Staying in a hotel with a baby - evenings

[Daffodil2018]

What do you do in the evenings when you're staying in a hotel with your baby? DD is 8 months and we're away for three nights. She's in a travel cot in our (smallish) room.

DH thinks we should wait until she's down then stick the baby monitor on and eat in the restaurant (literally next door to our room). I think room service but this obviously involves eating v quietly and in the near-dark. At the moment DH is trying to get DD to sleep while I eat on my own in the bar so not ideal (well ... pretty good for me! I have wine).

How shall we handle it tomorrow and Sunday?

We always did the baby monitor thing and ate in the restaurant like every other couple I know IRL. But this is a no no on MN.

We always had room service.
GP's had baby monitor but times have changed.

I would if the dining room were literally the next door room. I have in a small 10 room hotel where we could see our room door from the dining room.
But not if another floor.

Can you put sleeping baby in the pushchair and keep her with you?

We've not had many hotel stays but just got room service and had drinks in the room. Took films with us if they had a DVD player, or laptop with downloaded Netflix or amazon films if not.

Oh and we had a video baby monitor which I think also changes things.

When the dining room is further away we eat together then one puts the baby down while the other has a drink in the bar.

We would eat before DC go to sleep then go into hotel room for the evening, put DC to bed and read our phone or kindle until we want to go to sleep.

Interesting, thanks. I think we'll take a view tomorrow based on how well she goes down/sleeps tonight. She's normally out by 7 and she's still awake tonight so I'm not confident she'll be sleeping well away from home (and minus her Sleepyhead, argh).

I would really love us to eat in the restaurant together but not if one of us has to be getting up from the table every 5 minutes to settle her ...

What worked for us was to do normal bedtime routine but then put her "to bed" in the pushchair, take her for a nice walk to get her off to sleep then just take pushchair into the restaurant. White noise app for if she woke a bit and grumbled. More difficult now she's a toddler and with another baby in tow!

When DD was that sort of age I did manage on a handful of occasions to put her in the pushchair at bedtime and wheel her to sleep then park the pushchair next to the table in a restaurant. Generally once she was asleep she'd sleep for at least a couple of hours in the pushchair.

Put to sleep in pushchair with snoozeshade over. Then go for dinner!

DH took older DS to the hotel pool for a swim. I stayed with sleeping baby and read a book in bed/relaxed

We always ate early then went to the room to put DC to bed but had a supply of snacks in case we got peckish in the room later.

Pushchair! Thanks- that may work.

I just went back in to the room and they're both asleep 🙄

We either let baby sleep in pushchair then went to eat, or ate earlier then had a bottle of wine & portable DVD player with headphones for back in the room.

We don't get away much but we'd always eat with the baby in the pram (and hope they slept!) I wouldn't leave a baby in a hotel room. I don't think I've had a meal without holding or pushing the baby for the last seven months but I think that's jsut part and parcel of parenthood!

We eat a little earlier than usual and keep dc up a little later or let them fall asleep in pram/on lap. Then straight to bed.

We then chat and watch tv or read etc in our room while they sleep.

I borrowed a kind of black cover for the travel cot and we stuck her by the door so we could have a chat! Then just read and took advantage of an early night.

We couldn't do this. Tried on first night on holiday and failed miserably so had to move to a one-bed apartment.

Our plan had been to do what PP said - eat before baby asleep and then stay in the room wand watch films on the laptop under the duvet, but he was too disturbed by us and I was stressy and anxious.

In future if a one-room hotel stay was the only option we'd probably take turns or use the monitor (if appropriate).

A friend of mine puts the travel cot in the en suite in hotels which seems genius to me (as long as big enough obviously!) - they could close the door on it and have the lights on in their room. I wouldn’t leave the baby alone in the room personally.

We've done both baby monitor option, and pram/pushchair option. Having babies that will sleep in pushchair is really helpful! Mine used to choose to take daytime naps in the buggy, so they got really used to it.

Pushchair is your friend, get baby ready for bed and snuggle down to sleep in the pushchair, they are then moveable!

Ps I have a lovely picture of my two in their double buggy fast asleep in a jazz bar/restaurant in San Francisco, they slept through anything!

My children never ever slept in the buggy they just turned into overtired nightmares! We used to eat early, go back to the room and have drinks / play cards in the semi dark once they were asleep. One particular time we ended up drinking warm wine just outside the room in the corridor. I kind of miss those days now...

It's why we switched to caravan holidays for a good few years with a terrace or self catering apartments with a balcony for holidays for anything longer than a couple of nights.

I have done the baby monitor (video) in a small family focused hotel. My child is a good sleeper though.