What does you evening look like?

[Hiccupiscal]

So, im trying to "sort myself out" as in...

1. Not turning to alcohol
2. Getting a good night's sleep
3. Following some kind of bedtime routine

My evenings have been looking like this:
DC into bed around 7:30pm - 8pm.
8 - 9pm eat dinner, make tea, wash and do some beauty care
9pm onwards: upstairs. Light candles. Put salt lamp on. Cup of tea. Prehaps a snack or 10, put a film on - try and select a film under 2hr 30m maximum.
11:30/45 - sleep.

....However my DP is not happy with my new nightly routine. I think he finds it very dull and difficult for me to be "turning in at 9pm" and aiming to sleep before midnight.

I invite him up to watch a film with me so it's not like I'm cutting him out at all.

I'm sure our old way of evenings were not normal... which could be watching TV, listening to music, ignoring each other for our phones, sometimes watching a film downstairs.. 9/10 with a few bottles of something which could escalate to alot more and hangovers in the morning.

I'm trying to escape all this and find a new (even if "boring") normal. Ive personally been enjoying my new routine and would like to sometimes replace films with a book or prehaps even a jigsaw puzzle or the like (although im sure DP will think I've finally lost it)

So I've genuinely wondering what peoples evenings actually look like across the country?!

What do you do on an evening?
What makes you happy?
What would you change about your evenings?
Do you have a routine?

Dinner 7ish, DH and I take the dog for a walk at 8pm for about 40 mins. TV /grazing on phones until I go up around 11ish. I read for half an hour or so. DH comes to bed midnight /12.30.

Leave at 7.30am - home at 4.30pm.
House is tidy as DP works from home and does it before starting at 9am.
Make a cuppa, potter about (washing away, online shopping, clean bathroom, litter tray etc), make dinner for about 6pm.
DP washes up and clears away.
I make the packed lunches for next day.
We then read or watch telly or on screens.
By 10pm we’re thinking of going to bed, we take tea and either listen to audible or read (or do quizzes on Alexa).
Usually both asleep by 10.30pm as my alarm goes off at 6am.

We all eat together if we can, usually around 6/6.30pm but later if one of the DC has an activity (eg yesterday DC3 and I got home from football training at 7.15).

DC2 and DC3 are in bed by 8.30/9 and I read DC3 a story (DC1 takes himself up to bed later).

DH and I settle down on the sofa together and watch TV for an hour. Even though we're just watching TV, it's our time together, so we try to find something we'll both enjoy and we put away our phones.

I'm an early bird and I go upstairs at 10pm, DH comes up a bit later after watching the news. We get ready for bed and read for a bit before going to sleep.

We finish dinner around 6pm then play with the dc until around 645 when we take them up for their bath dc(1) is asleep by 730 and so who ever put him to bed has a bath/shower. Ds(4) just pretends he's going to bed so after wasting an hour reading/settling him that parent has their bath whilst the other does a quick tidy up downstairs. It's usually between 830 and 9 when we're ready to sit down (ds4 is usually still running around or playing in his room until 9-930) we watch a programme or 2 then we're normally asleep 10-1030.

Both finish work between 5.30 and 7

Either go for walk together or potter in the garden or exercise to decompress

Dinner at 8ish. (Sun to Wed's - no booze / Thurs - Sat - booze)

8-10 Netflix/tv/read/internet

10-11.30 bed pretty much always at the same time

Rinse & repeat

Work til about half 4 (from home atm)
5pm - 7pm is sorting dinner for toddler, bath, book and get her into bed.
7pm - 7:30 - general tidy up
7:30 - 8:45ish cook and eat dinner (sometimes with DH, sometimes not as he’s a shift worker). Tidy up kitchen.
8:45 - 10:30 - curl up in front of the tv (sometimes with DH, sometimes not depending on what I’m watching). Some nights I have a long soak in the bath instead of tv.
Usually in bed at half 10 and fall asleep reading a good book.

6pm - sit in the garden/play cards/quick tidy the flat
6.30pm - start dinner together. DH might have a glass of wine. Will have something ‘easy’ on the TV in the living room while we pop in and out during cooking.
7.15pm - eat dinner, chat for a bit
7.45pm - whoever did the majority of the cooking pisses about on their phone while the other clears/washes up
8pm - an ‘activity’ - either together (watching a film / doing a quiz with friends on Zoom / pre lockdown, going to the pub) or separately (ill do yoga or have a bath or read a book or call my parents / he’ll play PlayStation or go for a run or get his laptop out or call his mum)
10pm - head to the bedroom and wind down, might have the tv on or read or we might matter about the day
11pm - lights out

Not always like this but we’ve fallen into some nice routines during lockdown. We’ve also got into the ‘too often booze’ (not lots of it but having a glass or two each night) trap before but I’m currently 37 weeks pregnant so no booze for me and DH is keeping to one drink maximum in case things kick off and he needs to drive! I’m hopeful it’s been a good time to break the cycle of opening a bottle every evening - going to try really hard not to slip back into that once baby is here.

5-7 home from work, shower, catch up with DD
7-8 dinner time
8-10 watch tv, scroll on phone, research on internet and catch up with DH
9.30 bed.

Currently I'm bed sharing with DD so I go up when she does and DH watches a film.

That sounds like a wonderful evening plan. I wonder if you should mix it up with a walk or meet with a friend some evenings?

