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\"I didn't think it was anything super revolutionary, but I thought ... I could share this to help somebody else, have that light bulb moment go off for them that it doesn't have to be this hard,\" Secrest said.

Initially, when her friend Emily broached the idea last year, Secrest said she thought it would be a burden to her friends, but then her son's therapist suggested the same thing a couple of months later and Secrest said that's what changed her mind.

\"Before I had Emily, I probably went on a date night a year with my husband. I rarely was able to get away just one-on-one with my spouse -- same for her -- unless we were paying a lot in child care, and that was just not realistic for us,\" Secrest recalled.

\"So, I had to step outside of myself and say, 'Why do I feel like I'm burdening her with my children, [but] when she asks me to watch her children, I don't feel like it's a burden at all?' … I think it takes a lot of reworking your brain [to remind yourself] that you don't have to do this alone,\" she added.

Since then, Secrest said she and Emily have started doing child care swaps every month, and as much as they plan it in advance, they also try to stay flexible with each other.

\"PHOTO:
Courtesy of Jessica Secrest
PHOTO: For the past six months, Jessica Secrest and her best friend Emily have been taking turns doing childcare swaps with each other every month.
>

\"It was getting me into that mindset of like, we can share this burden together. We can share the children together, we can parent together and do this where nobody feels like they're overwhelmed and overloaded. We'll even do this if one of us needs to clean our house. 'Drop your kids off. I'll watch them. That's OK,'\" Secrest explained.

The arrangement has worked out so well that Secrest said they plan on keeping it going for the foreseeable future.

\"Honestly, it's so much easier to function as a family if everybody's getting the relief they need and everybody's getting the breaks they need,\" she said.

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