Does anyone else feel like they never get to sit down in the evening?

[JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff]

Minor moan but also wonder if I am not adulting right!

After we get the DC in bed, around 7.30, apart from actually eating dinner we don't really sit down. The kitchen looks like a bomb has hit it so I sort that whilst DH makes dinner. Then there is laundry to do, ironing school uniform, packing bags for tomorrow, batch cooking, picking up the explosion of Duplo that is the living room, admin tasks, etc.... I finish and it's 11pm and time for bed as I know I'll be up at 5.30.

We even have a cleaner but somehow there is still so much to do!

Is everyone like this or are we just somehow missing some top tip for life????

P.s also how long were you at woods, all day? Could you have done more washing earlier in day an sorted school/work bag when everyone was playing with the duplo? If you can do more of those little jobs in the daytime - you free your evening up more

You're creating work for yourself - why on earth are you cooking three evening meals a day?! And batch cooking on top of that?

If you and DH want fancy meals every night that take over an hour to prepare then you need to accept you lose your downtime as a consequence of that.

I don't have children yet and there's no way I'd get in from work and spend an hour cooking a meal!

I have twins and an older child two and we have always all eaten together and eaten the same meal. This saves so much time!! Maybe have a compromise between adult and kid meals. Put your twins to bed a bit later and eat all together . At least during the week. Save fancy meals with just you and dh for the weekend if you must.

On a Sunday we often have a hot lunch and something on toast for tea. The laundry gets put on in the morning usually daily so rarely more than one load. DH does most laundry and I do most cooking. Tidy up before tea while TV on. Can you do more in the daytime at least at the weekend?

This is completely psychological and won't actually reduce your workload at all - so feel free to ignore!

I refuse to do any more housework once the kids are in bed, so basically putting them to bed is my last job of the day. Every night after tea is 'wind down' ie TV time where no more toys are allowed out. So I stick them in front of the telly and nip round and get all of my jobs done. Then when I'm putting them to bed I can take my time, we have a nice chat and enjoy a few story books and I'm not trying to hurry the whole thing along because I've still got stuff to do.

I've also trained my older ones to decide which of their school clothes are dirty enough to need a wash and which ones can be put out to wear again tomorrow. This hasn't been massively successful so far though.

That all sounds like hard work. In our house beds are made when folk get up and a washing goes on at the same time. It goes in the drier when I get home from work - I don’t know how you generate 3 loads a day though - 21 loads of washing a week? I never pre-treat anything and informs don’t get ironed, within 10 mins of wearing they’re rumpled anyway because my 2 literally don’t sit still for a minute.

Batch cook at the weekend, make a base sauce to add stuff too rather than completely different meals each time. Or when your DH is making the actual tea, get him to make double and freeze half.

Have times when one of you take the kids out and the other tidies/cleans or does household jobs. Clean as you go when cooking - then all you have are a couple of plates and a pot or two. If my DH couldn’t manage to clean while he cooks he wouldn’t be cooking midweek regardless of whether it was his “thing”.

You do need to look at what you’re doing, with the best will in the world if you never get down time you’ll make yourself ill. My kids are older but by the time they are upstairs around 8.30, I’m finished for the night - if something isn’t done it simply doesn’t happen. I need the down time to stay sane much more than I need ironed uniforms and 3 loads of laundry.

Also how insanely messy can your kitchen be that it takes over an hour to clean after making kids tea and feeding them?

OP
3 meals plus batch cooking is insane and I love cooking !
Why are your DC wearing shoes in the wood ?
Presumably they need to be dry to wear today?
Wellies and zip up all in ones that go over clothes or you will be scraping mud off forever.
They are fairly cheap from places like Decathalon.
Beds -have 2 duvet sets so strip and remake with the clean one straight away.
Im a morning person, everything would be done before I go out not the other way round.

You are making this all a lot harder than it needs to be.
I sit down a lot! Always have done. Admittedly not 3 kids, only 2 ds's. But still.

Why are you ironing and batch cooking mid week? I do a lot of both, but not mid week.

What time do you get up at the weekend OP?
Could you do laundry in the morning instead ?
Pop dinner in the slow cooker ?

OP that sounds ridiculous. You're making work for yourself. Half those jobs don't need to be done, the other half can be done much more effectively.
DP spending 75 minutes fucking about with a risotto would be the first thing to go.
Have you a friend or relation who could spend an evening with you streamlining you a bit? You could easily be sat down by 8pm.

Country I havre to agree with you there.
If my DH was a "foodie" I would want more than a bloody risotto or sweet potato curry after all that time cooking faffing and making a mess
I do Jollof rice with chicken in the oven and sweet potato curry in the slow cooker.
It would save so much time.
Come on OP!
If you add all these tips together you could be sat down at 8pm

Agree with PP.
My DH is a foodie, as am I. I understand you not wanting to eat the same as your toddler twins or at the same time. But I do think a lot of your issue could be solved by you and DH each taking jobs to do during the day at weekends. Eg 'while you are sorting their breakfast, I will just go up and change the beds.' For example. If you did a few mins of sorting while the kids were doing something else, you might find evenings easier. Also agree stick them in waterproof gear that can be washed off and hung up to dry.
As for your cooking etc, i find that most meals we make for the two of us are fairly quick but not boring. I take a few short cuts such as frozen chopped onion and garlic.

