On our first wedding anniversary after Charlie was born, Bee and I went out on our first real date in almost a year.  We had a great time, watching a Broadway show and grabbing dinner.  It was a big splurge, but felt worth it.

What we hadn’t counted on though, was the cost of babysitting.  We don’t have any family nearby and babysitters cost $15-20/hour where we live.  We asked our nanny to stay late for our date, and had to pay time-and-a-half for overtime.  When you added it all up, that single date night cost us over $100 in babysitting alone!  And that’s not even counting the cost of the cab we had to take because we raced home immediately after the show was over!

So, we learned our lesson.  For the next few years after that, we didn’t go on a single date night except when Bee’s mom was visiting.  The cost of babysitting was just too high, especially when we realized that we still had to pay for dinner, a movie or whatever else we had planned.  It was easier just to stay at home.  If we ever wanted to go on a date, we took time off during the day while the kids were in school/daycare.  Or more likely, one of us stayed home with the kids while the other one went out to dinner with friends.

Then years later, we discovered two tricks that have allowed us to have evening and weekend dates again… this time, with zero babysitting costs!  

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BRUNCH SWAPS

An evening date is a commitment.  A good dinner and conversation is at least 2-3 hours, and then you have to factor in transportation there and back.  And if you have a babysitter, you have to figure out how to get your LO down before you leave – or have a babysitter who knows how to get your child to sleep.

But a brunch date is much more manageable!   There’s no bedtime to deal with, and our kids are old enough that we can push their naps to a little later and they’re ok.

So we started doing brunch swaps with a friend of ours.  We do playdates with them all the time, so our kids are familiar with both the parents and the kids.

Our swap buddies, during a trick-or-treat Halloween playdate

The first time we did this, I couldn’t believe how easy it was!  We dropped our kids at our friends’ place around 10 am and went into Manhattan to some of our old West Village brunch spots.  We hit a small snag (turns out restaurants don’t open that early), but eventually we found a great spot and enjoyed some time away with the kids.

The cost of the date?  Just the cost for our Eggs Benedict.  And when we got back, the kids had had such a great time that they passed out right away for naps.

A few weekends later, our friends needed to meet with their architect for their home renovation and we were happy to return the favor.  Neither of us has family in the area, and so daytime swaps have given us both some much needed flexibility to get away.

DATE NIGHT SWAPS

Date night swaps are a bit tougher to arrange than brunch swaps, since bedtime is involved – for both kids and the sitter!

* The start of date night may (or may not) overlap with bedtime.  So either your LOs have to go down on time, or your babysitter has to be able to get them down by themselves.
* If your kids wake up after you leave, the babysitter is going to have to be able to get them back down.
* Evening dates tend to last longer than brunch dates.  Or if they’re shorter, you barely have time for dinner before rushing home.  Especially because I usually feel bad keeping the babysitter up late, especially since our kids usually go to bed around 8 pm.

But we did a date night swap with a couple, and those problems melted away!

* We didn’t get the kids down until 9 pm or so – but it was ok, because our friend put her daughter down first, and then came over.  Her husband stayed home with her daughter.
* Then Bee and I went out for a movie.  The kids didn’t wake up while we were going, but if they had… the kids both know our friend really well, and I’m pretty sure she could have baby whispered them back to sleep.
* After the movie was done, we texted her to check in.  She said she was binging on Netflix and that we could take our time.  We didn’t feel nearly as guilty as usual, because we knew that she could also hang out late when it was her turn for a date night.
* We came home and hung out with her for a bit, then she headed home.

We couldn’t believe how well it worked!  And later on, when she needed some emergency babysitting during a baby shower she was throwing, we were more than happy to repay the favor.  I even brought Charlie since our kids are close friends, and we turned it into a sleepover for both of them  – which made it a lot easier for me to put both kids down myself.

THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND

We’re definitely a huge fan of brunch swaps and date night swaps now, and use them exclusively when we go out on dates.

There are a few things to keep in mind when arranging a swap:

* Swaps tend to work best when you have the same number of kids, and the kids are roughly the same age.  It’s easier to relax that rule for an evening swap (when the kids are likely asleep already) than for a daytime swap (when the kids are awake and you’ll be watching them all).

* Make sure the parent watching the kids can handle multiple kids.  To repay our brunch swap, I ended up watching four kids on my own.  But they were all toddlers or older and I had spent a lot of time with the other two kids, so it wasn’t that bad at all.  It would’ve been a lot harder if there was a baby in the mix.

* Make sure that you guys share a parenting style with your swap buddies – especially if the kids are going to be awake during the swap.

* Make sure that your kids are familiar with your swap buddy.  It helps if you’ve had a lot of playdates before.  And this goes without saying, but you have to completely trust your date swappers – just as you would with any baby sitter.  If you have any gut feelings or doubts about your swap buddy, it’s not worth taking a chance.

* Set a policy upfront as to how to handle sickness, both with the kids and the babysitter.  For a day-time swap, it wouldn’t be worth it to me to go on a date with Bee if it meant exposing my kids to an illness. But if I had bought tickets to a show and it was an emergency, I might have to bend that rule (or arrange for a backup babysitter).  Either way, it’s easier to establish the rules upfront when it’s all just hypothetical.

* Make sure you establish ground rules up front.  Some things that might come up: rules on screetime, if it’s ok to fall asleep on the couch while waiting up, and whether it’s all right to have a glass of wine or beer.  Personally, we were fine with any of the above, but it’s best to check.

* Finally, there’s nothing worse than the feeling that you’re being taken advantage of (or vice versa, that your friends feel that way about you).  We haven’t been keeping explicit track of the number of swaps, but there are a lot of babysitting swap sites out there if you’d like to keep formal track of hours/dates swapped.  Just google “babysitting swaps,” and a bunch of websites/apps will come up.

CHILDCARE SWAPS

A lot of parents also use swaps as a way to get free childcare during the week.  If you work part-time or just want a few hours off now and then, you can exchange mornings (or even full days) of childcare with a friend.  So maybe they watch your kid on Monday mornings, and you watch their kid (and yours) on Tuesday morning.  It’s a great way to get free childcare, but a lot of things need to line up for it to work!  It may be best to start slow with a brunch swap on weekends, and then ease into childcare swaps during the week.

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For those of you guys without family nearby to babysit… date swaps might be a good way to get some affordable quality time with your SO.  They’ve been a game-changer for us!

How do you arrange for childcare for date nights?