100 Best Date Night Ideas for Parents—Even If You’re Exhausted

Inside: Here are the best (and most practical) date night ideas for parents to make you feel closer, even when you’re busy and tired. Bonus: Most ideas in this list don’t require a babysitter.

After our fourth child was born, my husband and I didn’t have a date night for nearly a year. Which sounds like it could be a recipe for marriage problems.

Because couples who never take time away to be alone tend to feel disconnected. They might start snipping at each other over small things. They might forget why they started on this wild, chaotic parenting journey together and begin to feel more like roommates than life partners.

Research shows that says date night is an important ingredient for a healthy marriage—in science speak, they call it shared recreation. According to the The Date Night Opportunity report, wives who had regular date nights were 22 percent more likely to report being “very happy” in their marriage, and husbands were 20 percent more likely to. Plus, spouses who experience frequent date nights were 28 percent more likely to report that divorce “was not at all likely” in the future, compared to spouses with infrequent date nights.

Date night is especially important when you have kids—because how else will you get to have an actual conversation with your partner without someone asking for help with homework, interrupting to tell you about the coolest thing ever in Minecraft, or screaming so loud you’re sure the neighbors will call the cops on you?

And yet, even though my husband and I had been skipping date night for a while, and even with four kids to wrangle, we felt more connected than ever.

Because we did something different than date night.