holiday sleeping

[poppyseed]

Has anybody got any advice for me on how to survive holiday!? We have DS who is 13 months and who LOVES his cot and is a great sleeper with no problems - 12 hours at night and 2 during the day. Trouble is he has slept nowhere else! not even in the car, although his 5 year old sister may have something to do with that!! The 8 hour ferry crossing is starting to make me twitchy and so are the day time naps!!

Tajke whatever he is familiar with from nap/nighttimes at home. We never move without the teddybears and sleepingbags. We usually take a blanket each as well. Ds never has a problem, as long as it's peaceful and non-distracting, and he has his bear, then he will go to sleep. Dd, on the other hand, takes a couple of nights to settle, but you can see that she latches on to the presence of familiar things and routines. You may just have to accept that sleep will go out of the window on your travel day, but once you get to your destination go back into your routine as much as possible. We have no hesitation using CC when we're on holiday (if it's appropriate), and dd always settles back within a night or two. Anyway, daytime naps are often better than at home because they are so exhausted!

Where are you going?

Dd's like your ds, poppyseed, a great sleeper in general. I usually find that for the first day or two that we're somewhere else she's a bit unsettled, takes a bit longer to get to sleep etc. but then settles down remarkably quickly so long as you keep your usual routines in place: favourite toys / books / blanket or whatever. I did find just recently a trip to stay with my mom was a bit of a disaster because her rooms so much lighter than dd's is at home, next time I'm going to take a spare chunk of blackout cloth!

Just had another thought: take the sheet off his cot at home when you leave, and put it (unwashed) on the cot at your destination - the smell and texture will be familiar.

Thanks for the advice both of you! Will take the blanket with us for the windows! I am a bit reluctant to try CC on holiday as it will be the first time, but we'll wait and see... Going to France for the 5th year running - we find it so easy with the kids as the beaches are what Cornwall used to be like - unspoilt and lovely and mummy and daddy have access to the food and wine!!! We went last year when DS was 6 weeks old but he slept for all of it so it'll be a little bit different this year!

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Thanks - we're lucky enough to have sorted out a room each for both of our children!! This way, if he does play up our DD stands some chance of sleeping (and so do we!)