Uniquely Us: The Elusive Date Night

The Elusive Date Night

Orchestrating a date night can be quite a task for any parents. When your kids have special needs, the challenge is even greater, for a multitude of reasons.

For many parents of special needs kids, the choices of caregivers are limited; our kids may require a nursing level of care, or we may not have able or available family support locally. Many times, it’s hard for us to leave our medically fragile kids, and we spend most of our time away worrying and glancing at our phone to check for incoming messages. Another reason is that after days of medical appointments, therapies, and round the clock care, we are exhausted and frazzled. Just the thought of trying to arrange a date night makes us even more tired.

It’s easy to lose sight of the importance of spending quality time with your spouse in the midst of the frenzied day-to-day life of parenting special needs children. Still it is essential to carve out some one-on-one time for each other and reconnect; to sit down and talk about something other than medication, diaper changes and therapy schedules.

There are ways that you can squeeze in some time with your significant other, and often it doesn’t even involve leaving the house. These are a few “date night at home” ideas that work for us:

• Ordering takeout just for the two of us after the kids’ bedtime
• Making up a fancy cheese, cracker, and fruit platter, and watching a movie
• Sitting outside with some wine in the warm weather and enjoying the silence
• Playing board games

You may be anxious about leaving your child for a good portion of the evening, but getting out of the house for a quick lunch or coffee and dessert can be a fun alternative. Sometimes just getting away for an hour or two is enough to unwind and recharge. Whether you go out on the town or spend the evening eating a special meal at home, the important thing is that you and your significant other are spending meaningful time together.