apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Your trip sounds wonderful!
We are thinking of visiting London and Edinburgh with our toddler so I have some questions for you.
Is it common for restaurants in Europe not to have high chairs?
I am also curious as to how you spent your nights? Did you retire when your baby went to bed?
How did you choose the restaurants you went to?
Was the plane ride hard to handle being so long?
thanks!

hi kellybeegee- here goes...
1. It was defintitely common in France & Belgium for restaurants to not have highchairs, we only ate at one restaurant in Antwerp, a cafeteria-style chain, that offered them. I have a friend who was recently in England with her little one who said the same.
2. We kept our little guy out later then we normally would at home, but we did call it a night when he went to bed - we were pretty exhausted anyway!
3. My husband is a chef, so he was in charge of choosing the restaurants, mostly bistros and brasseries. We tried to eat early, which was typically around 7:00 in Paris, that way Charlie wouldn't disturb too many other people. We were almost always one of the only tables in the restaurant and everyone was very accomodating. Since there were no kids' menus, they would often offer to make him a special meal or we would just share with him.
4. Finally, the plane...it wasn't awful but it was the hardest part of traveling. My best advice is: pack some new and interesting items that don't take up tons of space, bring lots of snacks and some treats that you might not normally allow at home, and try to book the bulkhead-it's so much better than a regular seat.
Hope that helps! And I hope you go on your trip, traveling with a toddler requires more planning and preparation, but it was well worth it. Our son still talks about the big bell in the Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower!

kellybeegee-

We live in Europe, and have been traveling extensively since our first child was 8 months old (she's 5 now).

In answer to your questions, it is quite common for European restaurants to not have high chairs, or booster seats, even more family-oriented places.

We use a hop-pop diaper bag, which converts to a booster seat -- it is ingenious! You're hauling around a diaper bag anyway, and don't need to bring along anything else! I find I prefer the hard-sided diaper bag (it is more compact than it appears in the pictures), as it doesn't tend to swell and make uncomfortable lumps like soft-sided ones (which you tend to overfill).

http://www.hoppop.eu/v1/?p=step_by_step&setlang=en

Unless you are in a hotel that provides babysitters (or are luck enough to have family that will sit for you), you do retire not long after the kids do -- by then you are usually beat anyways. We have had our children fall asleep in a restaurant a couple of times (medieval cellar restaurants are great because the acoustic din lulls them to sleep -- even better if the place is only lit with candlelight), allowing us to relax with dessert and coffee. Generally, they fall asleep during an evening stroll through town.

You get pretty good at sizing up restaurants for child-friendliness -- usually, a places where they are less likely to irritate fellow diners (lots of different criteria on this, from a table where we can stash the stroller, places with kid play areas, etc.). Museum cafeterias are great bets, and on our trip this month through Scandinavia, they had VERY good food.

As for plane rides, we bring a dvd player with lots of kid dvds (Little Bear, Charlie & Lola, Peppa Pig, etc.) as well as in ipod with cartoons. A couple of small toys per child (our daughter carries a tiny backpack with her stuff -- including a hardsided book and washable markers for drawing the adventures of the day) keeps them busy. Usually, airlines hand out toys to children to help keep them occupied (although budget-conscious airlines -- the kind that make you buy your own food, like SAS, don't). At 2.5, our daughter sat quietly on a 9 hour overseas flight thus occupied, not falling asleep until we landed (!).

Thank you all for your comments.
This is very helpful.

How did you guys deal with your toddler and jetlag?

We planned on loosing a day to jet lag, which we did. Our plane arrived in Paris at 8:00 a.m., we got to our apartment, settled in, shopped for some food, then all slept until dinner time. Everything I read said to push yourself through the first day to get used to the time change, but that was not an option for us. We put him to bed a little later than usual that night and we all slept through the night and were ready to go the next morning.

we did the same -- got in at 6:30 and slept in our apartment until 3 or so. Our poor 2.5 yr old didn't sleep at all on the plane -- since she fell asleep when we were landing, she only managed 15 minutes -- and so had a melt-down at the airport and in the taxi. Make sure that you can check in and get into your accommodation (hotel or apartment) immediately upon landing.

We flew to England with our son when he was 18 months old. He was notorious for not sleeping anywhere apart from his crib and true to form, he stayed awake on the overnight flight. He was an absolute star though and when we landed in the early hours and made it to our hotel he was excited to finally run around. He ended up taking a nap at 2 pm England time, just an hour later then he does usually. We woke him up from that after three hours and he went to bed around 10 pm, a few hours later then he does here. By day 2 he had adjusted to UK time which was much more than we'd ever hoped for. Similarly, on the way back he didn't sleep either and after a couple of days he was back onto US time. So, jetlag may not affect your child as badly as you'd expect. We had been planning on letting him dictate his schedule for at least the first day or two but it ended up working out fine.