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Question: How Do Families With Toddlers Sleep in Hotel Rooms?
This is one of these things about family travel that I really don’t understand. There are entire cities where there don’t seem to be any hotels that have suites.
Where does a baby or toddler sleep in a hotel room?
How do you share a hotel room with little kids and make sure that they get enough sleep without going to bed yourself at 7:30?
FamiliesGo! says:
Sharing a hotel room with a baby, toddler or preschooler is one of the perennial challenges of family vacations. There are rare parents lucky enough to have kids who fall asleep with lights and even the TV on.
For the rest of us there is no ideal solution, just a lot of improvising. The good news is that it gets easier as kids get older, fall asleep later and adjust to new settings more easily.
One thing we have working in our favor is that families are usually pretty active on vacation, so kids are tired and ready to fall asleep at bedtime. Some sleep more easily and more deeply than they do at home.
Here are tips for sharing a hotel room with kids. Let us know what works for you.
Skip the Hotel
The first option is to give up on hotels entirely for a few years and to use services like VRBO to find a house or an apartment.
You give up conveniences like housekeeping, pool and a restaurant just downstairs, but you gain a living room, which makes bedtime and naptime more manageable. And you have a kitchen, which is handy with kids.
If you really prefer or need to be in a hotel there are tricks to try.
Get Out of Sight
If you’re visiting a beach destination book a hotel with a balcony or patio. That can become the second room where you hang out and read during naps or have a glass of wine and talk after bedtime.
No balcony? Then the answer is to find a way to hide, either yourselves or the baby.
We’ve turned the lights out temporarily and then turned them back on again after we were sure Tiny Traveler was sound asleep. If she stayed asleep we read or watched Netflix with the sound low on a tablet or laptop.
In hotels with nice bathrooms we’ve also hung out in the bathroom (the sink is handy for chilling wine) to read and talk.
If kids are still in a crib or playard some parents position it in the small foyer area by the door or, if the sink is outside of the bathroom, in that alcove.
That can be enough distance to convince babies you aren’t in the room so they’ll settle down and sleep.
Jessica Bowers of Suitcases and Sippy Cups travels with an expandable shower rod that she can put up and hang a light blanket over to further separate the playard in the foyer from the rest of the room.
With kids who are sleeping in beds Kate Kristian Spiller from Wild Tales Of uses strong tape or a travel clothesline and a sheet to divide her hotel room in two.
Bowers has also draped a light blanket over a crib or playard. She says this can be enough to convince babies that you’ve left the room.
Just leave room between the crib and the wall and only cover three sides so there is ventilation.
Need a playard: These days my reader are choosing the Guava Lotus Travel Crib and the Chicco Alfa Lite travel playards. Both have a lightweight frame that supports a mesh frame and a side opening in case you need to be at the bay’s level.
You can remove the mesh from the fram completely and toss it in washing machine, which is quite handy since accidents are more likely to happen when you’re traveling and out of your routine. The Guava carrying bag has backpack straps so your hands are free for kids and other luggage. The Chicco folds up rectangular and flatter than some portable cribs do, which can make it easier to pack in the car.
Parents like the Joovy Gloo portable travel tent (above) for babies and toddlers so much that it sells out during peak travel seasons.
Travel blogger Lillie Marshall recommends a really light pop-up tent when kids outgrow the Joovy. Travel writer LiLing Pang and several readers have used the KidCo Pea Pod for toddlers and preschoolers. “It’s super lightweight. We would put a sheet over it to create a dark room and use a white-noise machine to mask our movements. You can even put it on top of the bed.”
My readers have lately been keen on the Slumberpod blackout cover. It’s domes so it will fit over a wide range of travel cribs and playards to keep light out and give you privacy. It has an inside pocket for your baby monitor and a fan that nests in the top if the canopy for more air circulation. These are nice extras I haven’t see everywhere.
Another reader favorite it the SnoozeShade Pack & Play Canopy. It sits flat on top of the travel crib and has a top opening for reaching in to pickup your child. It has mesh windows on each side with flaps you can roll up and down to provide air circulation and a little. When it’s closed it blocks out 98% of light and folds up to fit in your suitcase.
We’ve also brought baby monitors with us so we could leave the hotel room and hang out in the lounge or bar while Tiny Traveler fell asleep. Baby monitors have gotten smaller and better since we were using one, making this tactic even easier.
Whether you try it will still depend on the layout of the hotel and and if you’re close enough to your room in those common areas to feel comfortable popping out.
Keep Kids Up Later
Finally, once Tiny Traveler was 5 or so we would let her stay up later than usual on vacation. We often go to bed earlier on vacation so this closed the gap between our bedtime and hers quite a bit.
This will only work out well though, if your kids will sleep a little later in the morning. If they’re up at 6:00 AM no matter when they go to bed this will result in overtired cranky kids, and nothing kills a vacation faster than that.
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More Ask FamiliesGo!
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• How Do We Manage Naps on Vacation?
Question: Where Does the Baby Sleep When the Hotel Has No Crib?
At home we often lie down with our 19-month old until he falls asleep and then we put him back in his crib. When we travel sometimes the hotel has no crib or it’s easier to just let him stay with us all night.
But there isn’t room for three of us in a double bed and we’re afraid he’ll role off a regular bed if he sleeps there by himself.
What are our options for sleeping in a hotel room with a baby?
FamiliesGo! says: Try inflatable bed rails or creative pillow use
When we couldn’t get a crib I used to line the extra hotel pillows up on either side of my daughter. Or line them up one side if you’re co- sleeping.
Unless you have a really active sleeper it should enough to keep her in the middle.
Tiny Traveler also liked to sleep perpendicular to the headboard. It gave her a wall to nestle into and that made her less likely to roll off. You can try positioning your child that way and see if that works.
You can also ask for a room with one king instead of two doubles. With a little one, three can sleep pretty comfortably in the bigger bed.
Several of our readers like inflatable bed rails from Shrunks. It’s yet another thing to carry but could be just the thing you need for a year or two.
Several readers like the bed bumpers and toddler travel beds from Hiccapop, too.
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