Skiing with a 3 year old

Hi, looking for a bit of advice if anyone can kindly help me out. I have a daughter who will be 3 next month and am looking for suggestions as to where to take her skiing this season. My husband and I normally ski every year, but we haven't taken our daughter away yet as we have left her with family when we've been away, so not really looked into family friendly resorts. We're ideally looking for some where with great value for money just incase she doesn't like it and it may be just myself that takes her away as my husband may not be able to get time off work. If a resort is not too far away, I may consider driving as we live in Hampshire, so possibly heading to Europe via Calais. Any sensible suggestions greatly received and many thanks in advance

Your daughter will have a ball wherever you go. I'd suggest not going anywhere too cold or maybe waiting until march/April for the warmer spring skiing. You would be advised to get her used to wearing sun glasses or goggles before you go, a lot of toddlers need to learn to like them...
Somewhere with a kids club that has some indoor activities as well as snow play of course. Almost every resort will have a pool, a lot will have ice rinks, toboggan runs, maybe even husky sleighs.
My partners daughter loved the husky sleigh ride and moose kissing in Are Sweden.
The Italian resorts and Italian people in general seem to adore small children and make them very welcome.
I have limited exp of France/Austria.

Thank you Lilywhite. I'll have a look at Italian resorts and see if there are any last minute offers on for them. Thankfully she is used to us covering her in suncream and she is a bit of a poser, so loves her sunglasses!!

Have you looked at using a company like Esprit? Not used them ourselves but they specialise in ski holidays for families, so you'd be in a chalet with other kids. They tend to feed the kids first in the evening so the adults can eat together later. At 3 your daughter will need mixed activities, not just skiing, like Lilywhite said. Our friends introduced their daughter to skiing at Les Carroz. She had lessons in the mornings, and her parents went skiing on their own, then they were together in the afternoons doing stuff like tobogganing and building snowmen.

I would not consider driving, you will need to fit snow tyres for safety and legal reasons and its a long sometimes hard drive and generally you don't need a car once there and it's much more expensive than flying. I would consider Italy as the Italians are generally very accommodating with young children. I'm sure she will enjoy as long as it's not too cold.

Hi, unless you are prepared to use good child care or not ski much yourself I'd think carefully about taking a 3 year old.
We took our daughter for her 1 st time at 4 and we did use all day child care and she did learn to ski, but I can't say she enjoyed it a huge amount as it was very cold and tiring.
Relatives of ours took their children at a little older and they learnt just as quickly and coped a lot better with the travelling ( even driving such a long way with a child is exhausting) and all were at same level after only a few trips.
If it were me doing it again I'd either leave her with a willing grandparent or as suggested previously use a company that will look after her all day and play and make the day fun and maybe put her on skis for a couple of hours a day. ( that's not an inexpensive option though).
For info we went to Austria and there were omly 2 other English speaking kids in the kindergarten, the other being my son which was also tough.
Good luck, I hope you let us know what you decide and maybe write a review if you do take her.
Dids.

Our two and four year old grandsons will be joining us in Niederau. The four year old was first on skis at 19 months, although was just playing on them.

Fritz Stroebl told me that young ones should be 4 years old before they start on skis, but the locals here have children of 2/3 on skis.

Because we goes a family group, we take it in turns to have the wee ones on skis/sledges, having fun.

Obvious comment, but avoid school holidays if you can to reduce costs. Leaving it relatively late in the season (to get reasonably good weather) and booking late (to pick a resort with good snow) would be my call. I would seriously think about childcare for at least half a day per day so that you can have a ski and so daughter can pick up a bit of age-appropriate tuition.I know that ESF in France runs ski school for kids of her age (piou piou or something like that). This involves skiing, watching videos and larking about in the snow. I cannot comment on other countries 'cosI have only used ESF for little kids. Mind you, once the kids are 5 or so and in proper ski school, ESF gets a bit tougher (kids have to MTFU, as my mate would say).