Parents of small children - how do you manage “date night” right now?

[Absy]

Hey,

I’m just trying to get ideas on how you can manage to hve date night / special couple time during lockdown if you have small kids. Pre-pandemic we would go out for dinner or to a movie, but at the moment the only “date” we had was NYE where we had a nice dinner at the dining table after the kids went to bed. Otherwise, we sometimes get takeaway but we normally eat it in front of the tv, zoned out. Is anyone else managing it? I just feel at the moment that we only ever work / look after children / do chores or watch TV completely exhausted.

Nice meal and wine and spending time together, which is pretty much what we did pre-pandemic anyway as we have two dc with different bedtime routines and it's quite an ask of a babysitter. We don't have any family help.

We’ve done restaurant kits so it’s something a bit more special. We’ve tried Patty and Bun, Galvin, Dishoom and Hawksmoor.

@Littlefluffyclouds13 same here. There's no chance with teenagers😭😭 can't even DTD properly with them around. Lol. I long for the days when they were younger.

We don’t! We both teach online full time and have two DSs aged 6 and 3. By the time they have gone to bed neither of us feels like chatting to a single other human being. Neither of us takes offence at the other feeling like this!

At the weekend we usually do something like watch a film, nothing special.

Date night? I didn't realise that was actually a thing people did.

We have a family movie on a friday with popcorn...

Never. 2 young children have seen to that.

Yes, teenagers are worse, no chance of eating after they've gone to bed as it tends to be getting on for midnight. At least outside lockdown we can leave them and go out by ourselves. If they were younger we'd get them to bed and get a pub or similar takeaway, but it doesn't seem fair to leave them out now.

@TryingNotToPanicOverCovid

Date night? I didn't realise that was actually a thing people did.

We have a family movie on a friday with popcorn...

How did you even have a family to watch a film with if you’ve never heard of dates before today?

[quote Looneytune253]@Littlefluffyclouds13 same here. There's no chance with teenagers😭😭 can't even DTD properly with them around. Lol. I long for the days when they were younger. [/quote]
Us too! Felt like we hours of time alone in the evening, especially on non work nights. Silent sex is something that you become very good at once you have teenagers but it's not as much fun!!!