Take a nanny
Emma Mahoney
If ever you are invited on holiday and hear that the other guests are bringing a nanny, do the same. I didn't take my own advice when I went to Greece last year with five sets of parents, nine toddlers and four nannies, and I still have the mosquito scars to show for it. For those who think they can cope, I gladly offer a hardbitten guide.
Rule number one with nannies is that they are utterly child-specific. Don't listen to any hostess boasting two nannies for her own children - one for each child - and therefore plenty of help for you. Short of your child leaping into the jaws of a shark in grabbing distance, any nanny not in your pay will be blind to your toddler's reddening skin and the darkening rings under your eyes. If you haven't brought your own help, don't expect any.
Second, when abroad you are without your normal props. This makes help all the more necessary. If you normally steal an hour in the morning getting dressed courtesy of Teletubbies, on holiday you will be pinned to the bed in your nightie all morning reading Spot the Dog. In extreme heat, without television, entertaining your child all day will mean you are ready for bed before they are. So, when settling your child to sleep you are likely to fall into a deep coma, only to emerge for dinner with matted hair, crumpled clothes and bleary mascara. The smug nannied, meanwhile, will be centring the creases in their trousers.
Third, nannies on holiday are about safety. Nannies are there to make sure toddlers don't tread on sea urchins, get burnt, fall flat in the water, slide off chairs in restaurants.
Fourth, nannies are wonderful in the mornings. If you decide to do something 'wild' (Hey, I'm on holiday, why not?), like waterskiing or pouring an extra glass of retsina, you don't have to pay for it for the next three days. The morning drudge of making up fresh baby food (guess what, no jars at local supermarkets), emptying wet sand out of the beach bag, wiping down honeyed fingers, reapplying fresh plasters to cut feet, all before you've had your first cup of coffee is worth the nanny's airfare in itself.
Finally, nannies let you deviate from your toddler's routine. If you don't have a nanny, a couple of nights letting the children kick around till 10pm to eat with the adults will have you stretchered off to the airport with exhaustion. The babies might be fresh from their extended siesta, but you've been busy washing out swimming costumes in those precious two hours. Without help, it has to be tea, bath and bed, however bohemian your pretensions.
So, would I take a nanny with me next time? Yep, every time. If I'm ever invited again on a grown-up holiday, having spent a small fortune to get there, I would budget extra to hire another pair of hands, especially now that I have six-month old twins, Michael and Millie, as well as Humphrey. If only for the freedom to read a bonkbuster in bed in the morning.
Stay in the UK
Catriona Dry
The beleaguered British tourist industry need offer no additional inducement to us to take our family holidays at home rather than abroad.
Having both worked for tour operators in the early Eighties, my husband and I had adopted a relaxed approach to overseas travel. We were accustomed to frequent trips abroad and were well-acquainted with the pitfalls of the cheaper end of the market. The stress of busy airports, the discomfort of charter flights, the overbookings, the unpredictable standards of accommodation were the acceptable downsides of hot, lazy beach holidays.
But once we had a family, the prospect of the inherent problems of the journey, not to mention protecting children from mosquito bites, sunburn and heat, led us to decide to spend our family holidays in the UK. Our last trip abroad, when I was six months' pregnant with our first child, was a memorable week by Lake Como and a few days in Venice. I can't wait to take my own children to Venice, but it's on hold until they are old enough to get as much from the trip as I did on my first holiday there with my parents when I was 12.
In the meantime, our holiday requirements are met in full by the West Country. An idyllic rented holiday cottage in north Devon has provided us with five years of family holidays - one in spring and one in autumn. The summer holiday, a fortnight in August, is spent house-sitting for friends in Cornwall.
Our holidays are entirely child-focused, mostly taken with other families, the driving principle being that if the little treasures are happy, active and entertained the result will be relaxed parents. Parental relaxation is a rare thing and for us it's a much more valuable holiday byproduct than an all-over tan. We tire them out, get them to bed and spend long, child-free evenings eating, drinking and playing grown-up Boggle (don't ask).
Of course, you can't rely on the weather, but we go prepared for anything and there are plenty of wet-weather options. We also enjoy the variety. Basking in the morning sunshine in the garden, long lunchtime walks along coastal paths, getting wet exploring the rock pools in the afternoon, and drying your wellies on the Aga and building a log fire in the evening.
