This Mom Has Found The Absolute Best Way To Trade Babysitting With Your Friends

A while back, my best mom friend and I had a genius idea. I had two kids, she had two kids, and we both had husbands we wanted to hang out with from time to time. But babysitting gets expensive, and we didn’t want to impose on our parents and in-laws too often. Why not, we considered, swap date nights? One night we’d take their kids to our house and another night they’d take ours to theirs.

But it was tricky. They had an infant who didn’t like to sleep in strange houses. And my kids would get all keyed up before bed at their house and then there’s the whole kerfuffle of picking them up, bringing them home, and redoing bedtime (sometimes after a couple glasses of something). It was a bigger hassle than it was ultimately worth, and we stopped doing it after a couple attempts.

But Instagram user @Abigaellanai has hacked the system for the ultimate, win-win-win parental recharge.

“Fully convinced that my friend and I have cracked the code on either going on a date night with our spouse or having a night off as a mom and,” she says. “I don’t know how we didn’t think of it sooner.”

Now Abigael and her friend had come up with the same idea my friend and I did. But whether she brought her kids to their house to watch their kids or they brought their kids to hers, it just didn’t quite work out because somebody’s sleep schedule, if not everybody’s, was going to be thrown out of whack. But Abigael had an idea...

“Instead of disrupting my friend’s daughter’s sleep schedule, her husband stayed at home with their baby. My friend came over to my house after I had put my toddler to bed. [She] was simply just there, not even really to babysit, truly just to sit and be there if there was an emergency ... and that is now the routine!”

Abigael posted the video from their house while her friend and her friend’s husband were on a date. Their baby was already asleep. Abigael’s husband was home with their daughter doing the same.

“He’s getting a night to himself to play video games ... they’re on a date ... I am chilling on their couch, I’m going to watch their Netflix , I get a night off from doing my kid’s bedtime routine and watch whatever trash reality TV that I want. It’s a win for everybody.”

The degree to which we are here for this cannot be overstated. Seriously, this is brilliant.

So the next time you’re lamenting your lack of alone time — either with your spouse or on your own — why not consider this method? Because whether you’re at a nice, late dinner with your partner or hoovering a bag of Chex Mix watching Love Is Blind, honey, that’s a great night.