My Top 10 Lessons Learned Holidaying with Little Ones
Thursday 18th of July 2013 | Category: Opinion | Written by: Siobhan ThomasA friend of ours recently returned from a long haul holiday to a resort where he and his wife have been several times. ‘Man it was intense, there was just no down time – it wasn’t a holiday’ was how he summed it up! The difference this year? The addition of his 5 month old baby boy.
Last year was our first venture abroad with children, and like him, we went to a family member’s villa that we have been to many times before. Despite being near-enough a stay at home mum at the time, the experience of holidaying with a 2 year old and a 9 month old still came as quite a shock. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but whatever I had in mind wasn’t nearly as hard work as it turned out to be in reality.
We have just got back from attempt number 2, and we feel we’ve come a long way! Here are our top 10 lessons from the past 2 years that might help you (if only psychologically) to be more prepared for your first family holiday. You don’t need to be told to remember the steriliser, spare formula to cover delays and the children’s first aid kit for accidents around the pool – what I have compiled are less obvious warnings…
1) Timing your travel
Don’t overthink this, in our experience, if the journey involves any form of transport other than the family car or takes longer than 2 hours door to door, it will be nigh on impossible to get the timings right. With babies, even the best laid plans around routines can come unstuck – the journey is likely to disrupt their normal habits and hunger, tiredness or an untimely nappy are all possibilities when you least need them. With toddlers you can make a big deal of the idea of a ‘picnic’ be that on the plane, train or boot of the car. Pack your sense of humour, plenty of snacks and remind yourself of how easy you thought it looked before you had children!
2) Planes aren’t that exciting
No matter how much you hype up the journey, a toddler’s interest in being on a plane (never mind being strapped in) is nearly always short lived – in our case it wore off just after take-off. Bring snacks, books, colouring, gadgets or whatever you can pack as a means of distraction. Divide the flight time by your child’s average period of concentration per activity and there you have approximately the number of different distractions needed for the journey.
3) The magnified audio effect of tiles
Most properties in southern Europe are tiled from floor to ceiling for the purposes of keeping the house cool. This is excellent for hot days, less good for crying babies in the dead of night and extremely bad for families with a 3 year old who has really learned how to go full throttle on a tantrum. Only open windows that you can get to and close quickly – and don’t make the mistake of telling the 3 year old that you’re embarrassed of their din, there is no better incentive for them to maintain the volume!
4) They are going to love the beach!
Not necessarily so! So don’t be disheartened if they don’t show the enthusiasm that you expected. All children are different, and whilst our eldest has always loved the beach, our youngest spent the first week of our holiday shouting for a wipe every time she got sand on her hands and complaining that the sea was ‘wet’.
5) Sun cream
a) Children’s sun cream is like a cross between emulsion and PVA glue. Hair, sand and dust all stick well to it and on our children it seems to promote a runny nose. Snot being an equally effective adhesive, photos were best taken at the start of the day.
b) Factor 50 – they may need it but it doesn’t do much for your St. Tropez efforts. Try to get them to alter the places on your body that they wipe it on each day so that your patchy tan isn’t too pronounced.
6) Sun suits
A brilliant invention for protecting little ones from the sun, they are invaluable if you have a little red head like ours with very sensitive skin. However, as lovely as they may look steer clear of the all-in-one designs. Prizing a damp suit from their bodies in order to change nappies or do toilet runs is an arduous task. Getting said child back into the damp suit afterwards is near enough impossible. They don’t like it and there is something about damp swimwear that makes it appear to have shrunk two sizes. Get the ones with separate top and bottoms!
7) Disposable nappies
Get them in the pool or the sea and they are likely to disintegrate. Some are more hardwearing and take longer to break down but will sag – even drag – behind their little bottoms stretching the elasticated leg and rendering them totally ineffective.
8) Swim nappies
They serve a purpose to prevent (usually) a solid accident in the pool. They are not effective for the purpose, however, of containing liquids. For this reason I would recommend:
a) Not carrying a baby in a swim nappy on your hip unless your clothes/costume is already wet
b) Perfecting your powers of distraction so that you can divert other pool-goers’ attention if your 1 ½ year old (as ours did this year) shouts ‘wee-wee!’ and squats with her head between her knees every 20 minutes to marvel at her bodily functions.
9) Potty training
Patronisingly obvious to most of you I should hope, but nevertheless take it from me that potty training a child shortly before taking a foreign holiday is not sensible. The excitement of the holiday combined with Mummy’s persistent efforts to keep them hydrated in 36 degree heat is a recipe for many an accident, embarrassing restaurant experiences and stern words from the air stewards about going to the toilet when the seatbelt sign is on.
10) Out ‘n’ about napping
We spent £50 on a sun tent last year that has seen about 2 hours of occupancy across 4 weeks of use. But we have probably spent at least double that time trying to persuade ,cajole and bribe the children into actually taking a nap in it. As for buggy naps, whilst ours slept well in buggies at home the distraction of their new surroundings, and the discomfort of sweaty cream-smotherered skin made it impossible. Trying to keep them shaded whilst not suffocating them was a tall order and have you ever actually tried taking a buggy on sand? There are many years ahead for exploring on holiday, but whilst they are young keep it simple and stay close to your villa or hotel so that you can take them back there for a sleep!
But all in all…
The holiday is definitely worth it. Once you get over the initial surprises and accept that holidays have (at least in the short term) been redefined for you, there is lots to enjoy. We were a lot better prepared this year and really appreciated the amount of time we had to solely focus on the girls. We also came back feeling noticeably refreshed.
And there are advantages to holidaying with children
You can nearly always get a table at a popular restaurant because you eat 2 hours earlier than everyone else. What’s more, nobody else has bagged the pool sun loungers when you get there to play at 8:45am!
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