What do you do as a family including your DH/DP?

[525LO]

I'm sure this has probably been done before but just wondered how much time people spend as a full family, and what sort of days/activities do you do?

Whilst our child is still young (10 mo) I just feel that we don't really do anything together except visit [his] family or the occasional walk when DP has his older DC. It's a bit depressing really.

We're living in weird times. Usually we'd have a day out on the weekend to a local park / attraction etc, and maybe visit family or have family round the other weekend day.
The weekdays are a frantic rush of tea / bath / bed when DP is home, but he often works away so doesn't even see the dc during the week.
Is the issue that on the weekends you don't have step children you don't do any family stuff?

We prioritise weekends as family time, although our DC are teen/pre-teen so much older than yours. We have movie nights (increasingly difficult To agree a film as DC get older), play cards or board games, go out for the day with a picnic or have a themed dinner night - so Italian/ Mexican or cooking competition. Pre-Covid we would eat out and/or visit the cinema. We might also have visited a local indoor attraction or had the odd day at a theme park.

At 10 months, you just do whatever you always did and bring them along...maybe not to the club, but anything else. Ours are older, so weekday evenings are just the usual stuff, playing outside, they might watch some tv, we have dinner, go to bed. Weekends, we take walks, run errands, have a BBQ, go to the beach, go to the playground, play outside, cook together, sometimes watch a film if the weather is awful. In normal times, we would sometimes go for day's out to a farm park or some other activity, but not now. We also used to sometimes visit friends or they would visit us, though our friends all live far away (need to spend the night) and they all just had babies over lockdown or just before, so meeting up isn't really possible logistically at the moment.

Weekdays are a bit of a blur, although slightly less so just now. Usually clubs and classes and homework.

Our a bit older now but our weekends have fallen into a rhythm of Saturdays being for activities, pottering about the house, running errands (or escaping to the hairdresser for 3 hours like I did last week!) Sundays are together. A day out for a walk, to a castle or museum or suchlike followed by a big roast dinner!

We eat together as a family every evening and me and dh do bedtime together every night, it's important because we both work and so want that quality time as a family.
At the weekend we do chores then spend time playing with the dc in the sitting room, we go to parks and for walks and other days out pre covid (farms, soft play etc). We often eat out as a family. We don't watch films as a family because dc don't enjoy it as they are young and one has asd. Me and dh will watch something together when the dc are in bed.
Occasionally I will take the dc out for the day at the weekend alone to meet my friends or swim in my friends pool etc these are my personal friends not mutual friends, dh will do his own thing on those days but it's not every weekend.
10 months is young though so it's not so easy to do activities. When I had just one dc at that age I used to go shopping with them in the buggy or whatever and do stuff I liked as they are happy to be taken along for the ride. Plus it is hard with covid times now to do much.

Weekday evenings

Eat together, chill out, a walk if DH has been stuck in the office all day

Weekends, day trip/visit family (closest family is an hour away) a walk, chill.

We never do things individually apart from when I take the kids to their TKD class one night a week. We do everything else together

My children are 5 and 2. We eat our evening meal together as a family. The nights dc1 doesn't have an after school activity, we'll go for a walk somewhere afterwards. The beach front and get an icecream as dessert, fairy woods etc. The days he does, we might watch a movie with popcorn or play a board game. We always plan an activity for one day at the weekend, wildlife park, exploring somewhere new or visiting family. This weekend for example we're going to get up early Saturday morning, go for a walk through the woods to the sea, get breakfast and then go and see dh's parents.

It appears to have fallen into a trap of him working all the time. I do dinner bed etc and then I'm tired and he winds down in the evening. We only really have Sundays and he then tends to do non family things. I ought to sit down with him really but wanted to know the norm so to speak.

Weekends are family time and we go on days out or sometimes visit extended family. We go out to parks, museums, galleries, attractions, theme parks, the zoo etc. Most things have opened up now where we are (London). We used to see a lot of children's theatre shows and other live activities but none of those have started again. During lockdown we went on walks and visited a different park every weekend, so it was still family time, just a different activity. We try not to do too much in the way of chores and errands during the day at weekends, we see it as family fun time (we get the boring stuff done in the evenings when she's in bed, and get shopping done online). DD has toddler classes/nursery during the week, I don't schedule any regular classes for the weekends so we can keep the day free for longer days out.

We don't eat as a family in the evenings as DD eats much earlier than we'd like, and DH is still working at that time. We do a little walk as a family after DD's dinner and then do her bath and bed together, which is probably inefficient but we do enjoy that time together.

DH and I don't really have time on our own to do our own hobbies. Neither of us have friends we want to see away from the family, and I'll be restarting my hobby soon but only during her nursery time, so it won't interfere with our family weekend time.

Weeknights are a bit of a blur to be honest, its a case of coming back from school, tea, bath, stories and bed.

Weekends are family time, so we tend to go out for a walk, play parks, picnics in the garden, visit family and friends (when we could...) basically we're outside for as much of the weekend as possible. After being cooped up at school and work it does us all good to be out in the fresh air.

We explore the local area either on bikes or drive and then walk. We go for lunches, we visit cheap Trust homes gardens etc. We make sure we do at least one of the above every weekend. DC are now of age where they just want to play with their mates in the park though so it is like pulling teeth sometimes.