Toddler sleep and traveling

[GreyhoundsRUs]

So, my question is: how long is it ok for a baby/toddler to cry in a hotel room in your opinion? If its 7:30pm is it really bad to let dd cry it out for 5 minutes...?

The mommy in me says OK. The pre-mommy hotel guest could have viewed 5 minutes as an eternity However, will most guests even be in their rooms at that time - probably not. Plus, a crying child is different than a drunken college student...a little noise from a toddler is expected.

I'm no help!

[alison]

And also: should we even try the peapod when it comes here? Or just set it up when we get to the hotel and tell her that it's her new bed and lure her in there with who knows what?

[alison]

If it's at a reasonable hour, I guess we'll just let her cry. Sometimes she can go for hours.... But then I know that it always ends in her crashing and sleeping. Ugh. Now I've triggered the memory of the 4-hour car ride where she cried from start to finish. She fell asleep 15 minutes away from our destination.

[GreyhoundsRUs]

Hopefully, especially because she is so observant, she'll be overstimulated and crash by the end of the day

[corn poffi]

As a non-parent hotel guest who is easily annoyed, a crying/screaming toddler at 7:30 pm wouldn't bother me in the least. I might be childless, but I understand that somethimes there's just nothing you can do about it! Sharing a wall with a child is way better than sharing one with many other types of hotel guests. Just my two cents, I'm sure you'll do fine!

[peggyfromwastate]

I get so stressed if my kids make noise in a hotel. I whisper in the hallways, tell them to be silent at all hours... We have been called with complaints at 3 pm when we were checking in and the kids ran around checking out the room. The guests downstairs were taking a nap. Sigh. I do always try to get the kids to walk, not run and never jump. But I thought that was ridiculous. 3 pm, check in time, seriously.

As far as crying-- my kids were loud loud loud and I always did whatever I could to not let them cry. I did CIO at home, but not in a hotel. I just tried to get them exhausted to the extreme during the day. Adjusting back from vacation at that she usually involved one or two CIO sessions that were longer than normal, but in their own bed they did adjust.

Good luck!! I'm sure you will find a way that works. If she's throwing a massive fit you can always take her to the bathroom and run the shower while she wails.

I'm sure it will be better than my description-- I'm giving u the worst case!!!

[alison]

Thanks for your insights, P.

I know what you mean about being nervous about the noise level of your kids. Some people can be really unreasonable about what they'll tolerate as acceptable--I don't get the middle-of-the-day noise. But when it's late at night, I'm really afraid of what dd is capable of. . Of course, she has NEVER screamed at length in the middle of the night. It's always just as she's falling asleep, so never past 9pm.

I feel like sex and parties in hotel rooms are more annoying.

Dd fell asleep without any shenanigans this evening, so I hope the past two nights have just been a brief phase.

[alison]

Just put dd down for bed in a Peapod. Dh had to pry her fingers off the outside edge of it and physically keep her in the thing to keep her from coming out. That sucked for him, and we feel terrible. After 10 min of intense CIO, she's asleep for now. We thought we'd have to drive home again. I guess we'll go to sleep now ourselves and see how long it takes before she wakes up again. Ayayai.

[Pollyanna]

We're like Peggy, keep the kiddos quiet at all costs in the hotel. It's a good lesson in being respectful of others. We also never ever do. CIO in a hotel. If worse comes to worse we just have baby sleep with us in our bed (we always try to make sure we have a king). If you have two queens in your room you can lay with her till she is asleep and then move to the other bed (carefully positioning objects so she can't roll off the bed). The more relaxed you guys are about it the better it will go.

[alison]

I know for a fact that there's no one in the room adjacent to where dd is sleeping. It's pretty empty here to begin with, but will get more crowded as the week goes on.

We put dd down a little after 7, so I can't imagine that the 10 minutes that she cried were super duper disruptive.

She's never slept in a bed on her own nor with us in the room before, and is totally confused whenever we've brought her into our bed recently.

[alison]

Ugh. Crying again. I think we'll sleep in shifts and head home tomorrow instead of staying the 3 nights we'd planned...

[SuzySunshine]

alison, what if you put the PeaPod in the bathroom, set it on a few towels or a sheet to give it some padding but it will give you some separation. If it doesn't work call the front desk and ask them if they have a pack n' play or a crib and put that in the bathroom. Don't give up on your whole vacation because of one night.

[alison]

We are separated. We have a suite.
I also brought a Phil and teds travel crib.

[SuzySunshine]

Can you rig the peapod to be more like a crib tent on the Phil & Ted's, maybe she'll feel more like home.

[alison]

Nothing is working and dd is crying far too much...
We brought her into bed with us and she played for an hour--with my hair, dh's hair, somersaults, screeching, jumping. We're leaving once it's light out. This sucks.