Slightly disappointing first holiday away with baby

[veggie77]

So I probably sound a bit ungrateful / whiney, but hubby & I have just got back from our first holiday away with our 5 month old Son. We had 4 nights away in the North in a log cabin. We booked it when I was pregnant, thinking we'd only want to manage a few nights away with a baby that age and only want to drive for a few hours to get there. So it was easy to travel & packing wasn't so bad, cos no flying was involved etc. I just found myself yearning for the sort of holidays we used to have (a week in Italy or Greek island on a beach, eating out at night and hearing a foreign language being spoken and a different culture etc.) It just felt like we did what we do at home but further up the road. We went on long walks and saw some sights in daytime, cooked at home every night (was in back of beyond so nowhere to go anyway) and watched tv at night. It kind of left me wanting to go away again (4 nights flew by) and get some sun and see a beach! Sort of missed the intimacy of just me and my husband, that we used to get when the 2 of us headed off for a week of relaxing doing nothing! Was hard work trying to look after a baby and do stuff my husband wanted to do on holiday.

I guess I will get used to it as time goes on. It was all we could afford this year but I suspect we'll have similar UK holidays like that in future.

Anyone else feel like this on their holiday? Got any tips for fun stuff you can do with a baby on holidays? I reckon next year we'll go away when my son is a year old and a couple of months, so it'll be different again then.

Thanks!

If you like swimming yourselves, I would get your DS to baby swimming classes, so he is used to the water. We have taken DS who is almost 3 on lots of beach based holidays, Croatia, Thailand. We even managed to both get massages in thailand, by walking DS in his pushchair till he fell asleep, then he napped on a spare massage bed whilst DP & I had our massages. Then in the evening he would come out for dinner and we would go for buffets, or dishes we knew would arrive quickly.

However with beaches, i think you should kiss good bye to lying on a sun lounger reading a book. I found it quite helpful to pack and extra bucket and spade, so that if there was an extra child mooching around the beach s/he would happily play with DS

I read this recently and thought it was so true:

"With kids you don't take holidays, you take trips."

You get to go somewhere new, have an adventure, create memories etc but it will never be a true holiday in the relaxing sense until they are much, much older.

If you get on well with your family then go with them, it will hopefully give you a break and a chance to get some couple time.

Yep, that sounds about right. There are compensations (first sandcastles etc) but your expectations of a holiday have to change massively for now.

Thanks for all the experiences and advice / tips etc. I've had a think about the place we stayed in and I think that had a lot to do with it. A couple of people I know have heard of it and said it's a really remote place to be on holiday with limited things to do, so I think that the venue contributed to that feeling of 'someone stole my holiday!' etc.

Good idea about going away with family / friends etc. Think I'd be inclined to go with friends as I've been subjected to some hideous holidays with the inlaws in the past and I've put my foot down with hubby that they won't be repeated. It's tempting to go with my family instead, so I might have a think about that. Also like the idea of centerparcs next year and then save our money for a beach holiday abroad the following year when our Son is 2 and can enjoy the beach a bit more.

Sigh! Good to know other people have felt this way about disappointing holidays in the past!!!

This thread has made me nervous! Off to Spain for 8 days from Friday and couldn't really see how it was going to be - luckily going with mum and best mate. I am a single mum. BUT going to Goa on my own via Mumbai in January. Am I mad?! My baby will be 15 months.

Yes, holidays do change dramatically when you have children.

We can't afford to do the indulgent holidays now and mostly holiday in the UK for convenience. We'll probably go somewhere in France next summer now the boys are a bit older (3 & 5), but the focus will still be on keeping them entertained. I think holidaying with the IL's or your parents is a great idea (if they're willing). It gives them quality time with their GC and you a break.

Take heart though OP. You do start to get your life back a bit once they are a little older and there's no reason why you can't still holiday abroad even with very small children.

Best holiday With a small person?

Longhaul to Washington and the East coast if the USA with a 2.5 yearold when 5 months PG.

I kid you not. She listened to nursery rhymes on the plane (pre iPads), rode in her buggy or chased around the Washington underground on reins. She pushed every button in the smithsonion space museum and we lived off fast food. Which you do in the states anyway. Big Mac next to the motel had a soft play so DH and I got nice quiet breakfast. American cartoons were different to us too, so watching children's TV wasn't more of the same.

Yes, DD1 was a very flexible toddler, she loved being pushed/walking round new places. She slept well in the car and she was totally fearless about escalators (she'd practiced a bit in Brum.)

No it wasn't posh dinners and the most cultural museums, but it was different and fun. DH and I's first meal together was mac D's (very broke students), and being scientists we'd have gone to child friendly button rich museums anyway.

The trouble with the UK is nothing is new unless you try very hard or spend a lot of money visiting attractions and self catering just feels like being at home without a dishwasher.

I should add DH was already in the USA with work, so even without DD it would have been lots of cheap fast food and low cost motels. We were squashing the bill into a cheapish beach holiday budget.

