Travel with infant - how spend the evening near your child?

[Rubysmummy2]

Hi. We want to book a summer holiday abroad but I am really concerned as to how we will manage our evening once our little one (nearly 2) has gone to bed. We have been on a sunsail holiday with her before where we left her in our room with a monitor and had our evening meal/watched entertainment in the resort but I guess since the Maddy McGann story broke I am really nervous about doing that - but particularly so if the restaurant is not in the same building as our room. We also don't want to be sitting in the same, darkened room as her of an evening keeping quiet so as to not wake her! I thought an apartment would be ideal but finding something under £1000 each isn't easy, and also we would really rather not have to cook/wash up etc. so self-catering not ideal either.
Help! Any ideas?

• something relaxing (beachy) but with stuff to do (either watersports or cultural interest).

Take a pushchair with you and she can sleep in it in the evenings while you have a drink at the bar etc.

Mine used to have a longer or even an extra sleep in the day time so were able to stay up later at night which helped too.

We had a week in tuscany recently, we had an apartment on the top of a hill, about 3/4 miles from the nearest town. We bought food to cook at night so when ds was in bed (used monitor from home) we just sat outside admiring the sunset and then the fireflys until it was time for our bedtime!
Not everyone's cup of tea, but we found it wonderful, there was a pool and the towns were great to wander around and of course the italians love kids, which made it very easy to find places for lunch.
As to cost, well we were lucky enough to be able to go out of school hols so it was less than a 1000 all in. We used simply travel.

Can you try to keep her up late with you and hope she'll sleep in later in the morning, sort of change her time clock, if you're going abroad there'll be a time diffeence anyway.

Take her with you in the evenings. I have just got back from a holiday with my daughter (2.9), my stepsons (12, 10) and two other little boys (7, 5) and all the children came out to dinner with us in the evenings. Some of the children had a siesta in the afternoons, as did the parents, and the other children stayed by the swimming pool... so everyone got their sleep quota that way

taek her with you - she will soon get used to sleeping ina buggy and you never know she may start to sleep in in the mornings too

You can get 1 bed apartments within a hotel iyswim, even on a half board or all inclusive basis. Then you have a balcony or lounge to sit in while they snooze but don't have to cook if you eat early enough or can get a take away. It is often best to look through the brochures then check the accommodation available on the hotel's own sites. It usually works out cheaper because hotels will charge you per room not per person, perhaps with meals on top, so no underoccupancy supplements to pay. Otherwise give her a light tea and a siesta late afternoon and go out with her in a buggy to snooze while you eat.

We go self catering but still eat out apart from breakfast. Compromise eat out about 7.30, get the children to bed for about 9 - 9.30 then sit on the veranda with wine.

We have just booked and will be taking dd when she is 23 mths. We plan to sit on balcony with wine /beer play cards and do the odd evening out with her in the buggy.
If its cold and can't sit on balcony then there will be a few early nights

I love sitting outside the villa, on the balcony, drinking wine, chatting, playing cards - just great.

Now we do it with the kids or the kids swim in the pool while we sip wine and chat - my perfect holiday - away form everybody

Then some days - slipdown to a greek taverna - kids have all had siestas so are ready and ahppy to enjoy the evening.

Veranda is a good option. Also bath, pyjamas and then long walk in buggy so she falls asleep allowing you to go to a nice restaurant...

I'm afraid when you have little ones there's always got to be a commpromise, your needs do not come first anymore. But it won't be forever, and soon she'll be old enough to enjoy evenings out on holiday with you.

We have our main meal out at a restaurant at lunchtime followed by a seista for us al., We can then feed the kids at dinner time and put them to bed at the normal time and we can sit on the balcony with bread, cheese, pate and wine and read a book or chat afterwards. I look forward to these evenings as I never have time to read a book at home!
If I tried taking my kids anyway past 7pm they'd be completely mental. So balcony is the only option for us.

I would

a) do the buggy option - however dd1 wouldn't EVER sleep in the buggy, dd2 did, so it depends on your child

b) book room with balcony so you can eat and then sit there and quaff wine while she sleeps

c) try and get her to have a late afternoon nap - 4ish - then you can all stay up later

I wouldn't ever leave mine in a room to go out to a restaurant and this has nothing to do with Madeline McCann or 'child snatchers' or whatever. Simply that I would not be there when/if they woke up (in the case of dd2, every few hours ) and they would be upset.