There are about a billion wipe clean toddler waterproof bibs on the market - they even have sleeves.
Wellies and waterproof trousers are essential for toddler wood walking.
Uniforms go in the wash Friday night, hung on clothes horse, straight from machine for minimal creasing, dry by next afternoon.
Nothing wrong with risotto for kids. Take kids portions out before seasoning everything.
Maybe fussy dd1 might appreciate your husbands fancy cooking.
Get a dishwasher.

All that user said!

We used to eat separately from the kids, but now all eat together immediately before bath and bed. Then one of us clears up while the other does bedtime. No more work after that!

Same as @cakeninja..gym/swim but manage to watch a few tv shows after dinner..DC are older tho&have designated chores ..the early years were a lot like yours OP..everything gets easier as they get older!

I fed dc what we had from when they were weaning, I’m of Asian descent so they got plenty of garlic, ginger etc I just laid off the chilli.

I leave the quilts pulled back all day and have never bothered to make any of the beds up.

Consider buying clothes that need none or very little ironing. I remove, shake and hang up immediately and have spent forever hardly ever ironing.

Obviously oat covered bibs need washing but I find many people wash their stuff far too quickly. I had a colleague who wore a clean blouse every day. We worked in a white collar environment. She never raised a sweat. I would wear a couple, sometimes three a week and just rotate them .

Your dc can put their own toys in their toy box, I made it in to a be quick tidy up time game.

If the bibs get trashed every meal, it's really not worth hand washing them. Just chuck in the machine. Doesn't matter if they're not whiter than white.

Can your DH not settle for something simpler, like scrambled eggs or stir fry, a couple of times a week to cut down the lengthy final round of cooking and cleaning?

What about if you only did one dinner? We have a family dinner at 6:30-7pm every night (dc are 6 and 1.5). So that's only one meal to cook and clean up from. One of us takes them upstairs for bathtime while the other quickly cleans up the kitchen from dinner and makes the youngest one a cup of milk for bed. We usually put the washing on when we get home before dinner. If I have time, I'll hang it up then while they are in the bath, otherwise I do it when I come back down from bedtime around 8:30 ish.

I have to work evenings after bedtime as does dh so we technically sit down from about 8:30-10ish to work. I might take 10 minutes to pack up my work things for the next day/lunch/etc. I do admin when I can take a break during the work day or on the train while commuting. Or whoever picks up the dc after school does it then (either me or dh). Any sort of batch cooking or weekly meal planning/prep gets done on a Sunday afternoon so it doesn't take up time in the evenings.

We don't generally tidy up the house every day. It's messy, but we have other more important things to do. We load up the dishwasher morning/evening while making dinner/kids eating breakfast, that sort of thing.

I think it's the separate dinners that is killing you. It's like working twice as hard when you don't need to. Meal plan, prep and cook one thing, everyone eats it, then you tidy up and are done for the day.

OP, I've been finding the same recently and I'm just hoping it's part and parcel of the toddler phase. Soon there'll be no bibs to wash, fewer stained clothes (DD is potty training), more help from children as they can start doing little jobs. DD is already good at tidying her toys as long as I remember to allow time for that before dinner!

DD and I eat exactly the same. She eats curry, chilli, garlicy things, steak, stir fries, stews cooked with wine etc. She'll eat anything. I made the decision early on that we need to eat the same as I don't have it in me to prepare and clear two meals.

Also, mine have always eaten 'grown up food'. I am a big foodie and my dh has a career that involves work with a lot of big famous chefs that you would know from tv, so we are quite particular about food. What you describe you're eating for your 'grown up meal' my dc have eaten since they first started solids (minus any chilli or loads of salt initially). We still have special meals alone when we cook something separate for ourselves. But we save those for Friday and Saturday nights. We can relax and cook and not have children underfoot. The day to day weeknight meals though, we just make nice healthy meals that we don't need to slave over for 2 hours or need to be reverse searing a fillet steak to perfection. So when we do have time to cook and eat just the two of us on the weekends, it's a lovely treat (and we aren't bone tired, so we can actually enjoy it).

I am a lone parent working full time. I spend the evenings with my son rather than do housework (obv I cook dinner), so everything gets pushed back to when he's in bed.

So, no I don't sit down much, though I put the radio on to something I enjoy while I'm sorting out the kitchen and doing admin.

Having said that I do have time in the day to do my sports, which keeps me sane, and I do get sitters so I can go out. It's OK.

Too much faffing.

Risotto shouldn't take that long. I would have given everyone eating same risotto at 6.30pm. Fussy child gets something simple like eggs/ beans on toast if they won't eat the same.
Risotto is a 30 min meal. 6-6.30pm whilst dh is making risotto, get dh to tidy kitchen as he cooks, set the table, and tell kids to tidy duplo away ready to eat. During this time you unload washer, finish sorting anything else ie beds.

But yes, bedding wise i would usually put clean bedding straight on after dirty off, so its all done at once, then not a rush later.

Ikea long sleeve, wipe clean bibs are your friend.

Definitely eat with the kids. 2 lots of cooking and clearing up means at least 30-45 mins wasted, plus you miss out on the family catch up time if it continues as they get older.
I do a load of washing most nights, it goes on the airer or hung out in the morning. Lunches get done in the morning while kids are eating. Cleaning waits until the weekend, apart from wiping down the kitchen.