Here’s the thing. When you go out of town as just the family and the baby goes to bed before 8 p.m.*, the rest of the evening can be oppressively quiet for you and your partner, and sadly, not that different from evenings you already spend together at home.
One answer to this dilemma is to recruit another trio to go on a trip so that you can continue to socialize with grown-ups once the little people are asleep. Morning is also more fun –Â your early-rising party of six can hit a popular restaurant before it gets crowded. Those brunch places you enjoyed at 10 am post-baby? They actually open at 8, so if you’re already on your second diaper change by then, why not go out?
Rent a house
We learned early on that staying in a hotel room with a baby can be rough. While my kids had no problem sleeping while we watch a movie on a laptop just a few feet away, many parents are not so lucky. Renting a vacation house offers a living room to escape for the evening. Maybe even a deck.
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Cook dinner
I’m not hugely confident in my abilities to cook for other people, but I do enjoy that the payoff for producing a meal for four adults is double what it is when it’s just me and my husband. And clean up seems less burdensome when it’s in a spartan rental kitchen with less clutter to navigate. Unless they don’t have a garbage disposal, of course.
*What? Your baby stays up past 8? The Rookie Moms are open-minded people except when it comes to babies and bedtime. Consult our bible to learn why we put our babies to bed so dang early.
This activity and 249 more things to do in the first year of motherhood are in our book The Rookie Mom’s Handbook, available for Kindle.
