How to cope...overnight ferry with a 8mnth old...

[newmumhannah]

Hi,
Planning a holiday to France going on the overnight ferry from Portsmouth-St Malo. Does anybody have any advice/tips on settling a baby to sleep who has never slept away from home before?...how to approach the drive (approx 2 hrs) when on a normal night he would be asleep already. Will he sleep in the car and then go back to sleep when moved onto the ferry?!
Also are there facilities to microwave food/milk?...
Feeling a bit nervous/stressed about it and we have not even gone yet! Holidays are supposed to be relaxing so looking for any advice before we go...

hi we did that route when dd was 2 and hull-rotterdam when she was 12 months, we put the mattresses from the bottom 2 bunks on the floor and slept together, it was quite noisy so we would have struggled to slerp any other way.

they do sell milk on board but its uht so may not be suitable, we didnt see anywhere to heat it up but there may have been.

we're doing it again this year as even though its not without a few challenges its great waking up on the boat in france, we treat it as the first night of our holiday rather than part of the journey now!!

forgot to answer the bit about the journey- its quite late boarding and they don't let you on till about 45mins before departure so we put dd's on pj's at home and she slept while we waited in the car park with brief waking to get in the cabin then straight back to sleep!

we did plymouth to roscoff with a 10m old

booked a bedroom and a travel cot and it was fine.... we all slept all night!

Get a cabin and travel cot and will be ok

we have done it with all 3 of our kids from 2 months old.

as long as you plan you should be fine. they didn't have anywhere to warm bottles that i saw, but i was breastfeeding so maybe didn't notice. the 2 month old slept in their car chair and the 2 year old in a lower bunk.

you have booked a cabin for there and back? this is essential.

we used to spend the evening in the bar watching the shows - you just take the baby with you. there are kids everywhere so its very child friendly.

the morning you arrive - stay in your cabin as long as possible, but don't wait for them to call you. sort out what time you need to get up and set an alarm. we always take drinks/food as its easier than wandering around the boat finding it.

obviously leave all the things you need in your boot where they are easily accessable.

overall its much easier than flying....so i wouldn't stress. the boat is much steadier than a catermeran

DD2 was 14 months when we did it last year.

Get a cabin, use the bassinet (assume you are going Brittany Ferries) which will be more than big enough.

Pack a seperate bag with everything you need for the one night for all of you so you can park car, get bag and go straight to cabin. I would probably take pushchair just in case you need to do any walking if dc is unsettled but we didn't use ours.

Best night sleep nocturnal DD2 had ever had. Good enough for dh to suggest we put her cot in a paddling pool when we returned

We took our nine month old DTs to Brittany (Plymouth - Roscoff) on the overnight sailing. They were fine - loved it and slept okay. We didn't use a travel cot, just put them top to tail in the bottom bunk in a four bunk cabin. We had a hellish rough crossing and DH and I were both really sea sick, but the babies not a bit.