Nourish your relationship and take the trip!
Taking a child-free vacation can be anxiety-inducing, especially when your children are young. It’s hard to plan to leave them for any amount of time (sometimes even overnight) and can often come with mom guilt working its way in trying to talk you out of it. Our lives start revolving around being a parent, and we often realize we haven’t done anything just the two of us in our marriage in a long time.
Something we always enjoyed before children was traveling. We love traveling with our children now, but there are some trips that are difficult to plan depending on your child’s age. Instead of throwing those destinations to the side and saying, “we’ll take the trip someday,” think about doing it now! There are a lot of positive effects from spending time just focusing on your marriage and coming back to putting your full energy towards your kids.
The planning process is longer with a lot more considerations when you are planning not just for your own trip but for a safe transition of care to a trusted adult for that time. I spent time notifying teachers of an alternative pickup person, packing their bags for Gigi’s house, writing instructions for all of their activities, buying preferred snack items, and of course, all of the safety measures: leaving insurance cards, physician phone numbers, and preferred hospital.
The care person I chose has shown safe sleep practices, has a baby-proofed home, and is able to safely use a car seat, which definitely helps with reducing anxiety when I am away. I also planned ahead with purchasing an upgraded internet package on our cruise to ensure I am able to be contacted at all times.
Now that I have gotten through all the hard parts of planning for safe childcare, I can plan all the activities for our adults-only trip. We chose kayaking to a glacier, Jeep off-roading, zip-lining, hiking, unlimited spa passes, and lots of late-night Broadway shows. We enjoyed restaurants without worrying about kids’ menus and sneaking late-night desserts. But most of all, we loved connecting through our experiences and having conversations just focused on us.
Did we worry about our kids? Definitely! We called them a lot, sent them a ton of pictures, and monitored our daycare logs just as we would do at home. We bought them presents and shared about our adventures. When we returned home, we woke them up refreshed in the morning and jumped right into adventuring in our own city! We treated them to the Best of Missouri Market festival and hugged them a little tighter that night. Next up … family vacation!
