30 Ideas For a Date Night at Home
Daniel and I always thought that we would be parents that would get a babysitter and go out all the time. We weren’t going to let having a baby change our lifestyle. Thirteen months after having our little one arrived reality has set in. Good, trustworthy babysitters are hard to find and they are expensive. Sure, our family could babysit and I do ask when it is needed but I don’t want to ask all the time. So we have become creative with our date nights at home after our daughter goes to bed.
I believe date nights are incredibly important for healthy marriages. They build trust and encourage a break from the routine to just stop, relax, and enjoy one another. On the date you should not talk about the kids, work, or bills. Save those conversations for another time. Also, don’t think about the household chores that need to be done. If you are the type that can’t relax if there is a dish in the sink, then do all the dishes before your date and get take out that you can throw away. The point is to relax.
You need to schedule your date and guard that time. We generally have a date (at home) on a weekend night. Yes things come up, but we don’t go long without a date. Sometimes I tell Daniel “I need a date” and he knows what I mean. I crave that time together and I miss it when we haven’t had one in a while. Don’t be afraid to ask or put in on the family calendar.
Here are 30 date night ideas that you can do at home after the little ones are tucked into bed and SOUND ASLEEP.
1. Have dinner in the backyard, patio, or your front lawn.
2. Re-watch the first movie you watched together.
3. Don’t cook and get your favorite take out.
4. Have a theme night. You must dress, eat dinner, and watch a movie with the same theme. Think ‘Western’ and dress like a cowgirl, eat bar-b-que, and watch Tombstone. Think ‘French’ and put on a black and white top, make French onion soup, and watch Amelie. It could be anything!
5. Put a blanket down and picnic in front of the TV.
6. Make a special dessert to indulge in. Bake chocolate chip cookies and right when you get them out of the oven put vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce on top. Even making brownies from a box can warm up any night.
7. Take a shower and get dressed up to go out, but stay in. One night I even put on my dress from my prom. I would never wear it out now, but I still love it and wore it on a night in.
8. Snuggle on the couch and watch a movie. I (heart) my Netflix queue!
9. Try to beat your all time record. (This was my husband’s suggestion for the list.)
10. Wear your old bikini that you would never wear in public again, because your stretch marks glisten too brightly in the sunlight! Ha. Your husband won’t care and will love you in it.
11. Break out the board games. Play it so that the loser has to do the dishes or even a fun strip version.
12. Wear your favorite lingerie under your normal clothes. Better yet wear none underneath.
13. Sit outside and read together.
14. Have a candlelit dinner in the dining room you rarely use.
15. Make a mix CD or playlist to enjoy throughout the evening.
16. Dance! Make room for our own private dance floor and have fun. Don’t worry, no one is watching you dance like Elaine Benes.
17. Write out an invitation card to your date requesting their presence at the VIP Lounge of your private nightclub.
18. Splurge on delicious cheeses and add fruit, crackers, and wine.
19. Make out during the DVD menu music.
20. Give each other a back rub.
21. Share your favorite dating memory with each other over dinner.
22. Set out candles around the room. (I know this is an old idea, but it is really nice to do once in a while.)
23. Dress as a character from a movie and you pick the character for each other (think Tom Cruise in Risky Business).
24. Work out together. Set up a circuit in the garage or in the back yard with a jump rope, dumbbells, push-up, and sit-up stations.
25. Cook together and try a new recipe for dinner or for a cocktail.
26. Go to bed early together.
27. Play video games together.
28. Watch a sports game and eat stadium food like nachos and hot dogs.
29. Set up a pair of chairs and stick your feet in the kiddie pool.
30. Make breakfast in bed for dinner and watch TV.
Do you have date nights at home? What do you do? Does it get harder to have a date night at home when the kids get older?
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I’m glad I’m not the only one who just scratched my head when I read number nine!! Haha.
I think I’m on the right track now… 🙂
My husband and I set up a tent in the living room, ordered pizza, got movie theater popcorn, watched a movie. All in the tent. Then. We slept in the tent. It’s something my sisters and I did when we were younger and it was great to share that memory with my husband. It was cheap, simple, and something different. Will do again!
My hubby and I grab a couple bottles of wine and make our favorite meal. Then we spend time talking and laughing the night away. I love these nights and have learned that they mean more then all those nights that we would go out to expensive resturaunts.
You could also find another couple who has kids that want to go out on dates as well and barter babysitting. This would also be fun for the kids if they are friends, they may even start asking you when your next date night will be. You watch their kids so they can go out one night, and in exchange they watch your little one so you and your hubby can go out.
turn off everything and snuggle 🙂 my favorite thing
this list is great! my husband and i have 5 children so you can imagine the babysitter bill if we did ever get one. there’s no family near by so the free sitters not an option for us either. Plus ive got to admit im kinda one of those moms that really doesn’t trust too well when it comes to my kids.
these ideas are great! and yes… even the “dirty” ones!! we will definetly be doing these!
this list is great! my husband and i have 5 children so you can imagine the babysitter bill if we did ever get one. there’s no family near by so the free sitters not an option for us either. Plus ive got to admit im kinda one of those moms that really doesn’t trust too well when it comes to my kids.
these ideas are great! and yes… even the “dirty” ones!! we will definetly be doing these!
