How do you feel about vacations with your family? Your ILs?

[curbsideprophet]

We go on a big family beach trip every other year. It is mostly my family but DHs parents come as well. I think there will be 23 people this year. Overall I love it. There are plenty of people to watch the kids so we can get a break. Sure things get off schedule and they on any given day they may not eat as well, but that is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. My biggest concern this time around will be DS and the pool and having someone assigned to watching him at all times. Sometimes with too many people it can get confusing on who is watching who.

We have also been to the beach with just my parents. We are going to Disney with them in the fall. I have no issues traveling with my parents. I don't think DH minds it.

We have never arranged a vacation with just the in-laws. I would be willing tongi though and give it a try if this is something DH and his family wanted to arrange.

[undecidedowl]

DH and I both LOVE vacationing with my parents. We joke that it isn't a real vacation if they aren't there to help with the kids.

That said, when we vacation with them, we let them call most of the shots. They pay for part of our costs and are very helpful so they get to pick where to go, what to do, etc. We have lots of fun. But we balance this by doing equal amounts of travel with just our family. It's enjoyable and reminds us that any little annoyances are worth it when traveling with my parents.

We have never traveled with ILs and don't plan to. They don't go on trips we are interested in and want us to commit 2 years in advance. No thank you.

[zarapipe]

I love vacationing with family. They help with costs, help with kids, etc. The only time it's not fun is when we don't get alone time. You need your own car, your own plans, dinners etc. Sure, togetherness is fun too but you need to do some things with just the three of us. My parents are usually good with asking what we have planned that day, will we see them at dinner, etc. If we have plans nbd but if we don't we all hang out.

[jenn248]

The only vacations we've done with my family or DH's family since DD was born have been AIs or cruises. It works out well because we have our own space and can do our own thing during the day, then meet up with everyone for dinner. I don't think I would want to rent a house together or do a super active vacation where we did everything together.

[jeaniebueller]

We do vacation with family at times. We did disney with the ILs, but brought our own vehicle and had a day where DS, H and I went to one of the parks alone. I can see both sides of the issue. Your H needs to simmer down but you need to assert your authority over your parents. I mean, he is pissed about spaghetti-os ? Really? But you control your kids schedule including naps so I see where he is getting annoyed.

[jeaniebueller]

Also, grandparents love rocking babies to sleep. He should really relax about that a bit.

[magpie]

I can handle a family vacation, with limits. We've traveled with H's family after DD was on the scene for a few days. It's nice for a while and then it becomes exhausting to me (and to him). I love his parents too! I just like having our space, even if that means giving up the free childcare. Ideally, I'd love a vacation that would involve staying/traveling with them for 2-3 days and then splitting off and doing our own thing. I start to become really irritated and cranky when I travel with anyone other than DH (and DD) after a few days though.

[gibbinator]

Team you.
Dh and I are both close with our families and I can see us doing joint vacations with my mom and sister or his parents and siblings. Now, I don't think every vacation should be an extended family vacation, but there's certainly nothing wrong with occasionally going to the beach with your parents.

[aspentosh]

I've never done a vacation with the ILs because we've never been invited. MIL/FIL don't go with BIL/SIL and her family anymore, so it's really just BIL/SIL not inviting us. They go every year and we've never been invited. It doesn't even surprise me anymore because I know they suck. H doesn't seem to mind that we don't vacation with his family.

We've done vacations with my family (my mom, sister and brothers plus all the spouses and kids). Some have been ok, some not. We're a very varied bunch- ADHD, totally introverted bipolar, etc etc. There are usually blowups which are no fun.

Vacations with my sister, BIL and their kids are fun and we've done that a couple time and are planning to do it more often. Much more chill. H loves going with them and begs to do it

[stacyb1983]

We travel occasionally with my family/MIL. It's a total crap shoot. Our big thing is having our own reservations, car, and plans before hand. If they want to join in, they can. If not, we're not stuck waiting around for them to come up with something.

We did a Disney cruise with MIL before C was born. I was really worried, but it turned out great. She had her own cabin next-door and DS spent a lot of the nights having sleep overs. DH and I got to hang out and order room service. Our was really fun.

[karinothing]

Pretty much all our vacation is to visit family so we do it all the time. Heck our last two vacations sans our family involved staying at our friends parents house. Apparently we are all about family even if it is not ours.

[carfar]

I love it, because usually the parents pay. ?

[sillygoosegirl]

We've traveled with my parents a lot, and with DH's parents only a little. We both enjoy traveling with my parents more, as we enjoy the activities and restaurants they enjoy much moreso than the activities and restaurants that DH's family enjoy. It's not fun to travel with either set unless we go into it planning to be flexible and go with the flow though. And if the trip is longer than a few days, lack of privacy and opportunity to be alone can get really hard to deal with, I think especially for whichever of us is with our ILs.

[badtzmaru22]

DH and I went to FL for a week with his family years ago, before we had kids, and we decided to never do it again. We've always had a rocky relationship though, because they are manipulative and crazy, among other things.

I like my family, and we've done day trips and one nighters with them, but nothing longer. We might consider it, but the major thing is we don't have much money or vacation time, and haven't even vacationed with just us since 2009- pre-kids. So that would be our priority anyway.

I would not want DH to vacation with his family without me, because as much as they suck and I don't want to vacation with them, we are a package deal, and if they can't be nice to me, I'm not rewarding them by sending DH away alone or with the kids, so they can pretend I don't exist, say nasty things about me in front of my kids, and probably try to hook DH up with someone else. No. (DH isn't speaking to his parents right now anyway, for good reason, but I'm just answering out of the lens of crazy ILS, WWYD).

I have twice as much vacation time as DH, but I don't want to vacation with my family without him. I don't feel like that's fair. It's more fun for all of us if I use my extra days to get things done around the house so we can enjoy our weekends, or stuff like that. Plus, like I mentioned earlier, we really don't get to take that many vacations, so I wouldn't want to have that fun experience while DH is stuck at work.

[mellimel19]

It depends. I do not like traveling with my mother at all. She is very needy and high maintenance, and is beyond frugal. Family vacation to her means we do EVERYTHING as a family. While she is very helpful with DD, I think she would be insulted if we asked her to babysit so DH and I could have some alone time together. She's also very opinionated and judgmental, so will make annoying comments about things like how unhealthy I am eating on vacation.

Out of DH's family, his sister/BIL are really the only ones who go on vacations. They've invited us a few times, but we just haven't been able to make it happen yet. I think we'd have a good time with them though. They like to eat, drink and lay on the beach, and are pretty easygoing, which all sounds good to me! That said I like a little more adventure on my vacations and can't just lie on the beach all day, so DH and I would probably do some activities on our own. I don't see SIL/BIL having an issue with that. We've take long weekends with MIL, mainly to Atlantic City, or she'll often come with DH, DD and I to visit my family. She's pretty easygoing and fun, and has no problem babysitting and giving me and DH a little alone time. However, she's not very adventurous and has some mobility issues, so the types of trips we can do with her tend to be somewhat limited.

While I think your DH could loosen up a little in regards to the food/coddling, I think it's important that you both get on the same page about what you will and won't allow, and stick to that as a united front.

[hymen]

We are taking a Disney trip in August with both my parents and ILs, so . . .

We like to do smaller trips just as a family but for bigger trips it is nice to have extra hands. Both our parents are pretty good about giving us the space we need on trips.

[niq]

I personally am more like humpforfree, but I get that not everybody is, and with kids around having other family members also means msniq and I get more of a break.

That said if I didn't have ANY just the three of us vacation time I would be a sad panda.