After a couple of very disappointing holidays like you've just had, DH and I realised that holidays as we knew it were off the menu for a while. Both DDs vomit copiously on journeys over about 30 mins, which meant the first day or so of a holiday was spent finding the laundrette etc. DD2 has medical problems so we also ended up at random GP surgeries/paediatric wards without our normal information or support.

We now have "holidays at home" where we take the week off, DDs go to their normal childcare giving us some couple time for nice lunches, naps shags, and to finish our own little DIY/craft projects or just read and watch a film uninterrupted. We spend the money we save on not going away on a couple of day trips to touristy things near home with the dds, take aways/posh ready meal and nice snacky foods and a cleaner. We book a local, trusted and known-to-the-children babysitter and go out for an eve. DDs get to keep to their normal routine and don't get overtired and unsettled, we get to feel rested and on top of things and not stressed about health & safety issues or spending money. We pay a lot for our house and have made it safe and fit for our needs so it is a relaxing place to be compared to an apartment with stone stairs and no banister, or a caravan with electric bar fire!

That said, we have been here and that felt like a true break. It's £££ so we only went for a couple of nights but it was brilliant! Would def go again if we had the cash.

don't start me. Seriously. Don't start me

Rushing about trying to tidy the house and wash and dry clothes before you go
Sitting blearily at your desk several nights till well into the night to finish your work before you go (if you WOH)
Packing, while you are either knackered from bfing and some or all of the above; or, you have stopped bfing but now you have a toddler who thinks it is hilarious to throw the things around the room you are trying to pack. Like everything else, you end up doing this at midnight
Travel to where you are going. Either driving, hot, stuck in traffic for hours; or manhandling tired cross children around air ports and train stations. Either way vile biscuity crumbs and sticky dampness everywhere. If on plane or train will constantly be thwacked in face with book. If driving they can't reach to hit you so will howl instead.
Arrive. Can't find anything. something important is broken. something else is missing. thin flimsy curtains against a 5am sunrise. Or sweaty tent, but camping-specific horrors are a particular world of pain which is actually trivial relative to general holiday horror.
Rain.
Can't find anything to do with bored whiny child. dp snores. Up at 6 or before with child.
Meals. Cooking meals with blunt knives and no store cupboard stuff.
Drink too much in desperation.
Come down with nasty virus.
Still on child-treadmill. Dragging yourself about endlessly looking at watch wondering how the hell only 5 minutes have passed. Ask self how long it is reasonable to sit on lavatory in peace and quiet.
Come home (again, driving or airports or whatever). House a tip from when you flung yourself out of it without having a chance to straighten up behind you. Suitcases full of laundry to add to the mix. Maybe including bed linen, depending on where you were staying.
No money left from over-drinking and too many meals out at which you lost the will to argue with dp who kept ordering expensive things for child which they eat a corner of.
Raining. Can't dry laundry.
Normal life - whether WOH, maternity leave, or whatever you do - resumes tomorrow and you have to do everything you normally do with a backlog of laundry and exhaustion and a million things to sort out alongside

I keep promising myself I will refuse to go on holiday - as they do actually make me ill, have been properly laid up several times after all this tiredness and crap and always get at least fat, sniffly, run down and hungover - but have never had the courage to stick to my curmudgeonly convictions

Look, it really is possible to go away with little kids. I went away twice this summer with DD - first time she was 8.5 MO and I travelled alone with her, to stay with relatives overseas. I found that holiday really hard work without DH as apart from bouts of cooing from relatives I had to do everything with her 24/7 and it was full on.

But we went away again last month - me, DH and DD (10.5 months at the time) and it was great. The one thing we couldn't do was lots of sightseeing as we didn't have a car and we couldn't take her on coach trips etc because of heat / car seats etc. So, we had a by-the-beach-and-pool holiday. Best thing we bought was an inflatable boat for 5 or 6 euro which we used as a makeshift playpen / cot. She played in it with toys and had her naps in it, lying on a towel. We got to lie and read and chat, with plenty of dunks in the pool. We also put her to bed later at night (about 10pm) which meant she slept till 9am and also had 1 or 2 good long naps during the day (thank you hot weather).

It is do-able with a baby, I promise. Ironically I've heard the 18 months - 3 years window is harder because they can bolt off but it won't stop me getting my annual fix of sunshine!

Zutalors, so true

funnyrunner toddlers are great fun if you don't mind chasing after them . They just want to be the centre of attention. I spent an entire 11 hours on a plane standing outside the toilets and walking up and down the aisles with DD. She wanted to hand everyone a copy of the in flight magazine and headphones. Everyone went along with her 'pretend play'. It's brilliant, in a holiday with toddler way.

It's not quite the whole 11 hours. But most of the time!

Holidays with kids = same shit, different surroundings...

Someone told me that once and unfortunatley it's true - we now take any contingent of family willing to come along and help control the 2yo DTs!

We're planning USA next summer - I may come back slightly unhinged.