Airbnb with a Baby? The Pros and Cons of Using Airbnb with Kids

There are many reasons to consider looking for an alternative to a hotel for your next trip. Tiny hotel rooms with noisy babies or toddlers can be quite stressful! But is renting a family-friendly Airbnb the right choice? Read on to learn all about the pros and cons of using Airbnb for your family vacation!

I have stayed at many hotels and dozens of Airbnbs with my toddler and baby, and I believe there are some major advantages to the short term rental approach. But there are some drawbacks, as well.

And before I dive in, please note that there are alternatives to Airbnb! I personally have always loved the original home sharing app, but VRBO, HomeAway, or FlipKey are other good options. I will continue to speak to Airbnb because it is what I have used for many years now, but this information broadly applies to them all.

Is Airbnb kid friendly?

Yes! Generally.

There will of course be listings that are not appropriate places to stay with children, and then there will be listings that are designed for families. You can also find everything in between.

I will cover in more detail below what it means to find a family friendly Airbnb, but as a whole, Airbnb tends to lean very heavily toward encouraging family stays.

Why I love Airbnb with a Baby or Toddler

You can save a lot of money

This was why we started using Airbnb in the first place, waaayyy back during our honeymoon. We were backpacking around 8 countries for 7 weeks, and we needed to save some money.

When I started comparing the prices on Airbnb to those on Expedia or the other hotel sites, I was impressed. So we tried it out.

After years and years of comparing Airbnbs and hotels, I have found that in almost all places, it is significantly cheaper to rent an Airbnb than a comparable hotel.

For example, in the heart of Rome, I found the prices for Airbnbs to be about 1/3 of the hotel prices. And they were able to be in better locations, given Rome’s strict hotel regulations that do not apply to apartment rentals.

Airbnb is a great way to save money without sacrificing when you travel.

There’s often plenty of room to spread out

This right here is what truly makes an Airbnb family friendly:

You have space!

Often times when you are renting an Airbnb, you’re renting an entire apartment or even an entire house. That means bedrooms. Play spaces. Maybe even a yard.

You can have a separate space for your child to sleep, without having to book an adjacent hotel room. That makes such a huge difference!

Even though we don’t tend to spend a lot of time in our accommodations while we’re traveling, it is nice to not be all on top of each other when we are there.

I can’t overstate how frustrating it is to put the baby down to sleep, and then have to tip-toe and whisper the rest of the evening because you’re all in the same studio hotel.

Bedrooms. Problem solved.

You might get a free breakfast

This used to be standard on Airbnb – you know, it’s only the second B in their name! – but I find nowadays that a lot of places do not include breakfast.

If they do, you can usually expect a bowl of local fruit and a baguette, or something along those lines. There’s usually coffee and tea available, too. Some hosts go above and beyond and cook you breakfast, but that’s rare!

You can cook your own food

While I love trying out local restaurants everywhere we go, it gets a little tiring (and expensive!) to eat out for every single meal. Especially when you have a baby or toddler – or both! – with you, making those meals a wee bit less enjoyable.

Having a kitchen or kitchenette means that you’ll have somewhere to make your coffee, prepare a sandwich, blend up a smoothie, or even make a delicious, complete meal with ingredients you picked up at the nearby farmer’s market.

You can also often get a dishwasher, or at least pots and pans, in case you need to sanitize bottles or sippy cups. You can refrigerate full jugs of milk, rather than squeezing whatever you can into a hotel mini-fridge.

While not every Airbnb will necessarily have a kitchen, most do. I highly recommend setting that as a search criterion when you’re hunting for the best kid friendly Airbnb you can find.

Stress less about your noisy baby

Do you stress out if your baby starts crying in the middle of the night in a hotel room?

I sure as hell do.

But not if we’ve got the whole house to ourselves! (I mean, okay yeah I’ll probably still stress out about my baby crying in the middle of the night – but that’s unavoidable.)

Even if you’re staying in an apartment or condo, chances are the walls are not hotel-room-thin. You know, when you can hear the entire conversation of the people in the hotel room next door? Not usually the case in a condo.

Stress less about noise from everyone else

Along those same lines, not being surrounded by other hotel guests can be a huge blessing in terms of helping your baby sleep. There’s nothing worse than having your child repeatedly woken up by the kid running around upstairs, or the drunk people stumbling down the hallway!

