Ski holiday with a 16 month old

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Edit: 16 months now, 20 months if we go away.

My husband were regular skiers before our daughter was born. We are thinking of going for a week this year when my daughter would be 20 months. I’ve looked at one company (family ski) but I’m sure there are others. We’d need some childcare for at least part of the week so we could ski together but would also like to go to a resort that’s good for toddlers if such a thing exists! Anyone taken a toddler skiing?!

Ours are teens now but when they were babies / toddlers / primary aged we went several times with Family Ski. We always went with a group of friends with similar aged kids and filled and chalet or two.

Their childcare was excellent, the ski school helpers with the youngest skiers made a massive difference to our oldest and the baby sitters on the night that we ate out was an excellent service. The non skiing activities were great and it was hard to tempt the kids out of kids club to ski with us one or two afternoons of the week!

we’ve not needed to use their services for several years now but when we did, they were excellent.

We always go with Ski Famille as their childcare is excellent! This season will be our fourth holiday with them.

We took my now 13yr old away to Alpes D’Heuz when he was 13/14months old, just toddling. We went with Snowline (now VIPSki) fully catered chalet. There were two other families with young children in the chalet, 12 people in total. We hired a nanny (actually a “manny”!) who turned up every day at 7:30am and seamlessly picked up where we were with our son, finished off breakfast with him, got him dressed etc and took him out and about, back for lunch and nap. Meanwhile we were able to get out for first lift and ski until around 2/3pm. When we returned our son was usually having his afternoon nap or just waking up. So we got a decent amount of skiing in but then our afternoons were spent with our son sledging or pottering around the chalet or town. The chalet did a kids tea at 5pm and adult dinner at 8pm once the kids were all asleep. It wasn’t cheap but for two ski mad grown ups it was the best of both worlds! We only did this once due to cost and having another two kids. But as soon as they were all old enough we had them all in ski school! Now they’re all faster and better than us!

No children but always heard good things about Club Med for families.

Not a ski company as such, but Austria has "Kinderhotels" that cater exclusively for families with children and have nannies, playrooms, pools and spas, outdoor play areas and often a petting farm (rabbits, ponies etc) and other activities.

An example is the Ellmauhof in Hinterglemm - there are about 50 others throughout Austria.

Club med. They have a kids club and a baby club there to take care of your children. They always make it so fun for the kids that they don't want to leave!

Thanks for all your advice. I’ll look at all your suggestions and book something soon. I quite like the idea of the kinderhotels in Austria.

Kinder hotels are fab, try Serfaus in Austria

We did Crystal with a 2.5 year old. Stayed in an apartment (find self catering is easier/more flexible with a little one, as hotel meals are quite late in starting), and had a short walk in the morning to the crystal hotel where the childcare was. 0900-1700 iirc, although we often pick her up early to go play in the snow, sledging, rode in a gondola etc.

A year later we used ESF, chalet des enfants and apart from the lunches being very French. So depending on the menu needed to send her off with a snack, she had a whale of a time. In the snow garden on ski’s in the morning then we paid for lunch which meant she stayed until 1400, when we picked her up to ski on the nursery slopes.

Yes to Kinderhotels, Switzerland has them too. perfect with toddlers.

We’ve narrowed it down to Ardent with Family Ski or Les Gets with ski famille. Anyone been to these resorts with these companies? My worry with Ardent is there is very little there. We like going for afternoon/early evening walks round the town, usually apres ski (probably unrealistic with a toddler!). To do that from Ardent would involve buses but the skiing is much better from Ardent than Les Gets.

Snowbizz! Tried Crystal when DS was 1 wasn't overly impressed. Skipped the year he was 2, found Snowbizz on here when he was 3. And just booked for 2025.

We tried elsewhere last year but kids want to go back with Snowbizz for 2025.
This will be our 8th holiday with them, skipped a couple of years with DS2 and a year with Covid.

Depends how you feel about nurseries but Les Gets and Morzine both have a resort nursery. If your LO already goes to a nursery and would be happy with a new setting then it’s a good option. They take babies from 3 months I believe.
We used the ESF Piou Piou for DS last year (age 3.8). Typical nursery day plus a quick ski lesson (basically being pushed down a small slope on skis 😂) and lots of playing in the snow. DS really liked it.

There’s only a couple of small bars in Ardent, it’s only a small hamlet but there’s wine on tap in the chalets! You can walk from one end of the village to the other in less than 10 minutes but you could stay up in Les Lindarets for a couple of apres drinks then get the bubble down before you collect your dc from childcare.

The skiing from Ardent is fabulous on all directions and more snow sure than Les Gets, which is definitely more of a small town with more going on.

Snowbizz have a nursery that takes from 12mths, maybe younger not sure.
Once they turn 3 they get an hour out in the snow garden with ski instructors and a nanny to 'wipe noses' then back into the nursery.
Seconds from the accommodation and the slopes

Quick update…thanks for all your advice. We’ve gone for family ski in Ardent. Mainly because the skiing is so good from there but they also provide transfers. Ski famille include flights from Gatwick but we live in Scotland and they wouldn’t let us use their transfers if we booked our own flights! So that put me off them and was going to add to the cost. I’m going to check out the resort nurseries when we are there for the following year.

Have a great time! Ours are older teens now and still speak fondly of the holidays that we had in Ardent.

There aren’t any other nurseries to check out there though.

Have a fantastic time! We stayed with Family Ski in Ardent and had a great time, our children were older but the childcare for younger (non skiing) children looked excellent. (I’d still be using Family Ski but my children are now basically adults and quite frankly can outski me!)