a chimney and it's too far to do the round trip in a day). Our DTs are 5 at the moment so they go to bed around 7. Recently we and BIL and his family all stayed there together so each adult did a shift with the kids asleep in one of the rooms while everyone else had a drink in the bar.

Obviously my kids' safety and wellbeing is more important than my having a drink in an hotel bar but I was wondering what people do as their kids get older. Even now, once they're asleep that's it until morning. I'm wondering what folk do when their kids are 8, 9, etc. Or do you just stay with them until they're old enough to stay up with you ?

In my case the in-laws are sleeping in a hotel and we stay at their flat. As I don't really like this solution a lot we normally have them to visit us.

I would try to get DD to sleep there and carry her to the car and hope she will go back to sleep with no problem. If she gets older I think she can stay up until 9/9.30pm and we would leave all together. We looked once into getting a small studio flat (one bedroom/one living room and kitchen) for a weekend but it was still quite expensive.

We always try & stay in self-catering places for this reason. Not so easy to find in this country though, esp just for a weekend.

Ours are 8 and 9, and these days we would eat with them about 7 and they go to bed at 9ish. They are heavy sleepers, so once they are asleep we coudl have a glass of wine and a chat or a game of scrabble in the room. If we are away for a weekend with friends, we have used babysitters in the hotel.

We book an interconnecting room, or a suite so that DH and I have somewhere to relax in the evening rather than being in the dark! It makes trips away more expensive, but much more relaxing.

If there is a gathering in the bar, then we generally put them to bed a bit later than normal, and then rotate who is socialising and who is in the room with them.

Once ours are that old though - 8/9, then I think we would probably use baby listening which is what my parents used to do with us, with one of us popping back to the room every half hour or so.

Yes we all eat together. Then watch movies in tthe room.Mine don't go to sleep til 9. When they were younger we did self catering

My children are a bit older than that but for quite a few years we have eaten about 7.30 when we stay in British hotels. The meal usually lasts until about 9.15 and then we spend an hour in the bar playing board games or cards. Then we always book 2 interconnecting rooms or a suite so they go to bed and we have an hour or so grown up time.

No surprises here I suppose. I can remember being about 7/8 and being left nursing my sunburn in my hotel room (different to my parents') while they had their dinner. This was the early '70s and the world was a different place - though I accept the differences are often risk awareness rather than actual risk.