Naps, bedtime and how to go out for dinner when you’re on holiday with a baby.
By: Charlotte Simmons
Tags: Parenting Advice, Parenting Tips, Parenting, Parenting Toddlers

Holidaying with a baby is a different kind of holiday, I once overheard someone say “Same shit…different country”, 😬 but it doesn’t have to be that way! We knew holidaying would be different once we had a baby but we wanted to make sure that we could still relax.

We’ve been lucky enough to travel a few times since Ella arrived 15 months ago. By far the easiest time to travel was this time last year when she was 3 months old, she was having 3 naps a day and wasn’t on solids yet.

Fast forward a year and she’s walking, talking and eating anything she can get her hands on!

We’ve always kept a strict bedtime routine with bath, bottle and then bed at 6.30/7pm. When she was younger and we were away we would bath, bottle and then bedtime would be in the pram so that we could walk to dinner and she’d sleep whilst we are eating dinner. This worked until she was about 12 months old. I have friends whose babies stopped sleeping in the pram from a really young age, so I tried to encourage Ella to sleep in the travel pram for naps at home for as long as I was able to, to stop her from getting too used to long cot naps. By mixing it up a bit I think it kept her pram sleeping for longer.

This is the first time we’ve been away and we’ve had to come up with a new plan at dinner time in order for us to still be able to go out at adult times (7.30/8pm). Mainly because there are very few restaurants walking distance and Ella is no longer doing long stints in the pram.

We decided to try a morning nap around 11.30ish followed by a late afternoon nap at around 4/5pm, we’d then wake her up and give her dinner in the hotel room, give her a bath and keep her awake whilst we went for dinner at 8pm. We took her bottle with us and asked the restaurant to keep her milk in the fridge until we needed it. We also took the pram and her pyjamas with just in case she got tired and wanted to go to bed.

We managed to keep her up for dinner and she fell asleep as soon as we got home with her at around 9.45pm. It was really nice keeping her up for dinner and not stressing that she was overtired. We did need to bring toys for her to play with to stop her from getting bored. Colouring was a great distraction and kept her entertained for quite a long time.

Here are 3 top bedtime tips we’ve learnt whilst travelling:

Buy a travel pram the reclines and becomes fully flat (We have the Joie Pact) Your baby will sleep longer in the day and be more comfortable being put to bed in it when you go out for dinner if it goes completely flat.

When you are picking a holiday destination, make sure there are restaurants nearby that are walking distance or you have a nice choice of baby friendly restaurants inside the resort you are staying in. When I say baby friendly, just make sure they are happy for you to take the pram into the restaurant and there is enough room at the table for the pram to be next to you. We’ve been somewhere before where you aren’t allowed babies in the restaurant after a certain time, or at all (even if they are asleep in the pram).

Keep a routine (babies love routines) but don’t get too stressed about it on holiday, allow some flexibility. Whether it’s a late afternoon nap so they can stay up later or using the time difference to your advantage so your baby can stay up later, either keeping on English timings or adapting to the local time (which ever one suits you).

At the end of the day, as parents you deserve a relaxing break when you go on holiday, so don’t be too hard on yourselves when it comes to sticking to routines, your baby will adapt. Holidays are a time when you can bend the rules and chill out ☀️