Dating after kids

Thanks for your sweet comments on this mini series, friends! It’s been fun to write and especially fun to have John contribute. (He contributes often behind-the-scenes, but doesn’t usually get the byline!)

Today, I thought we’d wrap things up for now by offering a few thoughts on how to date your spouse, especially after having kids. It’s been an evolution over here, and I have a few tips you might like to try!

To back up a little bit: going on dates wasn’t really a “thing” in our early marriage, pre-kid life. For one, we were on a VERY tight budget ($135/month for dining out and $30/month for entertainment!). We spent a ton of time together and did lots of fun stuff, so it was kind of like we were constantly “dating,” but we very rarely went on traditional sit-down dinner dates. Instead, our weekends were an abundance of together time with lots of inexpensive fun all running together: a morning hike followed by a visit to the State Farmer’s Market followed by a country drive followed by a $3 outdoor movie.

Then, we had June, and we still went on adventures, but they felt even less like dates since we now had a third wheel. As she began to be more and more interactive, we enjoyed her company even more, but also felt the pinch of time for just the two of us. So, we tried something new: official dates!

From about her 1.5 birthday to now, with a short break when Shep was 0-8 months or so, we have gone on a dinner date every month – and it is our favorite!! A few ways we make this work well for us:

1. We mostly use high school babysitters that we know from church or our neighborhood. We pay them $9-$13 an hour depending on how many kids they’re watching and whether those kids are awake or not :)

2. Our kids are for the most part VERY reliable sleepers, so once they’re down, they’re down. Especially when they were younger and I was either breastfeeding or they could be trickier to put down, we would put them to bed a bit early, have the sitter come at 7:30 once they were already asleep, and head out for an 8pm reservation. This worked SUPER well for us.

3. Another reason we liked this plan: it maximized our time with our kids. As working parents, it can feel hard to voluntarily spend more time away from them (even though we know it’s a good thing!), so we liked that with an 8pm reservation we could still spend the whole evening with them and put them to bed – but also fill our marriage’s cup.

4. For the last few years, at the beginning of the year, we have taken out $600 from the bank and put it in a special envelope. This started one year when one of us got an unexpected bonus. As intense budgeters, it would have been very easy for us to just fold that amount into our annual budget, where it would have immediately been swallowed up. Instead, we never entered that amount into our budget, and instead took it out in cash. Every month, we use $50 of the cash toward our dinner out. (If we spend more, we just pay with a card and put it in our normal dining out budget.)

Note that this is PURELY mental gymnastics – all the money is ultimately coming from the same pot – but it FEELS different, and when it comes to money, you can’t discount feelings! From the beginning of the year, setting aside this money makes us feel like we’ve already planned for these dates, and it makes us look forward to them even more!

As I mentioned in my last post, our dates are almost always dinner out – we tend to alternate between a new spot in Raleigh or Durham and an old favorite. Either new or old, we always make a reservation – again, this helps build the anticipation, and just like with travel, the planning is half of the fun!

In addition to our dinner out each month, we try to plan one date night IN each month, as well. This is a money-saving concession at this point in our lives, since we obviously don’t have to get a babysitter! We mark these dates on our calendar just like we do for outside reservations.

What do we do? Most commonly, we’ll get takeout from a favorite spot after the kids go to bed, then choose a new-to-us movie to watch together. No phones or laptops – which it makes it feel different and special from our typical evenings. Nothing revolutionary, but it’s funny how fun a simple dinner and movie can feel when you plan in advance for it and call it a date! :)

I’d love to hear: what do you usually do for your dates? Any brilliant ideas to share with the rest of us, either for going out or staying in?

P.S. More from our wedding, because it never, ever gets old. Tanja is the best!