In-law holiday and sleep

[HEIHEI23]

I’m on holiday with my in-laws and six month old and finding the evenings and night times really draining. Our routine is completely out the window and baby is overstimulated by having 7 other people around all day when it’s normally just me and him. He will only sleep in the pram or in our bed when normally he sleeps in his cot! We’re only half way through and I’m so worried I’m getting him into bad habits that will be hard to break when we get home. Please reassure me I’ll be able to go back to normal with him when we go home 😫 we’re having a great time in the day but I’ve spent the past 3 nights pacing baby up and down whilst everyone else eats and then eating alone later once he’s asleep and I’m jsut exhausted.

Why are the 6 or 7 other people not sharing the load in the evenings?

Can I just say though that clinging to a routine is just going to stress you out further. Babies are actually quite adaptable. My routine went out the window by babies 3 and 4 and were more relaxed as children as a result. I recommend not getting hung up on the routine thing.

I feel this, it’s so hard when you’re on holiday and out of routine.

6 months is still really little and they’re very adaptable at this age, once you’re back home and in familiar territory he will get right back to his usual habits! We went on holiday when our DD was 6 months and gave up entirely on the routine - she went to bed a lot later than usual and as soon as we got home it was right back to the usual habits with no issues.

Are you able to get your DH to do bedtime tomorrow night so that you can enjoy your dinner with everyone else? Or throw the routine out of the window altogether and have DS at the table with you all and then do bedtime after that?

Good luck, and enjoy the rest of your holiday!

Not their baby.

It will be absolutely fine when you get home. I took my baby to Spain and we stayed up til 10pm most nights to go to dinner and do things in the evening. He adjusted back to normal once we were home.

But it’s your holiday too. Where is your partner? Why does your partner not have the baby so you can eat? I’d be eating my meal while Dh had the baby, then taking us both to bed so we get a good night sleep.

Don't fall into the trap of stopping up late to please people

Because as you've seen, they sure as hell aren't getting up in the middle of the night/crack of dawn to get up with your baby

Is baby’s dad not on the holiday?? I almost hope not since he should bloody well be carrying baby while you eat dinner.

I let routines go out of the window on holiday and they're easily picked up again once home, I think it's quite common and friends who are the same on holiday find it all goes back to normal within a day or two, too.

You need to let the routine go out of the window for the holiday. Baby will be fine. When I took my 6mo on holiday with in-laws I was super stressed. Then, I let go of it all and it worked out amazingly. Changed my perception of baby sleep and my kids now are super adaptable.

I will say though that my in laws and DH did help. I think yours might too if you let go of baby a little. Let somebody else do some of the work for you here and there.

I’m more than happy for them to help 😂😂 my husband is helping as much as he can but baby only settles for me when he’s really really tired. I’m happy to hear that routine will come back! I’ll see if just going with the flow helps more tomorrow! Thanks everyone x

I took my baby on holiday around this age to Spain and he changed for the week from three naps to two long ones, then he went right back to normal when we got home

Why are the 6 or 7 other people not sharing the load in the evenings?

Aside from her dh, it's not their baby.
Parents aren't owed servitude.

Not a swipe at you OP - everything will be fine after you return. You'll get your groove back.

But surely on a group holiday everybody pitches in. It seems bizarre to me that the mother is being treated like Cinderella here with regard to what is required for everyone to enjoy the time away. I’m sure everyone shares the meal making, washing up and cocktail serving right? Why wouldn’t someone offer to hold the baby while the OP enjoys a meal with everyone else at least a few times? I know OP has said that baby doesn’t settle on anyone else easily but they could at least offer. If a DH is involved here that’s rather disgraceful that he’s allowing this to happen.

Your husband is being crap. It’s a non excuse that baby only settles for you! Tell your DH to learn FFS! And make sure you get a lie in while he takes HIS baby to spend time with HIS family!

To be fair to my husband, he has got up with him in the night to do all the night feeds and taken him down at 7 every morning so I can have a bit of a lie in so I can’t moan too much. Normally the baby settles great for him but when he’s over tired he genuinely only wants me. I was just so worried about upsetting the nice routine we had that I was stressing myself out. Going to go with the flow a bit more! My husband is also going to chat to his family about giving us a hand with things x

Oh I had this recently. Took my 6 month old half way across the world to meet his paternal side of the family. "Just go with the flow" and "routine goes out the window " is very easy to say when you're not the one waking every 90 minutes, all night long, for 2 weeks. Holiday my arse.

Sad to say we had to sleep train all over again, it was horrible and it didn't work as well. We had sleep trained at 5 months and it was a doozy then. He had also just dropped all night feeds before we went on holiday....but on holiday he basically reversed cycled because of how distracted he was in the day and when we came home he still expected feeding every 2 hours all night. We managed to drop some but at 7.5 months he still feeds twice a night.

I have never regretted a holiday more.