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The challenge of travelling with an adopted child - and how we overcame it

Adoptive families are warned against going on holiday for at least the first year - Tom McGuinness
Adoptive families are warned against going on holiday for at least the first year - Tom McGuinness

It’s 9pm on a chilly Saturday in March, and my partner Flo and I are snuggled under a blanket on a sofa. An old film is on the television, we’re halfway through a bottle of red wine, and our six-year-old son Kai is snoring softly between us.

The only material difference between tonight and an average evening is that we’re not at home - we’re in a hotel room at the small, ultra-family-friendly Moonfleet Manor in Dorset - but this, right now, is about as much as we had dared hope might be possible for a weekend away.

In fact, it’s bliss: Kai is asleep, with zero fuss - and no pitched bedtime battles as there have been on our two previous trips as a family, one of which got so extreme we ended up changing our flights and coming home early.

Moonfleet Manor, a new level of family-friendly
Moonfleet Manor, a new level of family-friendly

Before our son came to live with us two and a half years ago, Flo and I were pretty keen travellers. I wouldn’t say we were unusually intrepid, but our favourite trips were more about adventure than comfort. We’ve camped in deserts, hiked up mountains in snow, paddled down rivers with food, firewood and water in the canoe between us.

We’ve also stayed in some pretty special places - The Pig in Brockenhurst, the New Forest, was a favourite spot, where we celebrated anniversaries and birthdays - and we were on a long weekend in Paris when the call came through to say that the adoption panel had unanimously agreed: Kai was going to be our son.

In numbers | Adoption statistics in England
In numbers | Adoption statistics in England

Any new parent knows that holidays won’t ever be the same again. For adoptive parents, travelling is a bit more complicated. Many pieces of advice and hard won wisdom were drummed into us by social workers and other adoptive parents before our child came to live with us: no, love won’t just “fix” everything; yes, kids can and do remember their very early years, they won’t simply forget; and if things at first seem to go brilliantly, it could just be a honeymoon period.

Also: keep life as predictable and simple as possible at first and, if possible, avoid travel for at least a year. (That last bit was a touch disappointing, but of course we were happy to sacrifice anything to start our family.) What I don’t remember is anyone saying that sleep could be the biggest challenge we’d face.

Home away from home - Credit: Moonfleet Manor
Home away from home Credit: Moonfleet Manor

Disrupted sleep was one of the first signs that the honeymoon was ending. When our son first came to live with us aged three and a half, he would knock out 11 uninterrupted hours every night, and all of us loved his bath-book-bed routine.

But after a few months, he began to seem fearful of his bed. He began waking up multiple times in the night, and then he started having night terrors. No chance of trying controlled crying in our household: if we didn’t respond to his worried call of “Mummy” or “Daddy” within a few seconds, worry would swiftly turn to panicked screaming, a fear that he’d been left alone in the house.

He might wake for 10 minutes or more than an hour; he might wake twice or at the end of almost every 90-minute sleep cycle, a pattern we later found was common amongst other adoptive kids we met. Six months in, we hired an experienced babysitter we knew well: while we were out, she heard him wake but thought she’d see if he could settle himself; later, she said that she’d never heard a child make a sound like it. Suffice it to say we were shattered.

Eventually we found a sleep professional with experience of adopted kids who didn’t preach controlled crying. She diagnosed anxiety as the root of the issue, and over the course of about three months taught us how to allay his nighttime fears. The terrors gradually faded, and we were all back to sleeping through the night.

It was then - over a year in - that we booked our first family holiday, six days in a villa with a pool in Spain, with grandparents in tow. We followed all the advice we could get our hands on about travelling with an anxious child: show him pictures of where you’re going and talk about what to expect, choose self catering over hotels, take as many familiar things as you can carry (toys, books, his plates and cups, bedding), and put him to sleep in your own room.

family holiday packing list
family holiday packing list

Four days later, we came home early. The travelling itself had been fine - no, wonderful: watching his excitement at seeing airplanes and then actually being inside one as it took off remains one of my favourite “firsts” as a family, and he was patient and immaculately behaved even during delays.

