Do you share a bedroom with your kids on holiday?

[TerrysNo3]

DH and I have taken a holiday each year with the kids but always gone for villa/apartment type breaks so we can each have a room. This year we are looking at a more resort based holiday and the one that I like (along with many others) seem to have one big room for 4 people.

I'm just wondering if this is totally normal and we should just share with the kids for 10 nights??

Thanks :)

"But then you are sitting in a different abedroom anyway, which isn't much different to sitting on a balcony?"

I wouldn't want to spend a whole evening stuck out on a balcony being quiet. We go self catering, or sometimes a hotel with two rooms, one big main room with a living area and one small room for DC.

We can watch DVDs, chat, go to the bathroom, make drinks, get food, you know, generally enjoy ourselves without tiptoeing round in the dark.

If we are in a hotel yes. Now they are teens we pay adult prices, but went on a cruise this year where ds counted as a child, and we squashed into a standard cabin! We've done a lot of eurocamp holidays which are great as you have outside space.
When dd was really tiny I sat reading in the bathroom as our balcony light was broken.
This year we are all in together as we are going to California which is costing £££ as it is. ( thank goodness they have huge beds)

We usually self cater so there are separate rooms, but the last 2 or 3 years we have found that the DCs stay up as late as us anyway (till about 10.30-11pm, they are 10 and 8) so it wouldn't be a problem all sharing.

We tend to do AI holidays as ds is only 6, but we always go for resorts which have aparthotels so you can stay in an apartment (usually 1 bed with sofa bed in living area) ds sleeps in the comfy en suite bedroom and we have the sofa bed so we can drink wine and watch telly have sex when he is in bed

When we went away for a weekend earlier this year we stumbled across a hotel with a "family room" that had a separate sleeping area for the kids and a lounge area to boot, which suited us down to the ground. Only problem is that such arrangements seem as rare as hens teeth, not to mention the fact that hotel websites are often very coy about what their room plans are, or whether they have interconnecting rooms. Very frustrating. Don't really fancy sitting in the dark for three hours each night between our respective bedtimes.

So I've come to the conclusion that people with smallish children must do one of the following:

1. Not go on holiday at all.
2. Self-cater (often awkward if you want a short break - also tend to be inaccessible if you don't drive).
3. Have encyclopaedic knowledge of each and every hotel's layout.

There must be a better solution than this, surely?

We share a hotel room for one night on way to holiday and one night on the way back. AND THAT IS ENOUGH!

Its not about the evenings - we are usually out late in evening all together, and then DH and I have drinks on balcony/terrace whilst kids go to sleep - its the mornings!!! I like a lie in on my holiday (who doesn't!) and it is essential for the DCs (who wake up early regardless of late nights) to have a separate space to play in so I can get some peace.

God no, it was about the only time dh and I could catch up
on our sex life when the dc were small, and as teenagers they wouldn't particularly share with us now.

Bowlersarm I was just going to mention that - how do you all manage to DTD if you're sharing a bedroom with dcs?

Going on hols as a teenager and sharing a bedroom with my parents would have been mortifying

Yes. But then we also still share a bedroom with them at home also so no different.

We also don't spend whole evening in it. On our holidays everyone heads to room late afternoon and kids nap 2-3hrs ( us too sometimes). Then they are happy to stay up until 11/12pm eating/ playing with local kids etc. I would never just sit in a room all evening. Plus then everyone has a lovely lie in in the morning

Self catering and we try to get separate sleeping areas, short stays in hotels we would rather have a room so we can be there for them if anything happens.

We did a resort type holiday in Mexico when ds1 was 4 and ds2 was 6 months. We hardly slept, mainly to ds1 being excited every single night. So the next two holidays we booked apartments with two rooms. The first was a self catering holiday in Portugal, and the second was a resort holiday in Greece but those are really hard to find for a decent price.
This year we are holidaying in the uk in a house with three bedrooms (the boys will probably share one). We will share for short breaks but for a holiday- no way!

