F. D. Fleming wrote:
>We will be taking our 18 mo.old girl to Italy next spring. Due to the
>nature of the trip (relatively short; business purpose for Dad), we'll
>be staying in hotels in 2-3 locations.
>
>Does anyone have any tips for putting the baby down to sleep at her
>normally early hour (7:30 pm) in a hotel room?
Where does she usually sleep? My experience from several trips to
Italy with little kids is that the baby beds that hotels will supply
are at an average looking great but not too functional. We therefore
prefer to bring our own collapsible one - but not for too much longer,
thank god, as soon they will be all sleeping in real beds.
>What do we do -- sit
>in the dark room until it's time for us to go to bed, or get her used
>to sleeping in a room with lights on?
I believe that tired kids do sleep, no matter under what light
conditions (-> car). Even if she's used to sllep in the dark, just a
little shade will be enough.
>Usually, if she knows we're in
>her room, she won't go to sleep.
Great! Bring your DX Babyfon (http://www.babyfon.com/maxi.html)
and
have a great time in the bar until she will sleeb (or a bit longer
:-).
>Is it possible to find inexpensive suite-type hotels in Italy?
Depends where in Italy. In touristy (beach) places it's no problem.
You already got the hint about two connected rooms (that will of
course not help you too much if you are on a tight budget.
Supposing that all little girls are equal (and all parents are equally
silly), your little girls will sometimes end up in her parents' bed
towards dawn. In that case, I would strongly suggest to bring a long
rope (I usually use a 24' strap like that
http://www.outdoorbedarf.de/Gurte_Spannriemen/Gepaeckgurt_hs_ue.jpg).
No, it's not to tie the baby to her bed, but Italian double beds ar
mostly consisting of two single beds on wheels. With the hard
(ceramic or wooden) floors in many Italian hotels, they tend to move
apart from each other during the night. With the baby in the middle,
that coud be fatal. That's why I usually wind the strap around both
beds to fix them together *before* it's baby's bed time - just in
case...
Of course our advantage here is that we usually drive to Italy (it's
less than 120 mls to the Italian border from here), so bringing som
equipment is not really too much of a problem.
Jens
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