Holidays with one child

[MadBadandDangerousToKnow]

I often wonder about this.

We usually go to a rented cottage in France. We have a lovely time but it sometimes means that our daughter goes a fortnight without speaking to another child. She manages very well, though, at forming instant wordless friendships in the playground!

So I've been thinking of other options

• go to a campsite where she's likely to meet other English-speaking children in the children's club

• go on holiday with another family (we might do a joint holiday with my brother, SIL and the cousins next year)

• invite one of my daughter's friends along

Are there any other options I've overlooked (please don't say holiday in the UK as we've discovered that cottages in Cornwall cost 2 or 3 times what we pay in France!)? What do other one-child families do? What works? What doesn't?

We've recently become a 2-child family, but when it was just us and DS1 we had a great time on Featherdown Farm sites. It was in the UK, but they have a site in Brittany now.
It's "camping" on working farms, but not really camping.
The tents have wooden floors, flushing toilets, cold running water, woodburning stove and PROPER BEDS! With duvets!
DS met other children (but he was much younger than them - he's just 3) but spent inordinate amounts of time talking to chickens, lambs and cows, and the farmers dogs!

Featherdown Farms

They are fantastic. We're teachers so can only go in school holidays and find the best value time is to do Mon-Fri in the May half term. ]
But if term time hols are your thing, then I think they are very reasonable all year.

Ooh, that looks so lovely ... I'd have to go some to persuade DH it was a good idea, but I like a challenge.

How old is she? I know this year we did a week on our own after 2 weeks last summer in a place with a kids club. DD drove us mad and actually asked to go back to the place with the kids club "silly mummy - why didn't you do that...". So we've booked up with Eurocamp for next year.

This year we went on a Thomson holiday to Majorca and really enjoyed it. DD spent a couple of hours in Kids Club each morning. There were lots of "family friendly" activities during the day and a cheesy disco every evening!

I must have admit that when they are little you just have to put higher expectations on standby and go for stuff that they like. Then everyone has a nice time. As I work FT I hate the idea of putting dd in kids club, but as an only child what she really wants is other kids to play with.

So I've tried to go for a balance. We have family days out to the beach etc. She loves the baby disco, and going off to do activities with kids her own age. So if the downside of this is a couple of hours of quiet sunbathing, who am I to complain?

My daughter's seven, which is why I think the opportunity to mix with other children on holiday is increasingly important.

Featherdown Farms do look fantastic, but they reinforce what I thought about the cost of accommodation in the UK - over £600 a week in high season. Eeek!

we always book very "child-heavy" hols eg all inclusives in places like Majorca with full on swimming pool/water park type things. DD made loads of friends last year we didn't see her all day!

My DD is 6 and an only child. We choose to holiday with friends with children at the monent. Good on many levels for us - DD has companions, we have friends we get on with and have a laugh and a drink together. nd we can still go and do individual stuff f we want. We also holiday with grandparents too - no more children around but extr adults to play with DD. And we are off to centre parcs soon with family inc DD's 2yo cousin which DD will love.

When DD gets older we will probably take a friend with us.

But we do do some trips and holdiays alone too. DD is good at making friends, even wth no common langauge, in playgrounds. We don;t do hotels for proper holidays and don;t do kid's clubs, so that is not an option. We just chose holidays where we know there is something to entertain DD as well as us. Probably why we have done Disney a few times too

As long as there are a few english speaking kids around the pool my dd will make friends. If not then she will buddy up with an adult, usually me, and I will spend more time in the pool and less reading my book!

We have also been on hols with extended family a lot (although no other kids ) and most recently with my god child, which worked well.

My dd has never wanted to go to kids clubs so no experience of these.

How old is your dd MadBad?

We have gone away every year with only DGD, who is now 13, mainly to DB house in Spain, or villa in Cyprus, and it has not been to bad on her own, although we do, do alot of entertaining her.

This year was a disaster, and definitely would take a friend along with us.

She really need ed someone rather than Nan and Grandad.

Buy saying all that we took her to Mauritius in 2004, and she was happier staying with us than being with the other kids in the hotel!

Next Holiday is to South Africa, but that is to her Step mothers home and SM has a sister same age as DGD, so that should be great.

Shoshe why was it a disaster this year? We worry about holidays as our dd gets older. When she was little she would always make a friend within hours of arriving anywhere - camp site, or hotel with kids club - but it's harder to do that when you get to pre-teen and she's more self conscious about meeting new people. She's more bored with us than when she was small, and needs kids her own age more, although it's harder for her to make friends now. I worry about it.

my dd was an only child for 11 yrs

we took a friend with us from 9 yrs of age which works out great.

she's now 17 in a few weeks and doesn't really want to go on holiday with us so ds will now be on his own but too young to take a friend as he's only 6.

We may have to bite the bullet and do something with a kids club.