A UK online travel agency has found that the myths of parenthood certainly aren’t exaggerated, with 82% of new parents saying that they need a holiday within just three months of the birth of their little one.

The research team at www.sunshine.co.uk surveyed 2,895 adults in the country, attempting to find out just how holiday habits changed following the birth of a child. All respondents had a child who was at least 8-years-old and had also been regular holidaymakers prior to the birth.

When asked ‘How soon after the birth of your youngest child did you feel like you needed a holiday/break away from the child?’, 82% of respondents said that they felt as though they needed a holiday within just three months of the child being born.

Unfortunately, the results also showed that holidays are very hard to come by for most new parents. For example, when asked how long it took for them to go abroad following the birth, the average answer was five years. Even more surprising was the fact that 11% of the survey said that they still hadn’t been out of the UK since the birth of their child, which equated to at least eight years based on the minimum age of participants’ children.

The main reason why parents find it so difficult to venture out of the UK is because they simply don’t want to leave their little one, with 61% saying that they felt it was impossible to go abroad for this reason. 43% then said that due to the rigours of going abroad, it was much easier to holiday in the UK and subsequently avoided the temptation of booking an exotic break to a foreign country.

While this may have been the case traditionally, the Managing Director of sunshine.co.uk, Chris Clarson, says that parents should be aware of all of the opportunities for young children in the modern travel industry. He said:

“Many parents think it’s not always feasible to go away on holiday when there’s a new-born on the scene, but that doesn’t have to be so. There are plenty of hotels that cater excellently for families with young children and babies, from self-catering apartments to 5* hotels, so as long as you do your research then you can easily find somewhere to suit your needs.

“There’s nothing to say having a baby should stop you going on holiday; when you feel comfortable leaving the child for a short period of time, you can always look into mini-breaks in short-haul destinations to have a well-deserved breather!”

There were more practical reasons why holidays were out of the question though. For example, and perhaps understandably, 36% of parents said that it just wasn’t affordable to go away due to the extra financial responsibilities that a child brings. 17% of respondents said that they just didn’t have anyone to look after the child, while 12% said that parenthood had just made them too busy to even consider going abroad.

It was interesting to see that there was a 50/50 split between parents who had decided to go abroad with their children, and those who had decided to leave them at home. 52% said that they had opted to go without them, with the vast majority of this group opting to leave their little ones with their grandparents. Again, it suggested that practical issues are some of the biggest reasons why new parents can’t venture away – even though many want to after just a few months of their little one being born.