Weekends

[hadagutsful]

What do you do? Do you have a routine? Especially asking if you have primary school aged DC as our weekends are a bit lame and I'm not sure how to change things up a bit!

TIA

I've got a 5.5 year old.

Saturdays are a busy day, we do the food shopping in the morning and then it's either park/cinema/bowling/soft play (depending on how much money I've got!) Then DS has a swimming lesson late afternoon and we have a "movie night" in the evening.

Sundays are more chilled. I do a bit of housework in the morning and DS watches TV or plays the iPad. We might go out for a walk or bike ride, weather depending. Or go and visit relatives. I cook a roast most Sundays for dinner.

Saturdays we slob around in our pyjamas in the morning. DC usually watch a film over breakfast. We do homework during this time too.

We tend to get ready afterwards, have lunch and go out somewhere - park / museum / shops etc. We do jobs in the house and the DC play.

Sundays, same really in the mornings. Sometimes go out to meet the ILs for lunch or ILs will take DC out and DH and I will do jobs / work etc.

I work on Sunday evenings, so I leave about 3.30. DH entertains the DC, they usually watch a film together and play or do crafts.

2 teens and one primary. Teens play football. DC2 on Saturday and DC1 on Sunday. DC3 has a match on Saturday and academy match on Sunday.

Thanks all.

Is it a bit of a struggle for everyone else? We're knackered come the weekend (working mon-fri) so don't always feel like doing much in the way of outings especially as the DCs make such a hullabaloo about going out.

Just trying to gauge if we're... normal.

How old are the dc? We have lazy mornings, especially in these winter months, so all we get done between wake (7.30) and 11am is breakfast and dressed. If they want a movie/tv/tablet/colouring in/reading/playing in their room, whatever. It's free time.

We have lunch 11.30/12, then go out. We have a nice park nearby, or we go bowling or to a local attraction (we have season tickets to a few places so even if we only go for the afternoon we've not wasted money).

Home for 5pm ish, or maybe pop into grandparents houses for an hour, then dinner, homework if any needed, baths and if time; a movie together before bed.

Should add while the kids are having their lazy mornings I do bits and bobs like laundry, stripping beds etc, but at a nice relaxed pace.

We do sod all! Ds is knackered after the week (so am I!) and I genuinely think he just needs to Potter about. We might go out for dinner, or to the cinema, but it’s very much a if we can be arsed thing. Some of our friends panic if every hour of their weekend isn’t timetabled with an activity, but I can think of nothing worse

DH & I used to do things with our DS separately, not always but I don’t think you need to spend all weekend, every weekend having ‘idyllic’ family time. I used to take DS to a farm park or local zoo (we had a season ticket) on a Saturday to give DH the opportunity to go for a bike ride/golf whatever & on Sundays DH & DS used to go to rugby & I had a break. Later in the day we might all go for a walk, visit a local castle or beach (when DS was young we were fortunate to live in a lovely, scenic part of the country). We always tried to make Sunday nights a bit special with cards or a board game after dinner.

But perhaps we were fortunate in that we only have one child & no local family who might have expected visits.

Totally different now with a teen, DH off to golf at 7am, DS (17) will surface at 10 & do his own thing all day & I am lounging in bed with coffee & mumnset. . We do try to still have our Sunday evenings together, depending on A level revision.

We usually do things like; art gallery/museum, transport museum, walk in public parks, swimming, soft play

Saturday we’ve usually got something fun planned-meeting up with friends, a walk, park, bowling. Saturday night is tv, bored games and a takeaway (DC are pre-teens so they stay up later) and Sunday is usually our chill day. Lie in, mooch about type of day.

One teenager, and two children (6&4). DD is pretty much at her dad's most weekends. If not she generally does her own thing, or we do something together.

But DS1 & DS2 I sometimes take them to the cinema, often go out for dinner / pub lunch, maybe go to the museum or national trust. Definitely the park at least once!

Sometime I take the boys shopping and of course there is birthday parties.

Saturday is usually park run dd 8 runs with us, dd 3 gets pushed in the buggy by dh. Usually have breakfast out after this. Relaxed afternoon l, dc play by themselves while I get a bit of housework on and we have a nice family meal together. Sunday me and dc usually go to kids club cinema (tickets are only a couple of pounds each). Afternoon spent doing homework and getting bags packed for the week. Dc have an early tea and off to bed, dh eat later on our own. I find it easier getting dc out of the house than staying in, they just seem to make constant mess and argue when we are in the house too long!

Saturday they have swimming lessons at 9am. Can drag that out a bit if we have nothing else planned. Often stop by Costco on the way home or nip to the shops. We have a few local passes so fill the afternoons using them quite often.
Sundays we go to the gym 10-12. Sometimes go for lunch after that and then have a lazy afternoon.

Ours are 9, 7 and 4.

Thanks for all the responses. We do have season tickets for some local attractions: I think perhaps we need to just scrape together a bit more 'get up and go' to well... get up and go!

Definitely agree that the winter makes it more difficult!

Ours are quite varied. DH works some weekends, and I have rehearsals on Sunday afternoons reasonably often. So for example last weekend DH was around so we went to London for the day all day on Saturday and then out for PILs birthday for cinema and lunch on the Sunday. This weekend DH is working, so yesterday the DCs and I went trampolining and then to supermarket cafe for lunch and then came home and pottered all afternoon. Today DH is working again and I’ve got a rehearsal this afternoon. So am meeting a friend at softplay for a coffee so the kids can play and then will drop kids off at grandma’s for the afternoon. I try to have one quiet day/one busy day at the weekends but it doesn’t really work...!