First night out after having a baby

[Beachcombergirl]

Hi

I have an eight month old daughter who has been ebf and is now being weaned. She still has bm, including at bed time and if she wakes during the night. My dh and I haven't been out yet without dd and we were wondering if this is normal at this stage. I don't really miss going out. I prefer to be at hone with dd but I think for our relationship we should think about it soon.

Dd is still settled by BM so I wonder how we would be able to leave her with a sitter. Any advice please?

Also I should add my mum died suddenly two months ago and no other relatives live close by so we are kind of stuck for babysitters anyway (although my sister has offered to travel the 300 mile trip to give us a night out)

DD is 1 this week and I've not had a night out yet due to bfeeding.

If you don't want to, you don't need to. It's not weird.

I don't understand the big deal about nights out. DH and I have afternoons out. It's a lot easier to find a friend to entertain baby a few hours during the day than at night.

No it's not weird. Our is 2 years and five months old, and we havent been out for a meal without her either. That said we can't afford to go out for meals a lot now, due to childcare costs, but if we do go out, we enjoy it as a family. We still go out wthout her cycling at weekends ocasionally, but not together, one at a time and I do miss cycling with my partner as bit even though I do have a friend I can cycle with sometimes, so I suppose it's a similar thing. We also have no family nearby so we just put up with it. We may be able to cycle together when she is a teenager I suppose! I do miss track cycling a lot. I cant do that at all now due to travel/time and the evening sesisons meaning I would not see my child at all if I went to the track during the working week plus getting home at 11pm and getting up next day at 6am is just not sustainable for me now I'm a parent (it was always prettyy hard, even when I didn't have a child), so I sold my track bike. A Sad Day for me, but family life and work and commuting is hard enough without also trying to fit other interests in too - I think you just have to accept these things are part of the job! Enjoy your family life whilst you can, because once they are teens and older you may regret it if you have missed doing things together to persue your own interests.

Thanks all. I think a couple of hours in the afternoon is a good idea. Maybe a nice lunch together. I dunno, it's really hard. I didn't realise how I would feel about leaving her. I'm going to be a mess when I have to go back to work in the summer! :-(

We've only been out twice without our nearly 9 month old DD. we have lots of family nearby so that helps. The first time we stayed in a hotel for the weekend with a listening service which had a really nice restaurant so we had a meal there one night. I think it was one of the luxury family hotels group. It's just a posh baby monitor basically and they discreetly get you from dinner if the baby cries/wakes then you can pop up and feed her. This is a nice option if you can afford it for a special treat. I don't think it's weird not to have gone out but nice to get the chance to. I definitely think a lunch/afternoon out if less stressful than an evening out for the first time.

With dc2 we have only had a couple hours without the kids (usually less than 10 min away), but when we have left them with a sitter, we assume they may well be awake when we return - baby dd tends to happily doze on their lap while they watch telly, but is very difficult to get to bed. I then bf her on return and get her into bed.

We have had a few times when MrNC worked from home while I was on mat.leave and we.took dd with us for a nice lunch while ds was at nursery. Even smart restaurants are near deserted at lunch time, which makes everything very relaxed.