To not understand how people have an evening.

You are very inefficient in the actual way you do things. I am hugely efficient as was my Mother I had no idea how inefficient people could be till I met MIL. Watching her makes my teeth itch as she is so painfully slow and overdoes everything.

It means you will spend huge amounts of your life doing domestic stuff, you get one life op and the years fly by. There is a specific number of hours we have done everything in our lives when our lives end, no one knows their numbers but looking at the way you process your housework I can say with confidence mine will be half yours.

Use your hand painted plates at the weekend get some that can be chucked in the dishwasher. Spot clean clothes, small amount of food on a top? just spot clean if it comes off then it is fine. I made the packed lunches as I was cooking dinner. The children should be doing stuff as well, my DS had to do all his own washing from 13. His job was unpacking the dishwasher and packing it for pocket money from 9.

I don't get much evening with DP.
Sometimes I like it like that though.

I lay with my DD (7) while she falls to sleep, we listen to affirmations together while she's falling into her slumber. I try to start bedtime between 7 and 7:30pm but recently it's been a little later more closer to 8pm.
Sometimes I leave the room at 8:30/8:45pm and then I make my son's hot water bottle and he might faff around for a bit (ADHD/ASD and a huge dislike for his school). He goes to sleep around 9/9:15pm.
I'll either go for a smoke or wash up and then the other after. Boom it's 10pm.

I might sit with DP for twenty to thirty minutes or so and then it's the bedtime routine which can take me only god knows how long each night.
It can be half hour, forty minutes because I get distracted by everything and then I do this thing where I'm almost ready to get into bed but I faff by the side of it and go over the things I need to have done by the time I get into bed to make sure I haven't forgotten anything. I also have ADHD and it's just something I do much to DP amusement.

At 8 and 12 why aren’t your dc doing their own lunches?
Washing up can take time - I get that, have you room for a dishwasher? 🙈 I hesitate to suggest that but I know it has made the biggest difference to my evenings. Dc load and unload it.
Wash goes in at night set to be finished first thing so can hang out before work or wash goes in as soon as home from school/work so ready to hang out by 7ish.

Sorry just seen you have a dishwasher - how much then do you need to wash up?

I’ll be honest I am struggling to see why you don’t have an evening? Everything you have said really shouldn’t take until 10pm.

I don't have a dishwasher so wash everything by hand and it's not taking me anywhere near as long as OP says to wash it all. And I cook from scratch (although I do batch) and I use a LOT of pots!

I think there's an element of faffiness/perfectionism happening here.

mine are younger but once they are in bed - 7ish all i need to do is put away any last minute toys they had out and run the hoover over.

We make lunches at the same time as making dinner, a load of washing takes 2 seconds to put on and no more than 15 mins to hang on the airer. Clean the kitchen and do the dishes while cooking and straight after dinner too.

I'm not one to give myself more work than necessary, so you won't catch me ironing or scrubbing the skirting boards every evening!

I feel you may just need to work a bit more efficiently, and both of your children are old enough to pitch in, hanging washing or making their own lunches.

If you're only hoovering once a week, why is that not a weekend job?

For starters, I'd make sure your 7 y/o and 5y/o tidy away their toys and books before bed.
Also pairing up how much clothes you have cuts down on laundry. I don't know why as it doesn't make any logical sense but it just does.
Just generally cutting back on clutter helps with tidying a lot. I can do a 3 bed house in under 30 minutes as there is no "sorting". Just dust, hoover and do the toilet.

Can you hoover half the house one day and half another day such as a Saturday morning?

You need to build into your routine some more wriggle room at least a couple of nights.
What happens when it's parent teacher night, an emergency trip to help a parent, someone unexpectedly drops in?

I don't understand how people aren't washing up, with have non dishwasher proof water bottler pan, oven trays that are too dirty for dishwasher, hand painted plates etc there's always something!

Stop using hand painted plates for a start. Switch to all items that go in the dishwasher. If your tray is too dirty for the dishwasher start using foil or baking paper on the bottom so the tray isn't as dirty. The amount we wash by hand is tiny.

My old one didn't need to be - and burned better when it had a bed of ash. My new one really does.

Slow eaters are hard to manage! I think after 20min it's ok to say right I'll chat to you as I wash up, etc.

