What are your top tips for making family life work ?

i ahte " oh we liek weekedns as family time" tossers
how uttely unimaginative
i spend most weekends driving kdis to places
am sure they will suffer hugely

I think the trick is to like each other. I like my dp. I think he's a thoroughly decent chap. I am nice to him because I like him. He likes me too and does nice things like cleaning the bird poo off my windscreen without me asking him to.

Also I like my children very much and enjoy spending all my time with them.

(Disclaimer - sadly my daughter doesn't like me very much because I do mean and dispicable things like making her go to bed.)

Bloody hell Bree, at that time of day a conversation between DP and I would go along these lines:

"Umph."
"Mmmmph."
"[sigh] Ummmph."
"[groan] Uhmmmmmm."
"Oh for fuck's sake why do I have to do everything?"
"Mmmmph."

Coffee, in the garden?

[astonished]

Like Bree but at the other end of the day - we (DH and I) try and eat together even though it will often be 10-10.30pm just so we sit down and talk and spend some sort of time together (but we tend to be evening rather than morning people !).

Shout a lot and make fairy cakes.

I'd just like to big up pointydog's excellent 'dead wood' post. No-one else laughed but I am rofling.

We are both morning people, and we only do it in the summer, it is not scheduled it is more a case of ............you awake...yeah... so am I... fancy a coffee ??

And we take our coffee into the garden, so DS 7 has to come and find us, as opposed to shouting Morning Peeps.

Message withdrawn

Patience.

More patience.

Enough sleep.

Making time in every day to have a proper conversation with DH.

Getting out of the house on my own to do something non family related at least once a week.

Paying attention. To the DDs of course but also to DH. Sometimes if he's seemingly not pulling his weight its because he is dog tired and utterly stressed from work. To nag or moan does not help in this scenario.

Not being mummy martyr, but asking / demanding help when its needed!

We talk.
We decide as a couple how our children are going to be raised, boundaries, discipline etc.
If one is not coping then the other takes over.
We make sure we do things as a family.
We also go away once a year as a couple very important to us.

Don't be a dingbat.
Keep calm and carry on.
Work hard and be nice to people.

say sorry. and mean it.

Are you people pigeonholing those of us fortunate enough to have homes on the Moon as uber rich?

I'll have you know that DH and I bought there long before lunar property prices went stratospheric as did most of our neighbours.

Its a decent little community, not much in the way of atmosphere though.

Pussy Whipping???

Be kind to everyone. Especially to your partner. You get much more help from a bloke who gets to watch Wimbledon instead of putting kids to bed than a pussy whipped one.

Oh and if we feel we are not getting enough time together, we will roll over when the alarm goes off at 5.30/6.00. Guage the morning weather and if it is pleasant we will
sneak downstairs and make a pot of real coffee and do our best talking of the day.

If DH and I are both getting busy in work at the same time, we will sit down with diaries to trade drop offs and pick ups (generally my job), otherwise it is fairly fluid.

We try, but only manage about 3 days out of 5 during the week, to ban/ignore the children and sit and talk for half an hour before we do boring chores/cook supper etc etc etc as they can all easily go on for a tedious amount of time. Otherwise it's easy to get to 9pm and find all you've said to each other is "did you get that thing?" and "did you fill in that form?" and "has dd had her hair washed at all in the past 3 weeks?"

cut out the dead wood.

Set aims and objectives and penalise those who don't reach them. This ain't no disco, this is Life for Achievers.

We both pull together.
We have a cleaner.
We have an ironing lady.
We have a dog walker.

We could have more money, but we would not have as good a quality of life IMO.

If you have some spare cash, throw money at the situation.

Weekends are sacrosanct, and will only be spent with people who appreciate family life, if my vile SIL wants to visit she can do so midweek. (if we can fit her in)

Eat together as a family every chance you get.

Have silly private jokes, DH and I call PC's hossifers, it drives DS mad,but he enjoys it.

sounded like a good routine to me, Posieflump. Can't do the sense of humour bit at the moment but the wine? Got that sorted!

Bloody hell. Concept of meetings and agendas and debate and planning and negotiation makes DP and I shudder. If I wanted that I'd have a corporation, not a baby.

I'm definitely not one to be offering advice on harmonious family life, but I know the things that have helped us hang together have been showing patience with one another through tough times, little gestures like cups of tea and massages and being able to laugh about everything, one way or another.

wine

sense of humour

wine

sense of humour

routine pretty important too