What age were your children when you gave up on child free evenings?

[PullingMySocksUp]

Especially if you go to bed early ish, 10, 10.30pm?

I feel like we are fighting a losing battle.

We still send DS(13) up at 9.30 during the week. Weekend it’s later, I go up at 10, so often we go together.
We do have a separate adults lounge though, so we’re not all watching TV together all the time!

13-14ish, we had to be careful about what TV we had on to start with but now they are 20 and 16 they pretty much watch what we do, which is mainly comedy. I am often the first to bed although the 20 year old likes his sleep too so is in bed before me if he has an early start for work the next day. I used to worry about the lack of adult time but now they are more adult themselves I've found it's actually nice.

It’s great now he’s 16. He has rugby training one night a week and he gets the bus to and from there. Plus he plays most weekends so all day free. Plus he has a part time job on top of college so at least one or two evenings it’s just us. After many years of constant attention seeking and needing to be looked after it’s actually really weird!

All of mine are still up! The eldest two are 10 and nearly 12 and we regularly watch TV together after dinner (Glee, His Dark Materials and BBC4 history or natural history mainly). Quite nice having them around, they get themselves ready for bed and then we chill together.

Why would you need a child free evening ? I love having my kids around - never wish they were not there.

Don't you like to have sex? Foreplay starts on the sofa for me!

ShippingNews 🤣🤣🤣** seriously?!?!

"Foreplay starts on the sofa for me!" Always?

I don’t think of it that way anymore. He is nearly 16. Does his own thing. Doesn’t need me to look after him in that way anymore. He will sit down with us in the evening if he wants to. But he is more grown up now. So it doesn’t feel like having a child in the room anymore

Ds(7) goes to sleep 8:30/9 and will crash out lying beside him. Will come down to find DP asleep on the couch for the night! Like tonight after coming down at 9:30!!

Metaphorically speaking (mostly)

I think I gave up on child free evenings when I gave birth

It became much quieter when they got into their teens - they disappear into their rooms in the evenings then for a few years.

The child free bit has definitely got shorter but we still get some. DS1’s bedtime is 9pm (later on Fri /Sat) but he’s in his room from 8 or so. One of us might be reading to him as late as 8.15 /8.30 . He’s 12.

I switched my child free time to early mornings instead of evenings once they got to the teen years

Mine are 14/16/18 but I still have child-free evenings. I put something on TV that they don't want to watch, and they go off to another part of the house.

Occasionally they stay and watch it with me, which actually is rather lovely.

This crossed my mind recently, though I kind of assume by the time they're old enough they'll both be on their room on respective devices in the evening anyway! (8 and 11 now)

A combination of an owl DS2 (happily stays up till 9, always has) and DH and I both being larks (bed by 10pm) means that child free evenings Have been in short supply for years now. Plus we tend to eat late-ish, after 7pm so by the time fishes are done etc, the evening is quite short. I don’t mind it tbh. DH and I don’t tend to watch much tv in the evening beyond 8:30pm. and if either of them want to stay up they are expected to read or talk quietly: we are pretty strict about calm before bedtime. Ds1 age 12 gets bored / tired and goes to bed, DS2 happily reads and chats till he’s ready to sleep.

Oh and devices including phones get put down at 8pm and are not allowed in bedrooms at night. That will continue as long as I’m able to enforce it!

Mine are 15 and 12. It's only recently that they've been actually hanging around in the evenings. For the past few years they would still go up to bed at 9pm but would be on phones/reading etc for an hour or so.

We do tell them that dh and I are watching 'our' TV from 9pm which is of zero interest to them. Nothing clears a room faster than The Crown

How do you have a sex life as they grow up??

My top two are 14 and 12. We generally finish putting the bottom two to bed around 8 30 - 9 and then we're doing jobs so we don't sit down ourselves until half nine. We have a no TV rule in the week so it just doesn't seem to occur to them anyway. They are generally in bed by 9. 14 year needs his sleep but 12 year old will read. They sometimes sit with us on a weekend and we'll watch a film we all enjoy.

Youngest is 8 and I turned in at 9.30 last night leaving DH, DD1(10) and DD2 on the sofa watching Digging for Brittain on iPlayer. They probably went to bed around 10, I was asleep by then.

It's a pretty regular occurrence tbh. School nights I send them to bed around 8.30 and youngest gets a story or they both read. They're both told it's grown up time or if we want to watch something unsuitable.

Sex? Early morning or midnight ish.

Mine are welcome to stay up until 9pm (they are early teens) after that they have to go upstairs which they don't mind - they're normally watching Netflix or something tucked up in their bed with snacks. They're happy with the routine. They understand that sometimes I want to watch tv that's not appropriate for them - or bloody boring for them!

Mine are 10&11, they're in bed by 9 in the week, 10 at the weekends. We stay up until 11-11.30 so that's our alone time. 11yr old is pushing to stay up later, complaining all the good tv starts later- so soon we won't get any unless we put on a horror just to get him up there!

What shippingnews said.