Dealing with baby jet lag is hard enough. Let’s not make it worse with a night full of random noises from random people!

They might have all the baby supplies you need

A lot of Airbnbs are owned by families, and many of them keep their old baby supplies for their guests. I’ve stayed in several places that have offered a pack n play, high chair, baby books and toys, and so on.

You can’t underestimate how nice it is to not worry about bringing any of that stuff! Just be sure to reach out to the owner ahead of time and let them know you’ll need it, even if you see it on the listing. They may need to bring it from elsewhere.

Even if a listing that you’re eyeing doesn’t specifically say they have baby supplies available, it doesn’t hurt to reach out and ask! They might have some they can borrow from a friend or neighbor, and if they have an otherwise kid friendly Airbnb, they might choose to invest in a few items to make their listing more appealing to families.

No baby supplies? You can rent them!

If you happen to find an Airbnb (or hotel room, for that matter) that you love but it does not have the baby or toddler supplies that you need, check out BabyQuip! It is a website that connects you with a local family that rents out their baby gear. They will bring the gear – cribs included! – to your Airbnb and get it all set up for you.

They also have very stringent cleaning standards for their baby gear, which you may or may not get with your Airbnb host.

You can find everything on there from high chairs, to beach toys, to baby monitors, to camping equipment.

You can connect with a local family

This was the other reason that we originally started using Airbnb – we loved the idea of staying in the home of a local! Nowadays, a lot of Airbnb owners will have little or no contact with you during your stay (which might be exactly what you want), but sometimes you’ll get to see quite a lot of the family who lives there, and your kids might just have a playmate!

Most listings will state how much interaction there is with the owner. If you get a keycode to an apartment and that’s it – you can be pretty sure that you will not see the owner during your trip. But if you are staying in a shared house, you can expect some level of interaction. This is a filter that you can set when you search.

Even if you don’t spend time with the owner, staying with a local means that you can get awesome recommendations about the neighborhood. Why not ask where the best kid-friendly restaurant is? The closest playground? Your host will know.

There is likely a laundry machine

We are backpackers at heart. Always have been. We still travel carry-on only with a baby and a toddler in tow.

But that means we have to do laundry. Luckily, many Airbnbs have laundry machines! Some will have rules about how often you can use it or ask that you leave a small fee if you do. But the alternative is tracking down and staying at a laundromat for a few hours, and that is not the best way to spend part of your vacation.

Having laundry available is a big deal to us, and is always a search filter that we select.

You can stay in some truly unique places

Treehouse? Yurt? Safari tent? Luxury houseboat? Off-grid cabin in the woods? The possibilities are endless on Airbnb.

We stayed in a cave that had been inhabited for 9000 years in Italy. Seriously. And it had been lovingly renovated with all of the modern conveniences. And we paid under 100 bucks/night to do so.

A little bit more interesting than your average Marriott!

The downsides to staying in an Airbnb with kids

It’s probably not babyproofed

Depending on the age of your child, you might want to spend a little time babyproofing when you get there. I’m not saying you need to bring your cabinet locks from home, but at least make sure breakables and hazardous materials are out of reach.

I have a whole post about baby-proofing your Airbnb or hotel room here.

We brought our 20-month-old daughter to a beautiful home in Perugia in Italy. She went immediately for the bookshelf covered with colorful glass statuettes. Luckily, we beat her to it, but we definitely had to hide most of the display items until we left.

Airbnbs have less extensive reviews

It’s a little bit more of a leap of faith with Airbnb. Has anyone with a baby stayed there before? Maybe not. Maybe you will get there and find that it is very baby-unfriendly, but there weren’t enough reviews for you to know that.

When you look at a hotel on TripAdvisor, you’ve probably got thousands and thousands of reviews to go off of. Airbnb? Not so much.

You can get around that, however. Airbnb has pretty strict requirements for what it takes to become a “Superhost”. These days there are enough Superhosts out there that it is reasonable to only search for properties owned by Superhosts. This is what we usually do.

Superhosts will be responsive, will have tons of overwhelmingly glowing reviews (whether for that property or their others), and they’ll have experience renting to families.

