Lessons from holidaying with three small boys

Don't get me wrong, we had a really lovely time last week on our half term holiday in North Norfolk, but holidaying with three small children is never quite as relaxing as I hope it will be. I realised it's the first time we've been away for a week since having A - we had a few camping trips over the summer and various trips to Devon to see my family but no proper holidays. It's also the first time in a while that we haven't stayed in a Baby Friendly Bolthole, complete with all sorts of child-related equipment. I was a little worried about the packing, particularly having to do it with two small boys round my feet, but it was fine, not too much to fit in, and I even managed to pack the roof box myself (although I wasn't tall enough to do the straps!). I guess A, at 15 months, is old enough now to not need much in the way of equipment. And there's no need to take too many toys because all the older two want to do is draw pictures and cut up pieces of paper!

The first thing I learnt was not to book a Sainsburys delivery for the evening of our arrival when you have to negotiate the M25! It was fine in the end as Mr Sainsbury arrived about 15 minutes after we did, but I was feeling increasingly stressed as our ETA on the sat nav edged up past the start of our delivery slot and we still needed to stop for dinner. Our plan of a nice pub tea went out the window; instead we marched the boys round a service station Waitrose and made them eat their tea in the car. A refused to eat in his car seat in the dark and mainly shouted for the second half of the journey.

Apart from the shouting from A, they were really good on the journey and pretty excited when we arrived at our holiday house in the dark. We started sorting out the sleeping arrangements and unpacking the bedding and I realised I had forgotten W's pillow. Not normally the end of the world as there were plenty of pillows in the cottage but the boys put their soft toys in their pillows when they are packing so no pillow meant no Steve and Gromit. I felt awful - it was the first night since he was a baby that W didn't have his dogs with him - but he was very grown up about it, borrowed one of T's many toys and went to bed with the promise that we would find a toy shop the following day. He is turning into a bit of a soft toy snob and requested something made by Jellycat, preferably an octopus!

We found a really nice children's shop the next day in Wells-next-the-Sea, no Jellycat toys but there were other brands and I've never seen someone consider so carefully the benefits of a stuffed squirrel versus an aardvark. Squirrel purchased (and a small lobster for T, and a pair of leggings for A - it was a really nice shop!) and we returned to the cottage, only for T to point out that evening that W's pillow was lying in the middle of their bedroom! By chance he had a plain white pillow case on and it blended in with the bedding provided by the cottage. So Bruce, the new squirrel, was introduced to Cyril, his existing squirrel, and everyone was happy!

As usual, the boys didn't sleep as well as they do at home. I know this is the case, it happens when we go to stay with my family in Devon as well, but I am still disappointed when I realise they haven't grown out of it yet. Not all bad as W slept through the night every night as he does at home but I think the other two had us up at least once each most nights. T ended up in our bed for a couple of hours, which is very unusual for my children, as he arrived at 5.30am one morning announcing he had wet the bed and I didn't know what else to do. The following night he turned up much earlier and my husband managed to sort out dry bedding and put the wet stuff on to wash so a much better effort!

And, as usual, someone was ill. A was sick for most of the week, but with 24-48 hours between each bout, so just long enough for us to think he was better again each time. He did manage to limit his throwing up to areas of the cottage with lino rather than carpet which helped. And it had the advantage of making him more willing to spend long stretches in the buggy when we went for walks. A's sickness and the bigger boys' general tiredness meant that we did manage to have a quiet afternoon one day and I finally got to watch Moana. It was great! The boys struggle with even the smallest amount of mild peril in most films but there was only one moment that had them hiding behind the cushions. And everyone enjoyed a bit of a singalong.

The final thing I learnt on our holiday was that rainbow peg dolls make everyone happy! I painted six wooden peg dolls earlier in the year to go with our Grimms rainbow and, inspired by others on Instagram, we've started taking them out and about for some photo shoots. I will do a separate post with the best pictures but I have been pleasantly surprised by how much everyone enjoys setting up and taking photos of six small wooden figures!