When you go on holiday with young children, it’s often tempting for the parent who does most of the catering to want to stay in a hotel, where the cooking will be done for them. However, if you have children who aren’t the best at table manners or don’t have the widest of culinary tastes, you could be setting yourself up for a week’s worth of stress as you try and find a suitable dish on each menu and spend the meal times trying to make them behave for the benefit of other diners all around you.

Although it might seem like the coward’s way out, you might end up having a much more relaxing holiday if you booked a self-catering apartment. This makes it easy for breakfast, as you can just buy a supply of their favourite cereals and have plenty of fruit from the local markets.

Self-catering will also reduce the cost of your holiday significantly. Having a fridge means that you’ll be able to have a supply of picnic food so that you can spend the day on the beach and take lunch along with you. It doesn’t mean you have to eat in every meal by any means. You could opt to keep it simple on the nights that you decide to eat in, and then go out for dinner when you feel like trying out the local cuisine.

There are some great choices of self-catering accommodation in most resorts around Europe. You might want to pick a place like Las Colinas in Lanzarote – which has a number of apartments that share a swimming pool. Apartment complexes like these are often ideally located with easy access to both the local beach and the shops and resort centre. Many offer shuttle bus services if they’re a little further out of town.

An alternative is to book a private villa with your own pool – this is often a great choice for two families to share the costs, yet means that you have more of the pool to yourself than you would on a bigger complex.

Self-catering shouldn’t be seen as a chore on holiday – you can eat in when it suits you and try out as many of the local restaurants as you feel like.