Written by monthly contributor, Kat. Cheers to another great idea for maintaining dates nights!
We all know that spending one on one time with our husbands is vital to the health of our marriages, but how do we do that when funds are limited and family lives far away?
Our all time favorite solution involves a date night AND a peaceful night of quiet solitude.
Sounds too good to be true? Here’s how we did it…
We’d trade date nights with another couple, but we’d schedule the date for AFTER the kids go to bed. Our kids go to bed between 7 and 8, so we have time for a nice long date. But even if your kids go to bed at 9pm, there’s time for meaningful conversation over coffee or dessert.
One week, my friend would come over to our house so we could go on a date. Jimmy and I put the kids to bed and told them that mommy and daddy were going on a date, but if they needed anything, Mrs. B was in the living room. Once the kids were settled, Jimmy and I would go out for a two hour date.
For free
The second half of the arrangement is that a week or two later, I’d go over to my friend’s house for a peaceful, quiet evening while they go out on a date. Since I’m wasn’t at my house, I couldn’t clean or do dishes or…anything except read a book, write or browse on my laptop.
Now how lovely does that sound?
The other benefit of this solution is that it doesn’t matter how many kids your friends have. We know people who watch each others kids during the early evening while they are all awake and it gets difficult when one family has 3 kids and the other has 1. Not really an even exchange. But when it’s after bedtime, it doesn’t matter if I’m watching the Duggars kids, because they’re all asleep.
Simple.
What are your tips for doing date nights on limited funds?
Wow, Kat, what an awesome idea!!! I can’t wait to get this started in our group, and get some quality hubby time again!!! I’m sending my readers over, too, because this kind of genius had to be shared.
I love this! I am going to try to make it work for us a.s.a.p.
Great idea!!!
Ok, no particular reason, but the idea “when it’s after bedtime, it doesn’t matter if I’m watching the Duggars kids, because they’re all asleep” just made me laugh out loud for several minutes. Thanks for the great idea and the happy moment!
Great idea…why didn’t I think of this? We’ve been doing the exchange while awake thing, but don’t do it very often because it can be a circus. Plus, we hate it that our kids get too bed late either way. This way, bedtimes would be kept. I’d gladly volunteer to go read a book in my friends’ living room! Does this mean I can snack out of her fridge too?
This is a fantastic idea. I also agree that every couple should have regular date nights to stay connected. When RH and I go out together, I begin to feel like a giddy school girl today and it just rekindles my love for him.
What a fantastic blessing to have friends to watch the kiddos! It’s a win-win situation when the kiddos are already put to bed.
This is a great idea – thanks for the tip!
We are also blessed to have a couple of single friends who absolutely love coming over and spending time with our son (or they come, we eat and play together, I put him to bed and then we head out). The beauty is we love having them over normally/often, so we don’t just call on them for babysitting.
We also have a couple college-age students we mentor and spend time with; so they will often volunteer babysitting (because they LOVE getting off campus, eating a home cooked meal and snuggling on a comfy couch WITHOUT their roommates
Happy Dating!
Love this! Also enjoy Tammy’s idea of letting the kids practice while hubby and I go around the block. Mine are 2,4, and 6 months, so that idea will have to wait for a few more years. LOL
I earn free babysitting by teaching sewing lessons once a week in the afternoon. I teach three homeschooled sisters who in turn are available to watch the kids while I grocery shop or Hubby and I go out for an evening. I love the feeling of driving away knowing I earned the the babysitting and contributed to the cost of the date, and it blesses my husband – he always thanks me!
Consider if you have a skill (piano lessons, cooking lessons, sewing, tutoring, writing workshop, driving lessons) that you can barter for babysitting
Great idea! I’ll need to work on getting bedtime accomplished a bit earlier so that I can stay awake during date night! lol!
I LOVE this idea! We have several friends with just one or two children, and I always wonder how to make it “fair” when we swap babysitting! This is perfect!
You asked for some inexpensive dates — I wrote a post not too long ago about simple, affordable at-home date ideas! http://www.motherhoodonadime.com/fun-on-a-dime-at-home-date-ideas/
call it the PLAY (DATE) NIGHT SWAP!
we used to do this with our old neighbors when we lived in an apartment… except we would just hand off the baby monitor and no kids had to be woken up!