I empty the dishwasher while I'm cooking as that's what works for me. As dc ate getting older with later bed times in having less of an evening, but on week nights I have a firm rule that I go back downstairs by 8.30 so I can have time to myself. At 8 and 12 they need to understand that. I won't do any jobs after that.

Pack lunches are made as soon as I come in before dinner. Have 2 lunch boxes so one goes on wash while other is prepped.

Washing is also put on in morning and hung on radiator/drier when I get home.

Dinner is no more than 20min to make. I won't make anything complicated. And the less pans etc the better.

I put everything in the dishwasher. If it can’t survive the dw it has no place in my house. Who the heck’s using hand painted plates for dinner.

The trick is to do it less well, I only do the edges about once a month and the rest of the time hoovering my 4 bed house only takes me half an hour tops including having to move all the crap someone has inevitably left on the floor. Saying that I have just bought a robot vacuum to save time.
Are you working full-time out of the house? I WFH and do a lot of jobs like laundry (shove load on before work, put in tumble dryer (on on line when it's not winter) at lunch time and put away after work) and emptying the dishwasher around WFH. Dishwasher is really easy to empty while you wait for the kettle to boil. When I actually had to go to the office it was harder but I tended to just do the basics in the evening and blitz the rest on my days off or the weekends.
We usually manage an hour or so to watch tv in the evening, but that's mostly because we don't eat until 7 when DH gets home from work(10 year old eats at her childminder as that's too late for her) and the 13 year old now doesn't go to bed until 9 (or later if he has a club).

My DC are all adults now, but when they were younger and I was a single parent, I prioritised time with them in the evenings rather than doing housework or cooking in the evenings. We had a cleaner once a week and I did very little cleaning in between her visits. I didn’t cook from scratch (an unpopular choice on Mumsnet 😊) and used sauces from jars etc to make meal preparation quick and easy. My DC had school lunches and their school bags would be sorted out for the next day as soon as they arrived home, so that no homework or letters from school were missed. I always had an evening with my children and a few hours to myself once they went to bed. Being blunt about it, if you want an evening you need to cut corners and make relaxation your priority.

I was sooo lazy compared to you lot !

Children of that age unload the dishwasher, load the dishwasher add the detergent and turn it on. If they can see over table height, they're old enough! As a child we each had to hand wash our own plates plus 1 pan or serving dish as soon as we were old enough to kneel on a chair and do it! Dishwashing by machine nowadays is easy!!
Here children also sorted washing and load washing machine and turn it on. Hang it out or whatever too. Otherwise they have no clean clothes...Do their own lunch boxes - the stuff is in the fridge means they can do it. Are responsible for their own homework - we are happy to be read to, check homework etc Are responsible for tidying up their stuff from communal space (even as now adults we do have disagreements, but they know!) and also for making sure they have the correct uniform/ PE gear/music stuff or whatever ready for the next day.
Food prep is another thing, we tended to have specific days for sous chef to start with, in time that led to specific days for total control of menu and meal. In that if that's your favourite you can cook it!

Teach them how, and delegate, once they have learned the consequences of not keeping up, they just do it and it makes for an easy/easier life as well as prepares them for the real world..

OP do you have a cordless vacuum cleaner? I used to spend ages hoovering when I had a plug in one…£200 on a cordless hoover completely changed this, I can whiz round in a few minutes.

yesterday I got home from work at 5:40pm. Started cooking. DH got home at 6. Food was ready about 6:30pm. We all ate and chatted. done by 7:15
DS2 emptied the dishwasher and the other two cleared the table. DS2 then refilled the dishwasher. DH cleaned up the kitchen up and did the baking trays/ pots that wouldnt fit in the dishwasher. Floor would have been swept too.
Meanwhile I was helping DD with her ear drops and chucking a load of washing on.
no other housework needed as did it on the weekend when I took all the decorations down.
All in all we were sat down at 8pm to watch some TV.

We generally eat about 6-6:30pm. My kids are all secondary age so they, especially DD will often cook in the week too so can come home from work and find someone has started dinner.
We are also lucky that DH WFH most of the week and I work 5 min away so generally we are both home / free from 5:30pm. We then spend the next couple of hours doing bits and pieces / cooking / dishes etc so by 8pm we can sit down.