That might mean that you are ruling out the small, family-owned shared-home Airbnb in lieu of only staying with people who own several properties in a city… but you do know what you’re getting.

At the very least, be sure to actually read through the reviews. Airbnb reviews tend to be thorough and honest.

Have I stayed at less-than-stellar Airbnbs? Definitely. But the ones with lots of good reviews have them for a reason. Trust what other travelers have to say.

You could get canceled on

Sometimes, hosts need to cancel your reservation. Usually they will do it well ahead of time, but it’s a real possibility that they might cancel on you close to your travel date, and then you’re stuck trying to find somewhere new to stay.

Not a problem you’re going to have with a hotel.

This actually happened to us for the first time ever on our most recent trip. The host cancelled the night before we were supposed to check in! Airbnb support was very helpful in finding similar listings, and refunded us plus 10%, which went toward upgrading to a much better place.

If you look through the reviews, you can see how many times the host has cancelled on their guest – Airbnb posts it automatically. This was a host who had very few reviews. Not a Superhost. I took a chance on it because I liked the place and it was a good price for Malta.

Some helpful tips for booking an Airbnb with kids

Check the listing

First, understand the difference between the home types, and make sure you check that filter before you start looking. A place might look great, until you realize that you’re only renting one room of what they show in the pictures, and you will have to share your bathroom.

You can choose to only look at places where you’ll have the whole unit to yourself – so whether it’s a house, apartment, or something else, you won’t be sharing any of your space.

Also look for whether the place is child-friendly. Many will include in the House Rules that they are not safe or suitable for infants. You’ll occasionally even find Airbnbs that are not safe or suitable for children under 12. This might be because of easy access to a pool, or a stairway without a safe banister, or whatever else.

Let the owner know

When you request to book, be sure to mention the age of your child(ren). This is a good opportunity to ask about baby equipment, find out if the area is child-friendly, and gives your host a proper heads-up.

I’ve had nothing but positive reactions when I’ve mentioned that we’re bringing our little ones. It helps that we have a long history of 5-star guest reviews (yes – hosts leave reviews for guests as well), but I am sure that any family friendly Airbnb is going to expect and enjoy hosting children.

What is the Airbnb infant policy?

If you’re wondering about the infant policy on Airbnb, it is that infants (under 2) are almost always free, but they do count as a person toward your guest limit. Children between 2 and 12 are sometimes free, depending on the host. But they will also count toward your guest limit.

By guest limit, I am referring to the total number of people you are allowed to bring to a space. This is set by the host. Please do not lie about who or how many you are bringing to get around this limit! This is deceitful, rude, and will get you a negative review for sure. Remember that this is not some big hotel chain (not that I’m saying that is okay, but I know it is common). This is a person renting out their personal space.

Enter the accurate count of who is coming when you search, so that you will only see places with enough space. Unlike hotels, it is easy to find Airbnbs with guest limits of 6, or 8, or even way more!

How to find the best Airbnb for families

There are a few search tactics that I always use when I am hunting for baby friendly Airbnbs or toddler friendly Airbnbs.

First, start by entering the ages and number of guests accurately. This will automatically rule out places that are listed as not safe or suitable for children. It will also rule out places that have a maximum guest count below what you need.

Choose what type of place you want. We almost always go for the entire place to ourselves now that we have 2 kids to handle. While I have built lasting friendships with hosts who shared the space with us, it is just less stress to know that I don’t have to worry about sharing a bathroom or keeping them up with a crying baby.

Select some filters. We always choose at least 1 bedroom, Superhost, kitchen, and laundry. You can also choose amenities like high chair and crib if you want to, though you might rule out great places by doing so.

Skim through all of the reviews before settling on a place. You might find a place that almost everyone loved, but that one person who stayed in that Airbnb with a toddler notes how poorly it is set up for having little ones running around.

You can message a host with questions before you book. Don’t hesitate to do so! Are you wondering if that pool you see in the pictures has a secure locking gate? Just ask!

Have some flexibility with dates if you can. When we are staying for a week or more in one city, we will usually change up our lodging partway through. This gives us a bit of wiggle room to get the baby friendly Airbnb we really want.

---

Have you found the perfect Airbnb for your family vacation? Have any remaining questions? Let me know in the comments!

Originally published March 2019. Updated January 2021.