I think we’ll have to do it now even though we moved
we take turns switching with our neighbor babysitting. about every other week, either my husband or i will go over to their house and watch their kids while they sleep. and then they do the same for us every few weeks. it is free and so nice to do for one another!
and we like to ask for gift cards to some of our favorite local restaurants for our birthdays. that way, the date really is free!
my hubby and i live in california with all of our family on the west coast.
we are fortunate to be a part of a church with tons of singles and only two married couples with small kids. well, i guess there are some drawbacks to this, but as for babysitting its awesome! we rarely have trouble finding a babysitter (it also sweetens the deal that i usually make dinner for whoever babysits… this is especially a draw for all the single guys!).
Most of our married life we have not had family close. So before our oldest daughter was old enough to babysit we would let the kids practice. We called it our date night but we didn’t go anywhere unless it was just for a walk around the block. We usually went downstairs and told the kids to pretend we were not home. It was great practice for them and a free date night for us. Later as they got a little older we would go up the street to the local cafe. Still super close and we had our cell phone. It was great training for them and it got us in the habit of date night even though our budget was tight!
This would work…hmmmm. now to recruit relatives and friends.
Great idea! We’ve traded child care with friends before, but, like you mentioned it was during waking hours – just sitting in a quiet house knowing that my crew is tucked in their own beds would be fine by me as well.
What a great idea! I wish we’d done that when our kids were small!
I LOVE this idea! Definitely need to make this happen.
We do this! We don’t trade off with another friend. But we have discovered that with 5 active kiddo’s (4 boys) who are used to a pretty tight regime….more often than not our sitters tried to be nice and it ended badly! Kids can smell a soft authority 6 miles away
Now we stick close to home to get the most of our evening and ask the sitter (sometimes even my 37 yr. old older brother who is single, even HE doesn’t mind) to come at bedtime. Even if we do pay a sitter, I feel like I don’t have to pay $10 an hour for sleeping kids! Plus, I don’t come home so a sitter “with that look in her eye” 
Great idea! I think this is fantastic. Now to just work out the details
Love, love, love this idea! I feel like I can only ask my parents to watch the children because we have 7 and I feel like that many is too overwhelming for most people. There are other factors that I worry about as well. This is a great idea that would give me peace of mind, knowing the children are peacefully sleeping and the sitter is peaceful as well. Can’t wait to share it with others! Thanks
This is EXACTLY what we do whenever possible! I love the idea of doing it after kids are in bed. The last thing, honestly, that I want to do in the evening is put someone else’s children to bed or entertain them. I’m sure it goes the same way with most of my friends. This is when earlier bedtimes rock! I even did this when my girls were infants. As soon as they would sleep from 7PM-11PM (around 4-months-old), we would escape on a date. We’d usually be home by 9:30-10 just in case baby woke up early to nurse – though, that didn’t happen too often – so we’d still have an hour or two alone.
I do this with my best friend… but not on a regular basis. We’ll have to remedy that!
I love this! (Will keep it in mind for when my kiddos are older. Right now there’s no guarantee anyone sleeps longer than an hour…)
We’re missionaries in Russia and it just so happens that our fellow teammates are our upstairs neighbors. This past year we made a deal where we trade off once a month. Even though she has 5 and I only have 2, it works great for us! We always watch each others kids at their place because it is much bigger and the kids have more space to play. My boys look forward to date night and are always asking when mom and dad are going on a date or when our teammates are going out on a date. The boys get to be with their friends and when I babysit, my husband gets some “alone time”. It’s also convenient because sometimes I put her kids to bed and my husband just comes upstairs and takes our kids back home!!!
Great idea! We have four little ones, 5 years and younger. Our date night is usually dinner and a movie in our living room after they all go to bed.
The early bedtime does mean they are up early in the morning, but it gives my husband and I a few hours alone almost every night.
Great idea! When the baby is a little better at falling asleep on her own we may try this with our neighbors/friends. Of course it’ll have to be before baby #4 comes in August
Love it! Need to work this out with one of the couples in our church!