Obviously we no longer have bath and bed time for the kids but when we did, one of us would do baths after tea and the other would do the kitchen/dishes.

I think because you are identifying this as an issue you should work on how to streamline. Batch cooking is a brilliant time saver - we only really cook 2/3 times a week and have leftovers - so my husband (I don't cook) usually cooks Mondays and Tuesdays and we are sorted for Wednesday and Thursday. I sometimes throw together some pasta or similar on a Friday and then he cooks one weekend night and we usually are out / takeaway / random leftovers the other. That also saves loads of time an effort on dishes. We clean the entire house as a family on weekend morning - my daughter does the bathrooms, my son does the dusting, my husband hoovers and I tidy up / catch up on laundry / check all the dusting and re-do half of it / etc.

Laundry I pop on in the morning so I can put things in the dryer in the evening.

And the kids faffing around... that's a parenting choice really. You definitely don't need to sit around staring at a slowly eating child. Appreciate the health concerns but surely you don't all have to watch him for a half hour. Nor should you have to chivvy along a mostly grown child to get ready for bed.

My kids are 9/13 and have clubs almost every night and I still have at least 1-2 hours a night where no one needs anything. Unless I'm having a particularly busy week or am really behind on laundry or something 9-11pm is not for anything productive.

I have no idea OP and if anyone has suggestions for me I'm happy to hear them! Three kids age 7, 5, 1. Husband not home until 8 from work. We get home from clubs at 5.30, eat at 6. Bath at 7 then stories etc. big ones in bed by 7.30 then I go feed baby and rock her to sleep. I'm out usually around 8.30pm.

Husband will have had dinner and fed the dog. We then tidy up the toys/ club paraphernalia/ books. Wash up and load dishwasher, fold the laundry, tidy the surfaces. Sort out uniform and clothes/ club stuff for the next day. Baby will wake once or twice in this time to be settled.

I go to bed at 11 having not stopped and husband can be up until 1am tidying/ sorting stuff out.

We are drowning!

Can you empty the dishwasher half way through a TV programme when one of you needs to nip the loo?

This washing in first thing and pegged out at 7 am or in tumble dryer. Dishwasher unloaded and loaded. We can do 4-5 loads of washing at weekend but we have plenty of clothes of them. One of us makes a meal from scratched eg yesterday I did a chilli from scratch made loads so enough for tonight as well. They do loads of activities and normally in bed (youngest) by 9 and lights off at 9.30 pm unless he has scouts or rugby in which case moved 30 minutes later.

I guess it is just me and you then OP 😂

Are you a perfectionist? This is why I can faff as I can’t just tidy without deep cleaning. It is also hard when one of us is back so late from work. Also, I try cook everything from
scratch which means I have a messy house but that is the price I pay.

Definitely try the laundry on weekends only. Being as minimalistic as possible has helped as the mess is still bearable.

My OH is a builder and he says all the houses he sees with kids are horrifically messy compared to ours so that makes me feel better. It may be you need to let go a little.

I have read that slow eaters are actually full after about 15 minutes - we used to limit our DD eating time to that when she was about 3 or 4 as otherwise it would take ages.
Plate goes on the side for later if she's hungry again but meanwhile you and the DC can get on with other stuff.
We now have the opposite problem as DS is mad keen to get back to his game/TV and eats too quickly. It's not as bad as it was but we used to set a 20 min minimum for break from screens even if they had been earned, so he knew that eating two bites and leaving the table wasn't going to happen.

Me and DH work full time, have x3 primary aged DCS and mange to have an evening - all children in bed by 7pm, an hour housework and prep for the next day then it’s our time to Netflix and relax together. We also both have evening hobbies once a week. I’m very organised though and do not stop - washing machine and tumble drier are always going, all ironing done for the week ahead on Sunday nights. Food shop delivered weekly etc.. I get all their uniforms, lunch boxes made the night before and lay them out, including my stuff too. I wake up every day at 5:30am to empty dishwasher, fold some washing, hoover around before waking the DCs up at 7.

Are you both working full time?
That's hard.
I work part time so all jobs are done by 6.
I don't lift a finger after 6 except to feed my 3 year old and take him to bed.
But at age 8 and 12 can't you make them do chores?
My daughter's 15 but she used to do some cleaning from about 9.