Naps on holiday

[Jenu294]

Hey...

I'm due to go abroad in October for a week with my family (including my parents), my daughter will be 15 months by then.

I'm having a huge debate with my parents about naps - I would prefer to stick to her sleep schedule even if that does mean she's going down at 7pm. My parents however, are mortified saying she's on holiday and she deserves to stay up 🤷🏽‍♀️

I'm a bit worried about messing up her body clock, but then I guess not everyone will want to be back in their rooms so early either?!

Any opinions?

We took our little girl away when she was 10 months and stuck to her schedule at home and looking back now I really wish we hadn’t! We still had a lovely time and we and hubby we’re able to sit on the balcony while she slept but I wish I hadn’t been so uptight about it. Next holiday I will definitely be a bit more relaxed with sleep timings

She doesn’t deserve, need to or understand the concept of staying up late. She’s 15 months and that’s a completely ridiculous thing for your parents to say!

That said, our holidays usually involve a substantial time zone shift (live in the US but our big holidays are usually with family in Europe) so we’re always pretty relaxed with the routine because the time on holiday is somewhat irrelevant! We’ve never had issues getting back into routine when we return home either.

If you’re concerned about going out for dinner, will she sleep in the pushchair? If yes I’d feed her early-ish then hopefully she’ll fall asleep and you can all enjoy your evening without having to rush back to the hotel early.

Very small children don’t enjoy staying up late the way older children do, they just feel tired and fractious.

Some are flexible enough to have extra naps in the day or sleep later in the morning so that they can stay up late without being tired. Some aren’t! All depends what your baby is like.

My parents however, are mortified saying she's on holiday and she deserves to stay up 🤷🏽‍♀️**

What they mean is they want to spend more time with the baby. Stick to your guns as you are the parent of the child. You might find naps change a bit around the holiday routine so aim to be flexible when needs be.

It depends on the child. Some toddlers are flexible and can easily nap in the pram or stay awake way beyond their usual bedtime. Others (e.g. my DD) hate any disruptions to their usual routine and are masters at making everyone's lives miserable if they get overtired.

As a result, up until now we have always stuck to the DD routine (+/- 1 hour) when we went on holidays. DD is a brilliant sleeper and loves sleeping in the cot (but only the cot). We usually hired babysitters for the evening and had dinner after her bedtime (7.30-8pm). It worked out really well but we knew the babysitters were only there for emergency. They never had to interact with DD. She was always sleeping peacefully and happily.

We will try to stretch DD's bedtime next time we go on holidays but she is now 2.5+ years old and is much better at dealing with overtiredness. She wouldn't have been able to handle it at 15 months.

Thanks all!

LO has never slept in her pram/pushchair - from day one she screamed blue murder and even now it's her least favourite place as she always wants to be out and carried. She's so inquisitive that she'll miss out on sleep in her pushchair.

She pretty much only sleeps in her cot, along with black out curtains. Sometimes she falls asleep in the car but that's not going to be a solution on holiday 😁

I guess we can play it by ear when the time comes.

Hi OP

We went on a cruise with our little girl when she was 15 months, we were with family too and they also thought I was being a bit silly sticking to her routine so I relented and she stayed up with us almost every night, we did have some issues getting her to sleep a couple of nights as she was too far past sleep but she settled after some milk and a cuddle, I worried that she wouldn't go back into her routine when we got back and she just got straight back into it so I'm glad we did what we did albeit reluctantly on my part in the start. Our little girl will also only sleep in a cot, we bought a snooze shade and although she wouldn't sleep in it of an evening she would in the day, so maybe give one a go :)

Hope that you have a great time xx

@Pinklittle thanks, and for the reassurance!

Think my concerns are pretty similar to what yours were; she's in a great sleep routine right now that I feel a bit wary to jeopardise it. But I'm going to bite the bullet and see how she gets on in the first few nights. I'm sure she'll let us know if she's not approving 😁

Also thanks for everyone's advice!

Our daughter has always stuck to her sleep routine, would sometimes nap in the pushchair in the day but i did have a snoozeshade to keep light out.
Occasionally she'd stay up late but most of the time she wanted to go to bed around 7-7:15, still does now at 3yr old