Very early flight with kids 😬

[wombpaloumpba]

Hello I am looking for some advice and tips please, I have been really daft and booked some early flights because they were about £500 cheaper. We will have to wake up at 2am to drive to the airport.
flight is at 6.

kids are 5 and 7. 7 year old gets extremely grumpy on low sleep.

it’s our first proper all inclusive hotel type holiday (in Corfu). Flight is 3 hours so I am thinking we might be at the hotel by mid afternoon

should we try and nap (but they’ll be so excited) or go to bed early or what? Really don’t want half the week dominated by overtired tantrums if possible. too late to change flights now!

Hi op weve done this loads of times and survived! However there has been holidays where dc were too hot/FOMO to sleep in the day so it was early bedtimes which are a bit crap!
However in your situation- encourage them to sleep on plane. Then try and power through for the day. Hotel- check in- dump things in room- pool and play- back showers change and out for mini disco and evening meal- bed then hopefully they wake up ready to go on day 2.

Then its just about finding the new routine! Enjoy!

We stay at airport hotels when we fly early

Would an airport hotel make it less painful? Potentially another hour or two sleep? They might sleep on the plane, you might get them to bed early. I would talk to your 7yo and lay out expectations, we will be tired, we will try to nap, we probably will need an early night. Good luck. I have teens and our issue is getting them out of bed in the mornings on holiday.

How far are you from the airport?

We’ve done it and I doubt we’d do it again tbh

we were all bloody knackered.
we didn’t go to sleep early but I think we insisted that everyone was in bed early.

what helped the kids though was that we had a two hour hire car journey the other end and they passed out for that

last year we did an 8am flight, leaving the house at 5, and again we were knackered but that felt just about doable

Get to the hotel, eat, pool, if it's hot they might nap on a sunlounger, early tea, kids entertainment, bed. Day 2 you should be fine.

We do this every year tho 7am flight as that’s the earliest they do

up at 230. Drive to airport. There 330. Check in

as a baby /toddler she went back to sleep in buggy at airport /plane

as a 4/5 + and now 9 stay awake usually and land and by apartment by 12. Lunch and pool etc. early tea and bed that night. But means have an extra half a day there

We don't do this for super early flights. If the flight is at 6 they'll still need to be at the airport by 4.

Op put them to bed a bit early the night before. Yourselves too. They should sleep in the car on the way to the airport. Lift them out of their beds straight into the car.

You’re arriving very early for a 7am flight?

One year passports and the hand luggage took forever and we almost missed our flight

some did on our flight as their names called as we were the last ones on

prefer to not rush and get through luggage etc and sit in the lounge other side esp when have kids and buggies etc

I love an early morning flight. We all just sleep on the plane as much as we can, then maybe a short nap in the afternoon if we can’t power through to night time.

Plus as have to travel on the m25 been an accident at times. Not when we have gone but friends on Similar time flight and again missed flight as they left 4am. To get there 5am and didn’t get to Gatwick in time

that would be most worst fear missing a flight for a holiday so prefer to get there earlier and know have time 😀

Ours are older now but we still do this, when they were younger we used to stay at the airport hotel the night before to give us an extra hour of sleep. But they were quite good at sleeping when they were tired so would fall asleep on the plane to catch up!

Fair enough, I’m not sure I could drag myself out that early 😁

I introduced my kids to the concept of a siesta (doesn’t matter if you aren’t in Spain!). In the afternoon on the day we arrived, we all had a nap. Dh and I included. I told them it was what everyone does on holiday and they were quite happy. We carried on with a siesta for the rest of the holiday (just the children) and it meant the kids could stay up later and go to bed at a similar time to me and Dh.

We used to bung ours in the car in their pj's and let them sleep on the way. Then a packed breakfast of croissants and fruit for all the airport queues.

Got them dressed and cleaned teeth in the car park on arrival.

We've got a 6:15 flight from an airport thats about 2 hours and 40 mins away 🫠 well done to me for booking the furthest away London Airport! We were faced with 2 options, leave at about 00:30, hope we don't hit traffic and have barely any sleep OR book a £62 premier inn which is 7 mins away from the airport. We went with the hotel 😅 now we can get some sleep and drive our car to the meet and greet for around 03:15. It's just a bit nicer for everyone, esepcially if one of you is having to do the drive to the airport.

I would just push through the first day, using the excitement of pool etc to keep the kids going.

Before we go on holiday we also have a honest chat with our dc about 'these things might be a bit tough/uncomfortable etc but we won't tolerate moaning as it's so you can have a nice holiday'. They tend to remembered reasonably well.

Let them sleep in comfy clothes and load them into the car last thing. Wrap their duvets around them and with any luck they’ll sleep in the car.

Prepare tham that you might not get into your room until mid afternoon but they will give you your bands and let you use the pool normally. Have all your swimming stuff in hand luggage so you can decanp easily if needed and dump you luggage till check in.

We always had a mid afternoon snooze on these kind of holidays, proper dark room for 2 hours, rest if you dont sleep kind of thing, and let the kids stay up till 9ish. So I would be saying yes, have an after lunch snooze if you get into your room and do it every day.

That’s our preferred flight time, arrive for lunch, chill on a lounger for the afternoon, maybe a nap. Early night.
We make sure our daughter goes to bed early the night before the flight, she will usually have a little nap on the flight too.

We do it every year, try and get an early night but when we wake the kids at 2am they are so excited they don’t even sleep in the car or on the plane. Get as many snacks as you can carry and use sugar to power through, have an early night your first night and you should be fine the next day!!

We do early flights (6-7am usually) for most of our holidays. It actually suits us better than late afternoon ones - no time for anyone to get bored/agitated! If you can do a day before bag drop for checked cases this is a useful timesaver. Make sure EVERYTHING is ready the night before. If you’re charging anything overnight put the charger in your bag as soon as you unplug it. The kids go to bed in what they will travel in - basically wake them up, send to the toilet then straight in the car. We take a few cartons of juice/wrapped breakfast bits for them to eat before we go to the security queue. If we think we will arrive at your hotel before check in time, we put the things we need for swimming in a smaller bag inside the case so we can just pull that out and crack on until we can get in the room.

See if there is a bag check in the night before? We did once with the super early flight and then stayed close by. Only having to do security the next morning makes a huge difference

We did a 5:55 flight during May half-term but opted to stay at the local Premier Inn 10 mins away. Wasn’t bad at all really, was nice to have the whole day at the hotel which we just took at a slow pace.

I would not drive the morning of.