Okay all of you with 3 or more children... what's it like sharing a hotel room with a family of 5? Any tips/tricks/advice? Oh, can I mention that the oldest likes to wake before the sun, & makes a scene when sent back to bed. The middle is working on some killer (aka painful) molars & in an early waking/crying multiple times in the night due to teething pain habit. And the youngest will be 7 weeks old, she grunts & groans all night long & obviously doesn't sleep through the night, so will be up a few times to eat. The younger 2 are still in cribs. We either drag 2 pack-n-plays or teach one of them to sleep in a bed... not my ideal time/place to teach such a thing. The babe wouldn't need teaching, but would need some habit breaking once we returned home & she still longed to sleep with me.
Are we insane? I personally think that answer to that is yes, so I am pleading insanity at the time we committed to this adventure. After giving birth, reality & sanity rejoined me... I began thinking this wasn't the best choice for us & I started getting nervous. So I started thinking that the babe & I would hang back at home, sending Jeff off with the older 2. That was the plan, until a couple of hours ago... that terrible thing called a conscience got the better of me & I began suffering from that other terrible thing called guilt. For some reason I feel that all of us (possibly anyone in a hotel room on either side) suffering together is better than everyone but me & the babe. Just typing this is giving me a slight post-partum panic attack!
So I ask you again for any advice on surviving?
9 comments:
Yeah, I personally have not had good experience with hotel sleeping and my children for most of the same reasons. We did bring a sound machine or a small fan would work which I think muffled some of the sounds. For the early waker, just have Jeff take her down early for breakfast and keep her occupied some how (maybe with a portable DVD player) that she can watch in the lobby while the rest of you can "sleep in" Good luck!
If I were you, I would definitely stay back with at least the baby. We've done the single hotel room thing with just one and two kids and it's not easy either way (let alone with 3). It's a tight fit and there is zero tolerance for noise. You can't turn the tv on to entertain one because it wakes the other one up. Same goes for trying to get everyone to sleep at the same time. Unless you guys can do a suite, or two rooms that connect, I wouldn't even consider it. Hate to the be the bearer of bad tidings! Would Jeff just take Hannah? It would probably be fun for both of them and Jeff's parents would totally dote on her. It wouldn't be him all alone. Jason loves having Dane to himself because he's the easy one. Anyway, just me rambling now... I'm on your side though. Anything you think might happen probably will happen, good or bad. You know your kids best.
My advice.....DON"T DO IT!!
Where are you going? I would say to let hubby take the "big kids" and enjoy some down time. You deserve it. I know there is always the guilt, but you really have nothing to feel bad about. You work 24 hours a day and you will still have the babay. The whole 5 people in a hotel room can be done( we did it with all 4 kids this summer, but the oldest slept in a queen bed), but don't plan on anyone sleeping well or being happy in the morning. When we venture to a hotel we take one pack and play and use one hotel crib (call before to reserve one). The kids take longer to go to sleep, but sometimes the black out blinds help them sleep longer. Good luck on whatever you decide!
do NOT do this, 10 hours 1-way with 3-kidlets, potty stops, feed the baby stops, "Don't make me pull this car over" stops, food stops, my legs are cramped stops, sounds like a little piece of "Hello I'm crazy from OKC" save all that for a trip to UTAH
Don't do it or tell Jeff's parents that you need two hotel rooms. Reserve a pack and play. Make Jeff sleep in one room with Hannah and Milo and you sleep in the other room with the baby. I would say those are your stipulations on coming. (I'm a brat)
it was a nightmare for us to sleep in a hotel when we just had Landon. He never slept well and was up all night screaming with night terrors and so it was very stressful on us. When Chayce was born, Chayce slept in the bed with me, and Brett slept with Landon. Surprisingly, when Landon would wake up screaming, it never woke Chayce ( 6 weeks old)
But my kids never got up at 6 am either.
Maybe you could take 1 pack n play for Milo, and let the baby sleep next to you? I would also bring a portable DVD player to turn on for Hannah any show of her choosing to keep her quiet in the wee hours of morning.
Hope that helps, and good luck! You ARE brave!
Oh, ya... forgot to mention. This was our beach trip and chayce was 6 weeks. Because of nursing every 2 hours, the 10 hour trip honestly took us 15. It was exausting and even I was grumpy because it took so long to nurse Chayce. Nursing stops SUCK!
We take an inflatable air mattress with us - so the kids aren't all in one bed!
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