Greece with a 9 month old - Self-Catering or All inclusive?

[Brens13]

Hello,

First child due end of December so we're hoping to go on a Greek Island holiday in September. All advice welcome, but initial question pre-booking is would you go self-catering or all inclusive?

We're leaning towards self catering so we can go out to a nice taverna for lunch and if child is tired always self cater in the evening so they can sleep in comfort. Or maybe they'll be ok early evening to go out, but it just gives us that flexibility. Feel like if we go all inclusive we don't have any flexibility and will probably also be paying for a lot of facilities we won't use. But in case we're missing something I thought I'd ask!

As background my partner likes "sight seeing holidays" and I'm more of a relaxing holiday person so we want somewhere we can get out to walk around the local town and potentially do a couple of excursions. Which again leans me towards self catering as some all inclusive places can be further out of town.

So, any advice on this welcome - incl locations (I was taken to Greek islands as a kid but am aware a lot will have changed), and any other advice for travelling with a 9 month old as we are complete novices!

Thank you :)

I would go self catering as babies need to eat when they need to eat and may not fit in with foreign timetables!

Thank you fanspam another good point!

Def self cater for a baby that age. You'll be paying for food that she/he prob won't eat , and even if he does it'll be available at a time when he's asleep or something! Take lots of food pouches and self cater for sure

Depends on how well behaved your baby is e.g. screaming in a restaurant every time you want a meal is not much fun but for an all inclusive it's so busy and there are usually so many other babies it's not so much of an issue

Perfect, thank you both.

Fingers crossed our future baby can get into the holiday spirit and be nice and chilled out!

I wouldn't book anything yet. You won't be tied to school holidays and so there will be plenty of choice much nearer the time. 9 months can be a tricky age sleep patterns change if they ever had one , some are rampant crawlers and a pool would be very hard work for you. You will have a much clearer idea of whether s/c or AI will suit when the baby is 7 or 8 months old.

What are the sleeping arrangements like? If you go AI are you all in the one hotel room? This is the main reason we always self cater - we want separate bedrooms to accommodate different sleeping times.

Chelsea we're both organisers so like to book things in advance so probably wouldn't wait until a month or two before to book. I do appreciate your points though, worth thinking about crawling, etc nearer the time when we know what they can/can't do.

We haven't got a specific place yet newmum but that is a very good point. If we have to be back in the accomodation early for child's bedtime we don't want to be tiptoeing about as we're all in the same room. Agree that self catering is more likely to have two.

We always went self-catering as a family when I was young so it would be my preferred choice. I just wanted to check I wasn't missing any massive advantages of AI, or disadvantages of SC.

Definitely self-cater at that age. I'd suggest finding a villa, with a pool if you like, so you can both sit outside and maybe swim when your DC is asleep.

We SCd in Greece when ours were tiny (and still do!). The Greeks love children so you'll see plenty of Greek families out with babies and toddlers well into the night, so don't go anywhere too 'British'!

Another great thing about Greece is the 2 hour time difference, so if your lo sleeps until 6am, it will be 8am in Greece. Same with bed times, obviously! We always put ours down for a long nap/siesta late afternoon, so they could stay up late enough to go out for an evening meal. They would usually fall asleep in their pushchairs while we were eating our dinner.

We took our eldest to Zante at 9 months. She was a December baby and we went in September. We went bed and breakfast, had a large taverna lunch and snacks in the evening.

We had anticipated her sleeping peacefully in the pram whilst we ate out in the evenings but she just wasn't up for it. We still had a fab time though!

My biggest tip is to save on the weight of formula/nappies/wipes/baby food in your luggage by click and collect ordering them from Boots at the airport, just make sure you choose the right terminal and the airside branch.

We went to Madeira in 2012 with a 7 month old. We were self catering. Mealtimes were a challenge! It wasn't too bad if we were cooking in our apartment and we had a full size kitchen as it was our timeshare - so basically a full sized apartment that you could live in - but going out was the issue.

We didn't go out until 8pm as it was too hot to eat any time earlier. DS should have been in bed an hour earlier and stupidly we tried to stick to this and hoped he would sleep in his pushchair. First time rookie mistake! We abandoned bedtime and took him out and TBH our time was spent keeping him entertained whilst waiting for our courses.

We decided to go AI when DS was 2 .5 years and have been ever since and with DD in tow who is now 2 (DS now 5) and found it much, much easier. We realised that a lot of the stress was deciding where to eat, if it was child friendly and waiting for our courses. It would be hard work trying to entertain a 5 and 2 year old for 90 minutes at least!

Now we go AI and intend to do so until the children are much older - probably when DD is about 8 or 9. Being AI means we simply go down to the restaurant and though it is buffet style, they get their breakfast, lunch and dinner immediately and snacks are available when they want (this May half term they even got their own slush puppies and ice cream - and being on holiday, we didn't restrict; anything goes!).

I LOVE self catering for choice and going to different restaurants but found it stressful with little ones. AI is much easier and lots of restaurants in the hotels have children sections or play areas nearby. it was nice to have part of our meal in peace and have adult conversation whilst the kids did what they do best - play!