We do a date night at home , everyother friday we order subs and watch netflix in our bedroom as we have 6 children. As a comprpmise with the kids they camp out in the living room with munchies and soda…its a win win b/c they sleep in and we had a date night 🙂
At home date nights are awesome! Wii Power Bowling challenge is one of our favorites. 🙂 Also, I recently created a Random Topics of Conversation jar. There are 120 individual questions and we will just pick one out at a time and see where the answer leads! Ex: Would you rather learn to fly a plane or ride a unicycle? Just a fun way to keep the conversation on us and not talk about all the household, financial or parenting topics that invade every other day. Great list! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for this list! We just had baby #2 and #1 isn’t quite 2 years old. This makes getting out of the house for a date child-care and financially almost impossible at the moment. I had a rough pregnancy so we have become a little desperate for some alone time where we can just remember that we’re also husband and wife, not just mommy and daddy. We have designated a date night each week and this list will be essential in making it possible. Thank you!
Love the suggestions! My husband and I build a fire outside and sit around it sipping on wine. Something about enjoying a fire on a cool fall evening.
Just a few from our list:
Romantic bubble bath
Foot massages
Take turns watching each other’s favorite movies or classic tv shows (“suffering” through Dirty Harry was worth it to see him get choked up during Steel Magnolias)
Play a modified version of The Newlywed Game – it gets tougher to try to stump each other the longer you’ve been together!
Plan an “if we ever win the lottery” vacation – then plan a dinner from that locale.
Could someone tell me how to forward this to email? I have a young moms group and I would like to forward this on to them.
Wrestling match. We usually have a battle while cleaning the kitchen. I use a pan as a shield and we dual it out with spoons and spatulas.
These are amazing! I am still in college and me and my boyfriend would love to go out and just cant afford it. So we end up sitting home most night just laying in bed watching tv. I am def going to be using some of these!
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I love the ideas. I can’t wait to try some out. Our first stay home date night is this Saturday, but I am getting a sitter so we have some real alone time. He says he has never played Monopoly before… so we will maybe give that a try 🙂
How about sitting in front of a fireplace? The list is nice except there is too much focus around a television.
Great list! With our first anniversary coming up in a month and our first baby a month old, date nights aren’t to hard yet, but we’re trying to get into the habit of keeping date nights before it gets hard (learned from watching my parents!). Staying home date sound great! So much easier on the tight budget! We also love Christmas lights! Put them up when it’s not Christmas and turn off all the other lights and just snuggle of eat ice cream! So nice! =)
These are all great ideas! I got a Date Night Dare card the other day from a stranger that had a challenge on it. I was supposed to complete the challenge and pass the card on. My challenge was to write and deliver a love letter. My husband and I both wrote each other love letters. He mailed his to me and I tucked his in his lunch box for work. Then we are supposed to write about it at http://www.datenightdare.com. I hadn’t gotten that far yet, but I just wanted to share what a great time we had. I found this interesting because I found it on Pinterest right after doing a Date Night Dare challenge. I am going to order the set so we can make this a habit. I will add these to my list too. We are SO overdue for date night, and it is nice to find things to do at home or that don’t cost a lot. 🙂
Hey! I love your blog and I love your post! I wrote on a similar topic and I hope you don’t mind I also referred my readers to your post bringing you 693 views over the last couples months 🙂 If you wouldn’t mind checking my post out, maybe you’d like to link back in return, or could find another post we relate on and could refer to each other’s posts!
Thanks!
I don’t have kids and Im not married, but me and my boyfriend don’t have much money to go out anyways. We like playing board games and video games and we always watch movies. I definitely want to try to dress up for a movie inside. Another idea would be to make a fort out of blankets inside or have a tent and have a “camp out.” Or I always enjoyed camping in the backyard and even have a bonfire. Or playing hide in seek. Having a massage night. Give each other some rubs.
Great ideas! To those who are exhausted…sometimes when my husband and I are too tired to go out after a long week, we take a nap, then have our date. With 3 married children and three more still at home, once we even woke up at 2:00 a.m. then, went out for breakfast at an all-night cafe. Good times.
This is my first time pay a quick visit at here and i am actually happy to read
all at alone place.
Totally have done #19 (or during end movie credits). It’s great and makes us feel like we’ve got an epic soundtrack to our lives. I love these ideas. Will definitely try them out, the ones I haven’t already.
thank you. my boyfriend is on house arrest so always looking for fun things to do together. two of my favs are coloring and making crafts.
This list is a good place to start, and I was surprised to find that my husband and I have already done most of it! We have four kids, but each night we try to spend two kid-free hours together (more on the weekends) in which we don’t pay bills, talk about the kids, and etc. At first it was hard because we were so tired in the evenings, but after a while we both realized that we looked forward to it so much, it wasn’t a chore at all, and it’s kept us very close. Thanks for the list!