How to celebrate New Year’s Eve when you have kids.

Once upon a time a LONG time ago you used to celebrate NYE well into the early hours of January 1^st. Now, just the thought of that sends shivers down your spine, because you know that you’ll be woken by your darling babies jumping on you, trying to get you to wake up because the sun is up and it’s MORNING!!

So, how are you going to spend NYE this year, now that you’re no longer a family of two and you’re likely to be falling asleep before the children’s fireworks show starts at 8:30pm?

Hire a babysitter? RIGHT, you will need to take out a second mortgage on your house, that’s on the off chance that you can snag a babysitter and it would probably be easier to give birth again than try to organise a taxi or rideshare service to get you to where you’re going!

What if you were to create a new normal and enjoy NYE with your family? It will be very different to your pre-child days, but a good different, and who knows, you may even have as much fun as you used to?!

We thought that we’d help you out with a few family friendly suggestions:

• There is no reason that NYE celebrations need to start so late, begin your New Year’s Eve with a BBQ lunch with all your friends who have kids too. Or head to a local park/beach or somewhere that is having an earlier child friendly fireworks display, start your NYE in the afternoon, have some dinner, a few wines with your friends and watch the fireworks before retiring and waking up to a new year.

• How much time do you get to spend with your significant other now that you’re parents? Our guess is not a whole lot. So, have a nice quiet night in with the kids, put them to bed early (pro tip, they don’t know what NYE is yet), and enjoy the evening with your spouse, have a few drinks, but do try to get to bed before the sun is up! The next day will be rough and slow, but that quality time is worth every minute!

• If you really need to relive your youth and party on NYE, bring the party to you! This option works particularly well if you have the space for your friends to crash with their children for the night. Invite your besties over for a night of celebration, throw a faux NYE right before the kids bed time, then put them to bed, leaving the adults to ring in the new year as, well, adults! Fun part about your giant NYE slumber party is you all get to wake up and deal with the children together, coffee will help here!

However you’re planning to ring in 2019, we hope you enjoy every minute of it!

Happy New Year from the My Night Light team. We can’t wait to see you all in 2019. XX