Normal but not for us.

DD is a loud and unruly sleeper, one night in an airport hotel is enough. We actually took ear plugs with us for a 2 night break at Disneyland Paris.

We only do a hotel holiday this year. DD will be nearly 8 and is able to cope with slightly longer evenings. Strolling around and being up until 10pm was not good, holiday or not.

But we had to splash out for a proper suite with a door between bedroom and sleeping/living area. There is a balcony or terrace at the bedroom, so DH and I can sit and enjoy another drink in peace.

I was always jealous of friends whose DCS were able to fall asleep in the buggies and could be transported into bed without problems. DD was never such a child.

Never.
When they were little we had interconnecting rooms or paid for a suite so they could sleep in the sitting room. Now teens we pay for another room.
Wouldn't occur to me be TBH.

Nope because DS goes to bed pretty early compared with us and immediately wants the light off. This would mean us all going to bed around 8pm or Sitting in the dark. I also like to be able to retreat to DSs room in the middle of the night when DH starts snoring.
I like being able to drink wine/ have sex/ watch films/ read books without worrying about waking DS, up after all it's our holiday too.

I've wondered about this too; we've usually gone self catering before but had one hotel holiday with ds as a baby. He was in a 'partitioned' room which was actually next to the bathroom so we had to tiptoe to the loo all evening! This year we've decided just not to bother with a holiday, partly due to the room issue. Ds has always needed his bed early and also wasn't a baby who'd fall asleep anywhere or transfer without waking. Still can't, so we'll wait until he's older I think. Not much of a holiday sitting in every evening!

Always, but then we all need a similar amount of sleep. We tend to put them to bed at about nine, then we will read, sit out on the balcony or whatever for an hour then go to bed. We only go on one holiday a year and the hotel is over £200 a night so not a chance of two rooms

We stay at resort hotels and the chain we chose all have family rooms which mean that our bed is in one room and the kids have a separate bedroom. They either have bunk beds or 2 sofa beds.

We pretty much always share with DDs (6 and 7), it's the only way we could afford to do the trips we do and they share a room at home (bunk beds where half the time they seem to end up in the same single bed anyway) so it's no big deal. We tend to go to the states so with the jet lag DDs go to bed about 8-8.30, and we just have a read and a chat until they go to sleep, or sit on the balcony. We normally do 'busy' holidays though so we're all knackered by that time of night! Tend to have family rooms with a bed for us a a big double or bunks for them.

We have had discussions about how old they'd need to be to be in a room by themselves, since we tend to stay in hotels I can't imagine them being down the corridor (or on a different floor) from us and needing something in the middle of the night/early morning. If we did self catering or apartment holidays I'd prefer something with 2 bedrooms but in hotels that never seems to happen...

We don't share on week long breaks or above, have done it for a few one or two night breaks.

We pay the extra to have two bedrooms even though we only have the one, it is expensive and annoying when hoteliers refuse to believe that actually no we don't want to sleep in the same room as our DS.

Having to compromise our standards on our summer trip to Canada so some of our places are one bed with a living area - these days it's not so much that DS goes to bed before us, but that DH likes to stay up a bit later than I do.

However next year we're looking to go skiing again and after the horrors and exorbitant cost of French skiing s/c at half term I suspect we'll be staying in an Italian hotel and sharing a room. Hopefully we'll be too knackered from the skiing to care.

We are limited to self catering hols because of this. My two stopped napping at aged two so as little ones late nights wouldn't have worked. DD1 is 7 and really struggles to sleep even without distractions (awaiting diagnosis of some mild SN ADD/sensory issues). She was like this as a baby and we did try a few hotel breaks but it was a disaster every time. Lots of people blamed me for being too precious about routine but I am a really laid back non routine person. My babies had other ideas. Always at people eating out with baby/toddler zonked out in the pushchair.

Really fancy a weekend in London or extended theme park visit but not sure how to make it work without spending £££.