How old was your child when you and DP first had time alone together without them?

[jeIIy]

Prompted by a conversation with my friend.

How old was your DC when you and your partner first had time alone together without your DC there? (E.g. DC were with grandparents, or in nursery etc).

(I do not mean having sex! Just - being together without your DC being in the same location.)

We went out for dinner when baby was 6 months old, grandma was babysitting. Obv had time together just us two at home before that when baby in bed, not a lot tho as we kept baby with us in the evenings up till about 5 months.

It was our first year wedding anniversary when our twins were 2 months old. We left them with a friend for a few hours and went out to dinner.

Can't remember but a concert at a few weeks. I should have been in the choir.
Babies were lucky having competitive Grannies.
Dh once joked to his parents "please may we have our baby back"😃

It probably would have been 7-11 months, but ended up being later because of Covid

First child, about 6 months old but we didn't live just round the corner from relatives and didn't have a car, otherwise it would have been sooner.

My first grandchild stayed with us overnight from 1 month old as he was bottle-fed. My second from about 6 months as he was breast-fed.

I think it's good for children to spend time with other people and to get used to staying away from home. My grandchildren say that my house is their other home, even though they don't stay here as often now. I have seen other children who have NEVER stayed away from home and who are terrified to go on a sleepover, or school trip, even when they are teens. That can't be good for them, surely?

we went out for a meal for XH's birthday when DD was 2 months old and my mum looked after her. I spent the entire meal looking at the floor expecting to see DD there in her car seat .

With my eldest it was about 18m before we had time together just me and DH - both took a day off when kid was in nursery and we had a date day out (which started with breakfast in a cafe straight after nursery drop off)!

When baby2 arrived, they were 11m old (another date day during nursery hours, both kids were in nursery youngest just started!).

With my first it was only a few days. My mil was overbearing and very pushy, and then the granny competition got underway.
I had grown a backbone by the time the second came along, and anyway no one was as keen about minding two together. Probably around 9 months with dc2

First one was about 6 weeks, then an overnight at 6 months.

He was about nine months old and my mum babysat him while we went for a lunch and a mooch around the shops. But she only visited monthly and that was the first time she offered, I think I would have agreed to it around 6 months or so.

The first time we left him with a non-family babysitter was when he was about 18 months. We went to a wedding and the hotel had a babysitting service.

It was years.... Can't remember exactly but both children were absolutely horrendous sleepers, and naps / sleep had to be very carefully managed in order to allow our survival. Neither went into childcare, so that wasn't a natural break.

Years. No childcare, terrible sleepers and breastfed meant it wasn’t really feasible, it’d have just been more stressful. I was always happy to do things with them and spend time with dh as a family or if we wanted to be alone and eat dinner together or watch a movie or whatever we could do that after they went to bed.

3 months. She stayed with grandparents for 3-4 hours while we went out for dinner.

We had Oasis tickets, purchased before we knew we were having a baby. She stayed with her aunty for about 8 hours at 4 months.

She has done half a dozen evenings with family members now, and she’s been at nursery 3 days per week since 9 months.

We will be doing two overnights for weddings this year when she will be 14 months and 16 months and she will stay in our house with her aunty.

Reasonably good sleeper, breastfed.

My first was 2months old, stayed with my ils overnight whislt we went out for our friends birthday, the second was only 4weeks but it was my relatives 40th this time I asked my sister in law it wasn't for very long though because I was breastfeeding

We went to the pub like two houses down when eldest was maybe 6 weeks while my mum took her for a walk around the village. I lasted through about an hour of lunch, cried and we came home. An actual evening out, we went to a friend’s wedding at about 9 months. Dd and my mum were in the hotel like 2 minutes down the road from the reception. I put her to bed and then my mum sat in the room with her until we came home about 10pm.

We generally haven’t had much in the way of family help, so these were rare exceptions. I don’t think we had another night out until she was 2 and stayed with a babysitter. She went to nursery from 9 months though.

My daughter was born in mid March and we went out for dinner and drinks dor
my birthday at the end of ‘May whilst my mum babysat.

Age 3 - dd was in preschool and DH happened to have a day off. But we didn't arrange for childcare to spend time together, she would have gone to preschool anyway. She started preschool at age 2.5 and I did extended bf and I was with her almost all the time until then.
My parents never look after our dcs and PILs live abroad - they have sometimes looked after dd1 while we visit them but only the eldest, so we don't have child-free time as our younger child is with us. I don't consider it to be important to get dcs used to being looked after by others and having sleepovers tbh. They are happiest with us.

4 or 5 weeks? We went out for a meal and left DS with MIL - she was gutted that he didn't wake up and stayed asleep in the pram the whole time!

Dd was a high needs Velcro baby that we later discovered was on the autism spectrum. We didn’t leave her with the grandparents for the first time until she was over 2. We raced to dinner very close by and kept our phones on the table right next to us. We only had entrees.

with a different child, we might have done things differently.

she is 17 now and thriving. I’m happy with the choices we made.

Thanks all, an interesting spread of responses!

DS was a few days old - end game had just come out in the cinema and I wasn't missing that!

DD was probably older only because we were entrenched in school life for DS and there just wasn't time in general to go out on dates.

2 weeks old. Went out for a meal.

Time alone - when she started nursery

Evening out (back by 9pm) - she was 12

Night out (home by 11) - 14

Night away - 17

Thanks all.

Mine were 6 weeks when we had our first night away, 14 weeks for first weekend away and 13 months when we went away for a week on holiday. Neither were remotely bothered we weren’t there and had a lovely time without us! Dunno if that’s a twin thing because they have each other or not.