How to swing when you have children

Man, it was hard to figure out a title that couldn't be misunderstood. Anyways, we have two little ones at home. In one of the threads I was reading here, someone brought up the statistic that most swingers are in their 40's or above. I'm starting to see why. It's really difficult to figure out childcare in order to go out. It's not like a dinner and a movie, we'll be back before 11pm kinda thing, is it?

We live close to my mother-in-law, but I can't very well say "we're going out, and we're planning on meeting some relative strangers and fucking the hell out of each other, we won't be home until 2am." Although I suppose we could be vague and just say we're going out for a night on the town, but we've never done that before. Suspicions may be raised.

And You can't really keep a babysitter at your house that late, can you?

The whole thing is incredibly frustrating.

So if there's anyone here who has small children, how did you manage going out? We're thinking of canning the whole thing until we can leave them alone by themselves, but that's a good 10 years down the road We want fun adult time now!

Maybe find an older sitter that can stay overnight with the kids and you guys book a hotel for play time. That's about all we can think of.

Our kids are currently 4, 6, and 10. When we first started, our youngest had just turned one. At first, we just had the kids stay overnight with either set of grandparents or had them come and watch them overnight while Mr. Sun and I stayed at a hotel. Right now, we rely on babysitters and we do hire ones who are just finishing college or already have and have no problems staying until 2 am. After all...it's easy money once the kids are in bed.

We're pretty vague if anyone asked us what our plans are. We usually go out to dinner and then hit a party and that's how we put it. We just don't go into specifics like a "sex party" or going to see our "swinger friends". We "meet with friends" or have "drinks with friends".

Our kids usually stay one night with grandparents every weekend. If possible we try to do something that night. We have also had a teenage cousin stay the night at our house that the kids love.

We have also had a teenage cousin stay the night at our house that the kids love.

Oh, yes! We used to do that too...until she got a boyfriend. :/

The whole thing is incredibly frustrating.

Makes me so happy to see we're not alone! We started when our first kid was between one and two. Only at our place first when the kid was sleeping (the room was pretty far and ready to stop sex anytime if needed) and then we started go to an hotel leaving our little one with a baby sitter that could stay late. That was much better!

Soon after it was getting great and easy we stopped as we decided to have a second child. Two seems much harder somehow! The baby is too young still to stay with a babysitter without us to feel too worry and guilty. So we're "on hold" since more than a year now (including pregnancy). We've no grandparents around so babysitters are our only possibility. We don't feel bringing people at home anymore and we're waiting for being able to find a babysitter again. Was easy to find some that could stay late (is it less of an issue in Europe?) but we had trouble that all babysitters we liked somehow moved out of the city or country.

We look forward to be able to start again swinging because we had some really good time!

We're with you guys!

Same as if you go to a restaurant, leave them home with a baby sitter, or at grandma's.

It's not an issue now, but when we first started, we just found a trusted teenage babysitter who would spend the night, or in some cases, the whole weekend. Your kids will likely enjoy the break from you as much as you will enjoy the break from them As Sunbuckus pointed out, the hardest part about that is about the time you really get settled in with a good babysitter, then they go and get a part-time job and/or boyfriend, and then you've got to start all over.

The overnight thing kind of depends on where and how you swing. With us, the overnights away were more the exception than the rule, and were usually associated with some sort of special event. For your standard going out and meeting a couple, assuming distance isn't a big factor, you can go out and have a lot of fun and still be home by midnight Just tell them that you need to meet at 6 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. for dinner. Likes tend to attract in terms of age, etc., and so it is very possible that a lot of people you will want to meet will have the same hurdles with childcare and so on that you do, so it's just a matter of working things out to fit all schedules.

In terms of what you tell your family you may use as babysitters, just tell them you are going out and leave it at that. We don't have any family nearby, so not like they could babysit anyways, but when her Mom would call and be nosy about why we were not at home that weekend, then Mrs. cplnuswing would delight in playing the game. "Where are you?", "out", "Why?", "because we wanted to", "Where at?", "____ city", "Why there?", "because that is where we wanted to go out. Why do you keep asking me these questions?"

I'll admit, it is easier to swing when they are older and the babysitter issue goes away. Then, if you meet a couple you like and you are leaving the bar or restaurant and they invite you back to their house, you can go without having to worry about it since you don't have to be back by a certain time for the babysitter. Even not having that freedom yet isn't that big of deal though, many people have been there themselves before and will understand if you can't be just totally free of any other obligations.

If it is something you want to do, don't put it off. With a little effort and planning, it will be fine, and trust me, you will enjoy the time spent in an adults-only environment. Having a chance to recharge your batteries, if even for just a few hours, will make you happier the rest of the time instead of feeling like your life is 24/7 kid orientated.