I am planning on the siesta thing and hoping that allows the children to stay up a bit later and also sleep in a bit. Also it should keep them out of the hot sun so I was thinking of putting them to bed after lunch.

we went to Wales for a weekend recently and we kept them up late

dinner together at 5.30ish, then looooooooooooong walk on the beach to tire them out

sat in reading/playing/watching tv

they fell asleep on the sofa, we lifted them to bed then cracked open (more) wine and sat outside

great

We always did the buggy thing, and put them in their jim-jams, took blankie etc to get them in the mood! Always worked fine, also in places like italy, spain etc people actually enjoy seeing children out and about! We have had brill, and v cheap hols in Italy, switzerland, south france etc with keycamp. Is self-catering, but espec in italy all sites seem to have lovely restaurants on site which cuts out cooking evening meals!

Agree with others, I would never leave mine in room alone pre of post madeline mccann. Whenever we go away we either let the dc have a late sleep to go out that evening or we go back with them and have wine and munchies while chatting, reading or whatever takes your fancy to relax. My mum used to take us all out and take the pram to fall asleep and if I fell asleep[I was 8 and my sisters were 2 and 1] then I would be carried back.

Thank you so much for all the responses but couple of problems:

1. She won't ever sleep in a buggy (used to when younger and we did go to restaurants that way), but now outgrown buggy sleeps)
2. She has a 'siesta' every single day. Always after lunch, and always for about 2 hours...but she is still shattered by 7 oclock bedtime. Sitting with bread/wine/pate/book is all obviously very appealing but just worried that in a one bed hotel room will be difficult not to wake her (with enough light to see/small amount of chat/clinking glasses!) LIZS can you recommend where there are apartments within hotel that are nice? imnot27 the Keycamp thing sounds good. never heard of that will try to find out about that.

I doubt you'd be making enough noise to wake her! And you'll have the light til late (depending on where you go).

This is the main reason we go self catering. It gives us the option to stay in if ds is really too tired to go out in the evening.

A long afternoon nap never used to cut it with ds. I had a 10 day holiday in Italy once with him last year where he slept 2.5-3.5 hours each afternoon and was still incredibly cranky and tired by 8.30pm at the latest. Trying to keep him up later resulted in a couple of terrible evenings - not something I wanted on holiday. He also didn't sleep in past 5.30pm at any point in the 10 days.

Pushchair sleeping - ah yes that nirvana that everyone else's child seems to do!

So we just accepted that for a while we would use the evenings to relax at home on holiday. We always booked an appartment with an extra room so ds can sleep while we chilled out. Our one time all in one hotel room put us off ever doing that again until ds is a bit older. He was like this from when he was a small baby. Taking him out in the evening even when he was 6-7 months old was never very enjoyable as he slept so little and cried so much. If we stayed home he'd sleep like a lamb from 6pm - 12pm so we used to have lovely evenings.

Now ds (2.8) can stay up a bit later and I'm looking forward to taking him out in the evenings on this holiday coming up in Sapin. We've still gone for S/C (in a hotel complex so you don't need to cook if you don't want to) though so that we can stay in some evenings if we choose to.

A lot of places in Spain and the Baleric Islands and Portugal I think are called aparthotels and are a mix of self catering appartments and rooms but with on site restaurants and facilities.

When I only had one kid, I would get him to sleep in the bathroom, in a hotel room. The bathtub works fine, you take the mattress out of the travel cot and put it in there.

Or if the bathroom is big, the whole travel cot may fit in it. It means you have to pee quietly if you're going to the loo, but that's better than having to sit quietly in the dark in your room all night!

One big added advantage, the bathroom doesn't normally have a window, so your LO may well not be woken by the sun in the morning, this way, either.

What a great idea NQC !!

We actually did that last summer, because we had a two-bed apartment, but there was a giant bathroom, which became the third bedroom, so nobody had to share.

I wouldn't leave any of my children anywhere - when only had ds it was easy, in the states he slept in the walkin waredrobe, he slept in buggy or we sat on balcony or stayed quiet in room. Now dts are here we are staying with family and caravaning until they are a bit older.

Hi LAZYCOW (feel rude to say that!). Your s/c apartment in hotel complex sounds great. Would you mind letting me know more...sorry to be ignorant but i dont know where Sapin is. And which hotel/resort is it? or company you booked through?

We are thinking that might book an apartment (in southern Croatia) now and just accept the fact that we have to cook for ourselves (with an attempt at buggy sleep a couple of nights). At least then can have separate bedroom for her, and can relax in separate lounge/balcony in evening. Although one we've seen doesn't have pool which is shame. Is near beach though.