Holidays and routines

[Dipsydoodlenoodle]

We are going abroad on hols with DD who will be 19 months old. Have other people kept their home routines when away? I’m just sort of wondering what to do in the evenings. Now, she eats, play, bath and bed. When on holiday – as she’ll have been in the pool, should I bath before she eats and then play and bed…or hold off until after dinner…or have pre-dinner bath, and then pre-bed time bath? Just seems overkill. Just really looking for other peoples experiences as its our first abroad holiday with her.

When DD was around that age (22 months) I bathed her before evening meal, to get rid of sand/saltwater/chlorine/sun cream and put insect repellent on, then she could just play etc straight after eating. Quick wash with flannel when getting pyjamas on (to remove insect repellent/sweat and feel better/cooler for bed) and then bed.

Go with the flow is my advice.

I would bath/wash down after swimming and dress for the evening. Take the buggy and a blanket, after dinner enjoy yourselves and let little one fall asleep in the buggy. Sometimes they fall asleep before dinner due to the amount of fun they had so I always had food just in case (memorable meal with both kids asleep in double buggy in a restaurant in San Francisco).

Sort of. Bed times move a little later as restaurants open later and breakfast is later as we all get up later. Naptimes we try to keep around the same time and they're either on the go or back at the apartment but ultimately its no big deal if it happens an hour or two later.

Showers happen in the morning rather than at night so we're all fresh to start the day but then we don't do pool holidays so no chlorine to contend with 😅

In short, we keep a loose version of the at home routine but aren't precious about it if it doesn't pan out that way.

Routines are pretty much out the window. You have to adapt because you as a family are out and about so much more, doing lots that you wouldn't generally be doing. So for naps, be flexible.

I would suggest keeping the bedtime routine as rigid as possible. At least some of the time, the TIME of bedtime won't always be 7:30 (or whenever you have it), but keep doing the same activities with the same items as you would at home. So favourite toys, familiar books etc.

We have found routine goes out the window completely, it depends what we are going in the day but if we are just at the hotel around the pool etc I will normally take DD up to them room at about 2/3ish and try and get her to nap. Normally we have showers/bath in the evening before we go out. Like a PP mentioned after dinner we will try and get her off to sleep in the buggy. Usually at this point she is pretty tired. We lay the buggy flat, give her blanket to her and put the hood over and she normally falls asleep fairly quickly. Once we are back in the room quick bum change and put her pyjamas on.

We always keep to a rough routine as it suits us but push bedtime a bit later, works well when going to Europe as we stay on UK time so she goes to an 8-8 routine.
In terms of bath, we always do it pre dinner, particular as dinner tends to be later than normal.

Thanks everyone. It's been good food for thought. I'd like to somewhat keep a routine, but obviously understand that times may be later.

Currently she's 7-7 so hoping that it's 8-8ish (going to europe), but is what it is.

As for naps we don't have a schedule anyway...some days it's 10am and others 3pm (she only has 1 nap).

In my experience, even if you want to keep with the rutine, it won't work.

Every time when we travelled with my daughter (now she's 16 months) it's always affected her.

The only thing you can do is try to be relaxed about it - if she doesn't want to eat or her sleep rutine gets messed up, it's not a problem. You will fix it when you're back home!