By the time we can't face another wet walk around the trinket shops of Ilfracombe and our enthusiasm for the local wildlife park wanes by the eighth or ninth visit, our children might be old enough to appreciate and absorb the attractions, culture, language and food of other countries. They should also be old enough to find ways to entertain themselves on boring flights and eat like Christians when we take them out to restaurants.
Leave them at home with gran
Martin Love
For our holiday of a lifetime (a weekend break in Barcelona sans enfants), we'd booked the safest, most reliable and cheapest childcare available in the West Country - four days with my mother-in-law. As soon as we got in the car, we knew we'd made the right decision. For a start, Woman's Hour made a pleasant change to Barney's Musical Monster Hits. From force of habit, I did shout at the empty seats in the back a couple of times, but my wife and I drew the line at playing I Spy when we ran into traffic on the M4. Pulling into the short-stay car park, we climbed out of the car like people climb out of a flotation tank - deeply relaxed and slightly disoriented. Our peaceful, child-free haul up the motorway had had the same effect on us as a weekend at Champneys.
We were - inconceivably - early, something that never happens to us because, like all parents, we have to go back into the house at least six times after I have locked the front door for the 'absolutely last time and anything we haven't got now isn't coming on holiday' to collect the fluffy Pokémon doll, comfort blanket, Uno, travel sickness pills and, of course, our passports. And we didn't have to stop on the hard shoulder three times so that the little one could make up his mind that he'd rather just pee straight into his shorts, again.
Our sense of wonder increased as the day wore on. I got to eat the froth off the top of my cappuccino for the first time in five years and we didn't have to pretend there wasn't a McDonald's in the airport. My wife and I revelled in being away, just the two of us; wasn't it wonderful to be without the kids?
But then guilt raised its ugly little head. 'I'm just going to call Mum and see if everything is all right,' said my wife for the first of about 50 times.
Both of them were fine, of course, weren't missing us at all. But, to our frustration, we were missing them. Don't be silly, we said to ourselves, what would pre-schoolers care for Gaudí or rustic Catalan cuisine? Well, they'd love climbing up these stairs and that chocolatey bread would go down a storm...
The short break did us good, lots of good. And it didn't do them any harm. But a holiday isn't a real holiday without children.
Pick a hotel with great childcare
Jeannette Hyde
There was something familiar-looking about the guests. I wasn't sure if it was the longish matted hair, the Diesel jeans and T-shirts or the Nike trainers. And then it struck me. The dads were 35-plus Jamie Olivers and the mums were very Zoé Ball. There they sat, munching toast with munchkins crawling on the dining-room floor. Actresses were learning their lines over breakfast and TV, film and media type folk leafed through the Saturday papers while calling to their foliage-named offspring: 'Lily, come here!', 'Willow, put your wellies back on!', 'Bay, eat your cornflakes.'
Names aside, I was glad there were no starched tablecloths, nor waiters dressed up like Prime Ministers. Breakfast tables are large lumps of rustic wood which you and the kids can dribble your muesli over. Coffee is served in big white mugs. The noise of cappuccino machines goes full steam, kids cry and parents tuck into hangover-curing cooked breakfasts with the Buena Vista Social Club tinkling in the background.
Babington House, offshoot of London club Soho House, is a beautiful Palladian mansion, set in the heart of Somerset. It's the sort of place we could bring our two-year-old Hanna and still enjoy ourselves. No raised eyebrows, no tutting, no stress. And definitely no chintz!
Babington House is one of the few British hotels to recognise what stressed working parents want from a country-house hotel. They want to relax, but don't necessarily want to dump the kids with relatives or nannies (because they do that all week long). But at the same time, they want the odd conversation together, a country walk, or even a siesta, without the piercing screams of baby - even if it is just for two hours. And they want some style and glamour still in their lives - of which there are lashings right here.
Hence the hotel has a huge creche armed with the latest computer games, wendy houses and activities overseen by energetic nannies. There's a 45-seat private cinema and two heated pools - one indoor, one outdoor. The family stable suites have huge four-poster oak beds, lots of crisp white cotton, black satin and a huge turquoise mosaic bath upstairs. Downstairs the kids get their own stainless steel bunk beds, doll's house with furniture, shower room and living room with sunken leather sofas and TV.
A couple of nights here costs as much - if not more - than a week in a top cottage. But the difference is we arrived home feeling refreshed.
Family rooms at Babington House (01373 812266) sleeping two adults and up to three kids, cost from £285 per night.