We live close to my mother-in-law, but I can't very well say "we're going out, and we're planning on meeting some relative strangers and fucking the hell out of each other, we won't be home until 2am."

You CAN, but it's not recommended . Just because you haven't done this before doesn't mean you can't start now. If you are that worried about it start by asking her to watch the kids because the two of you 'need to reconnect' and then do something with just the two of you... a movie, dinner, a show, anything. Then ask if she would be willing to do this more often. Parents (as in your and her parents) understand that children can take the romance out of a marriage and all too often your wife begins to think of herself as only a 'mom'. 'Dating' helps to reignite the passion. Once you start you can then include 'others' in your evenings and take it from there.

Thanks for all the advice. My mother in law watches the kids M,T, and W (I work part time), so I feel really guilty being like "oh, yeah, could you watch the kids on the weekend, too?"

We're currently looking into a babysitter. Just have to get over the fact that I don't know the person who will be watching our children. Still MR. Prufrock's mom is 5 minutes away if anything goes wrong.

In the meantime, I HAVE THE BEST SISTER EVER. We're swapping date nights. Mr. Prufrock and I want to go to the Dayton Meet and Greet, and it looks like my sister will watch the kiddos overnight! It will be a lot of driving (she lives 1 hour north, Dayton is 2 hours south of us.) but it will be worth it to get out of the house and enjoy ourselves!

There you go, problem solved! Swapping date nights is a great idea.

That makes me think of another bit of advice. Host all the sleepovers you can because that gets reciprocated too, and those nights are built-in babysitter nights Depending on the ages and genders, they both may not get invited to sleep over at someone's house at the same time, but when you have arrangements for one, then it makes it that much easier to find arrangements for the other so mom and dad can have some time to themselves.

The best overnight babysitters are old enough to be responsible, but not so old the job/boyfriend thing has hit yet. We looked for ones that were mature for their age, had a good relationship with their parents, and lived fairly close by. That way, if they came up on something they didn't know how to handle, either with the house or the kid, a responsible adult was a just a phone call and if it came to it, a few minutes drive, away. When you find a good one and get lucky enough to keep them for a while, your kids will really bond to them and will look up to them in an older big brother/big sister sort of way, and that can be a benefit in and of itself.

We're currently looking into a babysitter. Just have to get over the fact that I don't know the person who will be watching our children. Still MR. Prufrock's mom is 5 minutes away if anything goes wrong.

I also had that same issue before we started using babysitters. Luckily, our oldest is at that age that we can reliably as her how things went and she'll tell us. If anything unusual happens, she'll tell us. Most of all, if the sitter isn't interactive, she'll let us know, too.

Host all the sleepovers you can because that gets reciprocated too, and those nights are built-in babysitter nights

Ehh, I think this mostly works if you only have one child and if the other children's parents like doing sleepovers. For us, even if our daughter has a sleepover somewhere else, we still have to make plans for our other two. And also, after having several sleepovers with several different children at our house, we're not all that keen about other people's children at the moment so we wouldn't be doing any reciprocal sleepovers for other parents. I know, it sounds terrible but it really makes me wonder about the parenting that some children get today.

The best overnight babysitters are old enough to be responsible, but not so old the job/boyfriend thing has hit yet.

One of our sitters actually has a job and boyfriend. Luckily, she's still able to swing the once-a-month that we have her come over. I guess that leads to the advice I have...have more than one sitter available. We try to have at least 2 that we can call and ask that way if one can't, hopefully the other can.

In the meantime, I HAVE THE BEST SISTER EVER. We're swapping date nights. Mr. Prufrock and I want to go to the Dayton Meet and Greet, and it looks like my sister will watch the kiddos overnight! It will be a lot of driving (she lives 1 hour north, Dayton is 2 hours south of us.) but it will be worth it to get out of the house and enjoy ourselves!

We don't have kids but we have babysat my sister's 2 little ones before we joined the LS all the time. After we became swingers ourselves, we continued to babysit them but less frequently by trying to attend different parties. I have to say I really appreciated the opportunity because I am so close to the kids now that I treat them as my own. And they actually enjoyed coming over and spending the weekend with us when they were single-digit age.

 

One of our sitters actually has a job and boyfriend. Luckily, she's still able to swing the once-a-month

I think I've been watching too much porn....

sitter-city.com

We have some special needs children (more than one) which means that we can't just use the teenager, college student, my older daughter, down the street. We also do not have any extended family nearby.

We insist on background check. We setup interviews for a group, and my wife picks the ones she thinks are best. It has worked wonders for both our professional life and social life.

We have had a sitter cover our children for over a week at a time.