But bedtimes there were a nightmare: hour upon hour of struggle and screaming, and nothing we tried could calm him. In the end, exhausted and fractious, we changed our flights and came home, but the disruption came with us, and it was many long weeks before he would calmly fall asleep after stories. Uninterrupted nights were - and still are - entirely out of the window.

Beaten but undefeated, we tried again a few months later, booking a few days at Center Parcs. No planes this time - if it went badly wrong, we could pack up the car and go home. At the time, Flo happened to meet an adoption therapist who recommended making Kai a book about our upcoming trip, not just with pictures of where we were going, but with words addressing all the irrational fears Kai might have: that while we were going away, we would definitely be coming home, exactly where he and we would be sleeping, and that he didn’t need to worry.

The 75 greatest family holidays for 2018
The 75 greatest family holidays for 2018

Whether it was the book or the fact that our lodge was all one level, so he could see the living room from bed, something worked: three out of four nights went without a hitch. He loved riding his bike around the car-free roads, and adored the pools and slides. For Flo and me, though, it wasn’t exactly a dream holiday. It’s kid-friendly in the extreme, but for us, that’s about all that it had going for it. If it wasn’t yet time for something more adventurous, then at least it would be nice to have a bit of adult-friendly luxury.

And so, with a bit of trepidation, we booked our first family hotel stay at Moonfleet Manor, by Chesil Beach. Part of the small chain of six Luxury Family Hotels, the main house is like a classic country house hotel - lovely rooms with roll-top baths, crisp white sheets and proper pillows, a library bar with open fires, vast velvet sofas and taxidermied beasts on the walls, and a restaurant with a quite serious menu.

But it also takes the concept of child-friendly to another level. Kai was awed by the three swimming pools and the vast indoor play area - the size of a football pitch with trampolines, soft play, a climbing wall, slackline, air hockey, football goals, plus plenty of chairs, tables and sofas up on a platform at one end so you can have a cup of coffee and read the paper or just watch the kids play.

The indoor play area - Credit: Moonfleet Manor
The indoor play area Credit: Moonfleet Manor

As part of your room fee, your child also gets two supervised hours at the fully-staffed, impressively kitted-out creche each day, and staff will pick up your kids at 8am on a Sunday and feed them there so you can have a lie in. There are also baskets of fishing nets and crab lines to borrow everywhere you turn, on the outside possibility that you can’t find enough to entertain yourselves without leaving the building.

Mindful of what chaos might erupt at bedtime, we asked for a room away from the main house so as not to disturb other guests, but by the end of our first day, Kai was exhausted. He ate dinner with us, choosing from the extensive kids menu, and while he wouldn’t get into bed, fell asleep easily enough cuddled up between us on the sofa. (The hotel reception offer a free listening service for those happy to leave their kids asleep in their room.)

On the second evening, he was calm but could not settle, so rather than just sit in our room, we took him down to the bar in his pyjamas. He cosied up to us while we had our dinner and couple of glasses of red wine by the fire, while the staff warmed some milk for him. No one - not the other guests or the staff - batted an eyelid.

Buoyed by the success of the weekend, as we packed up to head home, we decided to take one last risk. Our journey home took us through the New Forest, so Flo called ahead and booked lunch in The Pig’s beautiful conservatory restaurant. And it was a treat for everyone, not least because the maitre d’ conspired with us to persuade Kai to eat all his pasta before he had ice cream.

Success: lunch at The Pig
Success: lunch at The Pig

As we got back into the car to head home, we all felt a post holiday buzz, the first time as a family. Bliss doesn’t do it justice.

The essentials

Rooms for a family of three at Moonfleet Manor in Dorset cost from £120 B&B or £180 dinner, B&B. Supplements apply for larger rooms.

Read the full review here.