Social Life
What’s your social life like now that you have Baby MPB?
(Innocently asked by friends who do not have children yet).
Me: What social life?! We have a 7pm bedtime which means every night we have to be home by 6:00pm in order to get Baby MPB fed, bathed and properly snuggled. The only exception to that is if we are going out to dinner, then we have to be home by 6:30.
Mr. MPB: Or one of you can go out and the other has to stay home. Or you have to hire a babysitter.
Me: Heck, that’s why Mr. MPB just bought a PlayStation. He’s clearly not a gamer and hasn’t had a new system since the Nintendo game cube came out. It’s just something to do in the evenings.
Mr. MPB: But of course that’s because we have a mostly good sleeper. If the baby isn’t a good sleeper I’ve been told you spend your whole evening just hoping and praying the baby eventually goes to sleep.
Me: Heck, this is the first time we’ve seen you guys in months, and we used to meet up for dinner at least once a month! Clearly we have no social life anymore.
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This post made me smile. I always see these fun events (including children) and I get so excited only to realize they don’t start until 6 or 7 and I’m like “can’t do that!” I feel you on the lack of social life but as a semi-introvert and a person who has always gone to bed early I’m okay with it.
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We adhere to a strict bedtime too. And see thibgs, and am invited to kid friendly things that start at 6, and I wonder how people do it. We’ve even declined family dinners for bedtime. I’ll push it occasionally, but not often. And not for something that isn’t worth it. Especially not at thus age!
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I hear you. I notice that the baby is much more agreeable once they are in a consistent nap time and bed time routine. But once a week the baby stays up late due to our Bible study and on weekends the nap schedule is off if we go out and so far she has been okay. We haven’t had trouble putting her down at her bed time the following day if we break the routine.
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Sleep routine is critical in our house. I get judged for it often. More by family than anything.
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I was thinking that my social life has exploded since I got the foster baby. She was 6 months old when we got the placement, and she likes to go out. Also a lot of my friends have kids that are in the 3-7 age range so it is easier hanging out with them because we do baby friendly activities. Due to the foster care, we are required to do activities in the community and document them so we go out to the park and play dates and church events and birthday parties. And all of our friends and family wanted to meet the baby. We have had about 3 parties at the house since we got the baby. She is a pretty good sleeper. I am mindful of trying to get her to sleep at 8pm. We usually visit people with houses so we are able to put her down in another room. We try to leave by 10pm or so at the latest. Another compromise is my husband will go out with his friends. If I choose to come with the baby it is understood that I am leaving between 7:30-9pm and he can stay out later. He is a night owl so he will stay out until 2am or so. I like going to bed early so I can be refreshed for work. I think as the baby gets older you guys will be able to do more things. Our baby just turned 1 a few days ago and I am looking forward to doing more things with her.
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This is exactly how we are feeling now! 5pm dinner dates are ideal or things just seem to melt down. And, we have an average sleeper I would say (needs some reassurance a few times a night and at least one bottle in the middle) so we are pretty exhausted because that’s an example of a pretty good night! No complaints here though! Just hard to explain to friends that either have forgotten the stage or haven’t experienced it! Nice to see this post and feel like someone can relate as I turn down invites left and right!
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Haha this cracks me up! I am in the throes of infant (non) sleep and I cannot imagine giving up sleep for an event or for my social life.
If you have any suggestions for getting younger babies to sleep more than 45-60 mins at a time I’m all ears!! Although I think my answer is TIME!
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Sounds about right.
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Bedtime is king in our house. Our lives are ruled by bedtime. Our social life is nonexistent. We jokingly tell friends we’re available for “linner” (lunner?) but not dinner.
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When our babies were the age that yours is now, we never interfered with bedtime, as we believed that sufficient sleep was necessary for the sanity and health of all involved, and we didn’t want to get out of our routine. We didn’t go out in the evenings until after they were a year old as a result. (We would do a monthly lunch “date” or meet friends for lunch if they couldn’t come to our house after bedtime.)
So yeah, pretty standard. 🙂
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Haha so true. When you have babies you stop going out in the evening!
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I’m just sitting here chuckling because that is so true! We do make a point of getting a babysitter one evening a month now (mostly because we found a really good one and want to keep her, plus it’s nice to get out a little) but tend to make those evenings just the two of us. Definitely not much of an “out of the house” social life these days…
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Truth.
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You just have a different kind of social life now!!!! (Says she on the edge of discovering this for herself 😜…..)
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I wouldn’t trade it for anything!!! Different isn’t bad in this circumstance as far as I’m concerned. ❤
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No doubts 😊
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