Title: “The Date Escape”
Exhibitor: Kristin Simons
Description: Shared baby-sitting by friends and neighbors helps to
provide an opportunity to follow the prophet and spend more time together as couples. Not only do the parents benefit by spending time together, the children also benefit by spending time with other children.
How To’s: Organization Techniques
Organization
Techniques:
1.
Find 2-3 other families in your neighborhood who have children of
similar age and interests as your children. (It is also helpful to pick
families who have the same number of children as you have. Most mothers of two aren't too often
interested in participating with a couple families of six.)
2.
Approach them about becoming involved in a babysitting co-op. Pick families who you trust and who you
know will be able to handle a bigger group of kids without difficulty, (The ward nursery leaders are always a good
bet).
3.
Sit down as a group and decide what night of the week works best for
everyone. We have found that the
weekends aren't as predictable as out weekdays and that restaurants and the
temple are more crowded on weekends so we do our trade-off on Thursday nights.
4.
Get your calendars out and plan for 2-3 months in advance, taking into
account when vacations or other things may interfere.
5.
When you first start out it is a good idea to do a daytime playgroup at
the house of the person who will be doing the babysitting that week. We typically meet for a playgroup with all
of the mothers and their children there on the Tuesday before out Thursday
night date. This way the kids are able
to be with their mom for the first time that they are in unfamiliar territory
and it makes it easier to drop them off for date night.
6.
Set a time that you are willing to watch the kids. This needs to be strictly observed to avoid
frustrations. We say that they can
bring their children anywhere from 5:30-9:30.
7.
Make sure that you get your husband to commit to this too. He will be receiving the benefits of the
regular date night and so he should be sure to be a part of the monthly
babysitting.
8.
Be smart and careful about bringing sick kids to the group. No one likes this.
9.
Make an effort to have some kind of planned activities for the
children. Distractions will make the
time pass much quicker and the kids will be happier when their parents come for
them.
10.
Enjoy your dating. We have four
families in our co-op and so we baby sit one night a month and get 3 nights a
month to go out. We use one night to
attend the temple, one night my husband plans the date and the third night, I
am in charge. I usually fix a nice
dinner so when he comes home from work we can sit down to a quiet meal and just
spend time together in our home. It has
been wonderful!