Baby's bedtime while traveling

[ssheng]

We recently went on a weekend trip (one of the benefits of living in Hong Kong, near so many interesting and travel-worthy cities), and found ourselves puzzled as to how we were going to go out to dinner since our baby's bedtime is at 6:30pm. We ended up trying to let her sleep at the restaurant (failure) and then pushing her bedtime back (fine, but then she was a mess the next day, culminating with it being all too much by the time we rode the plane back home...screaming baby on the plane...yes we were THOSE parents).

How do you guys do it when you travel and don't have a babysitter? Just eat dinner really early and then don't go out at all at night? Only stay in those resorts I saw mentioned (Club Med) where you can have a babysitter? Or just not travel anymore?

 

[southside852]

yep, we eat early, order room service or extend our son's bedtime an hour or two so we can eat with him at a restaurant. This means we have him just nap later in the day. we also try and get a room that has a balcony or upgrade to a suite so we at least have more freedom to relax, have a glass a wine and watch a movie while the little one sleeps.

schedules while on vacation are always thrown off so it's really just up to u in your level of tolerance and how much you are willing to bend. We never get babysitters while traveling in Asia and that's just us personally. We would rather bring our helper with us knowing that we can trust her and she won't kidnap our baby...again this is a personal choice and I am sure people have done it and it's been fine.

 

[TNT]

You don't say how old your baby is as it does make a bit of difference, but i'm assuming under 2 years, so if that's not correct this may not help! But we did a lot of weekends to Europe with our 1st when we were in the UK and she was under 2 and did a combination of things:
1. Have dinner really early out somewhere with her (normally Italian as guaranteed to be liked - very easy in Italy) and then didn't go out at night. Usually one night of 2 if we were away for 2 nights. We often bought a bottle of wine or some nice dessert to have in the room after she was in bed.
2. More commonly, feed her early, put her to bed and then order room service for us. That way we could have a nice meal together and we were still sort of eating out.
3. Arrange a babysitter with the hotel, put her to bed usually before the babysitter arrived and then went out. Did this in a variety of places and went for dinner, to a show etc We chose hotels that provided this service if we wanted to do this (a lot do). She never woke up.
Also a couple of places we stayed at had a service with baby monitors where basically you could take it to the restaurant and eat there while the baby was in the room. We did use this once where we were right next to the room but was not too comfortable with the fact that no one was there and also don't think it is available many places.

Now she is older and we have another one we still do similar things but in Asia tend to stay at kid friendly hotels or resorts where eating together is easy and they have a high chair etc for the baby. But we still travel, although we certainly don't go out partying!!!

Hope this is of some help and reassurance that you don't have to stop travelling, although you do have to modify how you do that for a bit.

 

[carey]

TNT certainly gave lots of good options. I will try a few ( like getting baby sitter).

We had a one long trip and a few short ones with the then less than 12 month old.

Yes, we ate supper early. I didn't mind my husaband going out alone to have a few drinks. We also ended up sleeping earlier and of course, always up at the crack of dawn--not much a vacation compared to the pre-child days.

When he naps, my husband and I take turns to stay in the room.

We planned everything around his nap time. You really can't do much travelling with children under one year old.

Before 9 month old, My bud needed a nap every two hours otherwise he is not nice. After 9 month till now, he naps every three hour. Bedtime is much like yours, 6:30-7pm.

We still like to travel with him so that all of us get to see something different and we are trying to see things through his eyes during these trips. I agree now that resorts are great for families.

 

[bumbeeno]

oooo. All this has been very useful. We're about to make our first 'holiday' trip with our little one (who is less than a year old) and I have been wondering what happens in the evenings!

Did any of you have any problems getting your babies to go to sleep in (a) a foreign environment and (b) a travel cot? My bub has always slept in his own cot and this will be the first time he's slept (fingers crossed) in the travel cot. Do you think it's too late to try to get him to get used to it and so to just go cold turkey?

 

[southside852]

my son had never slept in a travel cot or a pack n' play before in his life. the first time was when we traveled to singapore at 9 months old.

i always call the hotel ahead of time to see what they provide. if it's a travel cot, then i always bring our own fitted cot sheets, his blankets and 1-2 cot toys (if under 12 months) to try and recreate a little bit of home. The hotel room is certainly not their bedroom so we always had trouble...

i would just cold turkey..there's not pt in trying one out beforehand....

 

[baffelly]

Our baby's bedtime in HK is 8:30, so if we travel to Asia with no or little time difference, we can take him out for dinner at a reasonable time. He tends to stay up a bit later when we are out due to all the new things to see (provided he had good naps during the day).
It always takes him a couple nights to adjust to the new bed/room. So the first couple nights are always hard for me as he would wake up many times. I also bring his usual sleeping bag and stuff animals and bed time books which help.
And maybe consider taking a longer vacation, like 4-5 nights so that you can give baby and yourself a couple days to settle down then enjoy for a couple days before getting home.

 

[carang]

when my two kids were young i never had any problems getting them to sleep in "someplace new" as i NEVER managed my life around their sleep schedule (except final bed-time). my kids always slept in their pram/stroller, in the car, in restaurants etc. it made travelling MUCH easier!

BUT, when they got to 2yrs+, sleep time was a bit more of a chore as they would get very excited etc.

 

[m2cw2mhk]

Do you have a helper? Bring her! We've brought our helper on family trips to Singapore and Beijing and Phuket and it was GREAT! Extra pair of hands on the plane, babysitter at night so we can get couples time and go out to nice dinners!

When traveling with our kids without our helper, we planned our day so lunch was our "nice meal out" and tried to get hotels with kitchenettes and just planned to stay home and enjoy wine and cheese and crackers for dinner, or got takeaway. We also try to stay in apartment hotels so we can put the children to bed and stay up a little later ourselves watching TV, relaxing, planning our agenda for the next day, etc.

 

[LeahH]

we spent as much on babysitters in Europe as a ticket so this year will bring our helper.for smaller trips in Asia we get a suite so kids skeep in the master andwe eat room service. or we eat really early. most places have travel cots but we always travek with our own bedding.