Holiday sleep advice-16 month old

[MattLegg]

We are going away on our first overseas family holiday (1week in Cyprus in a half board hotel) and my wife and I have different ideas about how baby sleeping is going to work and I want to know if I'm being unreasonable as its already causing stress before we go.
My idea is he stays up with us a little late 1 or 2 nights but apart from that we do his usual routine then try to get him to sleep in the buggy.we all go out to eat and come back later (9.30ish) and transfer him into his bed.
My wife wants pretty much to stick to the usual routine which will mean at least one of us being in the room with him from 7.30pm each night...to me defeating the family holiday idea.
How do other people do it?
Please any advice (whether it's what I want to hear or not) would be welcome.

We always did what you suggest. Works as long as you have a child who will sleep in a buggy - not all will!

This is a reason while I didn't do hotels at that age, DD never slept in a buggy.

Saying that, we returned from Spain and I was amazed about the amount of toddlers in buggies, but they were hardly asleep. The families all ate from 7pm onwards, they often then went to the room, dressed LOs in pj and went back with the child wide awake. A couple of families ended up dropping the changing routine and just went out to the bar/entertainment area and let the LOs run around and made their way back to the room with a half-asleep child at 9-10pm.

I'd let dd stay up and just put her to bed when she got tired - she can normally last til about half 8 if out and about so although it necessitates eating a bit earlier, it's definitely do-able.

Well, it depends on your DC. We have two DSs. DS1 wouldn't sleep in his buggy - not ever - so this kind of arrangement didn't work for him. He also didn't nap much during the day, so by bedtime he was always exhausted and keeping him up late was a disaster - major tantrums, crying, etc. He also wouldn't sit in his buggy and quietly play with a toy or book or something - so on holiday, as with every other day, he needed to go to bed at 7.30pm. We just had dinner with him at 5.30 or 6 and took it in turns to go down to the bar or whatever. It wasn't ideal, tbh, but it was what he needed.

DS2 was more laid back and would nap pretty much anywhere, so he could be kept up. Plus he would sit in the stroller and munch happily on something or play with a toy for ages. He was a DC I could take clothes shopping for an hour or two and he'd just sit there contentedly.

So which kind of DC do you have?

Will the time difference work in your favour i.e. If bedtime is normally 7:30, that will be 9:30 there? You could adjust to Cyprus time and keep your toddler on English time! (Might even get a lie in!)

He is pretty good and will sleep in the buggy during the day but we haven't tried "putting him to bed" in the buggy.

Definitely keep the baby on UK time.

In that case try it and see. If it doesn't work you can go to plan B.

I just googled the time difference between here and cyprus, so i could come on and say keep your baby on uk time - we always do this when we go to europe (so they go at 20:30 instead of 19:30) and it should theoretically give you a lie-in too.

If you do the converse and try to acclimatise to Cyprus time, you might find yourselves being woken at 04:00 every day once you get home.

If you are staying in a hotel you might find that the evening meal times won't allow you to put your baby to bed at 7.30 anyway. A lot of hotels start dinner at 7pm.

I found that the heat knackered my DS and he ended up having an extra nap each day...either in the shade by pool (giving us time to relax) or in the room. So the normal routine wasn't an option for us. This meant he stayed up a little longer in the evenings, we would have dinner around 7, head to kids disco for 30 mins or so and have him back in room having his milk by 9pm. We were all inclusive so we then sat on the balcony and had a few drinks whilst he slept. It was ideal!