We do..
kids in bed by 7pm.
Clean and tidy for an hour 😩 (2x manic preschoolers)
Then try to watch tv together, play a game. Or one of us will go out to meet a friend for a couple of hours.
Bed by 9/10pm (we have very wakeful children still)

i definitely feel I need more time to myself but I have to be asleep by 10pm as I'm terrible with less sleep.

Dinner 6ish
7 cleanup might go for a walk
8ish bath / DS2 to bed
Watch tv / DH works on computer
10 we both go to bed and watch the news
10.30 lights out for sleep

At the weekends we have a drink.

Lockdown non-sleeping baby here.

Dinner at 6

Bath by 7

Feed and settle baby by 9/10

Hope for a two-hour stretch or more before his first wakeup. Feed every 1-3 hours until declaring morning at the point he won’t go straight back to sleep again (around 8am usually).

Getting 5-6 broken hours of sleep in each 12-hour period 💤

Mines quite boring. Around 6-7 eat dinner, wash up, tidy kitchen. Play stardew valley with dh till 8. He goes on ps4 while I'll fart arse about on phone or watch something. 9.30 he gets off. We play a few more levels together then put on something to watch until bed. Both head up to bed about 11pm ish

5.30 ish tea then one of us will do the kitchen while the other puts clothes away, hoovers whatever needs doing. Now the weather is nicer I like to take ds6 to the park or out on bike till about 7.30. Then bath , book and he will be asleep by 8.30. Dh is then usually in front of the tv I will potter about for another half hour or so or have a bath. My dd18 is home at the moment so we will have a natter and do nails. About 9.30 we will sit down and watch whatever box set we are on (ozark) at the moment then go to bed together between 10.30 and 11.

Whilst me time is good sometimes, don't get into the habit of spending evenings in different rooms - it's the beginning of the end, trust me. At least 3 times a week find common ground and spend time with your dp

Well, your dp would be bored to tears in our house.

Dc in bed by 8-9pm ish. Then I hide in the bedroom to finish up work on my laptop (if I try to creep downstairs, inevitably one of them shouts about something, so I just hide in the bedroom to get things done). Dh puts one dc to bed and I do the other, and then he goes downstairs to work on his laptop in the lounge.

We do that til about 10-10:30pm. Then I take a shower and we're in bed by 10:30-11pm.

Yes, we go to sleep at the same time. Honestly, dh has no desire to stay up later than that. He's tired, has worked all day, we both get up about 6 something with one of the dc. But I also really struggle to sleep and it's hard for me to fall asleep knowing I'll be interrupted, and if I was woken up, it would take me a long time to fall back to sleep. So it's better for both of us to just go to bed together. We don't watch tv during the week though anyway, no time.

On the weekends, we do watch some tv until about 11-11:30pm instead of working. I think we'd both just about die if we stayed up that late regularly.

ooh lot of "late" dinners here. Slightly different as wfh now, but at the moment ours goes something like this

make and eat dinner so its done by 6pm - latest 6.20ish
sit and watch news and let dinner digest
7 - 8 ish - try and get some exercise outside - walk, jog, tennis, bike etc maybe with 7 year old
8.3--9 try to get child to bed while other parent cleans and tidies kitchen
8-9 - bath for me
probably around 9.30-10 finally try and sit and relax by myself watching TV ,surf the net, read magazine. may have have snack/drink
off to bed by 11pm

5-6pm - walk dogs and get tidied up.
6-7pm - start preparing dinner and usually open a bottle of wine
7-8pm - eat, tidy up, get dc in bath.
8-9pm - read with dc and get them settled then slob in front of film or series.
9pm onwards - watch said film or series usually while drinking the rest of my wine. Usually turn in around 11pm.

Am also trying to cut alcohol out of my evening routine during the week so I've been filling some of the gaps with reading and nice baths.

5:15PM - get back from collecting DS from nursery
6:00PM - eat dinner
6:45PM - bath and bed for DS
8:00PM - downstairs once DS is finally asleep (it's taking much longer than normal at the minute 😩)
8-10PM - read a book, watch a bit of TV (never a film, can't concentrate for long enough), up and down the stairs a couple of times if DS wakes up. Usually have a glass of wine to unwind.
10PM - bed. In my defence, our days currently start at between 4 and 5AM, so I need the sleep!

5.30/6 - Finish wfh
6 - do a workout while watching something trashy
6.30 - Eat dinner
DP will come home anywhere between 8 and 10 and I’ll heat up his dinner
Then we watch TV for the rest of the evening
11ish - I go to bed while DP watches TV through airpods so it doesn’t disturb me
1am - DP comes to bed

I appreciate we watch waaayy too much TV but DP does a 12-14 hour day in a physical/sports role so is exhausted when he gets home plus our weekends are rarely quiet so I don’t mind too much

Your evening routine sounds lovely!

Mine:

7pmish: cook/eat dinner
8pmish: sometimes we'll go for a post-dinner walk
9ish: shower/beauty stuff if I fancy it, then a cuppa and tv time. I usually get the living room to myself while DP works or catches up with friends. Sometimes I'll do a jigsaw with something on in the background. They're really relaxing and it stops me being on my phone all the time!
We usually head to bed within half an hour of each other to watch something together, or I'll go and read/he'll go and listen to music.