Enjoyable weekends with a toddler - possible?

[PeterRabbitagain]

I hate admitting it but I dread the weekends these days. My 2 year old is really hard work at the moment. Obviously I love him to BITS but it's knackering! He's at nursery part time during the week but I still look after him a lot during the week while DH is at work. Come weekends it's just the three of us without any wider family around so I am always trying to book things like soft play, museums etc so we are not stuck at home.

Come the weekend I'm still in that pre-kids mindset of "ah it's the weekend, time for a break" when actually the weekends feel even harder! No nursery until next Wednesday.

What do mums with toddlers do at the weekend and am I missing any tricks or is it a case of wishing weekends away until your DC are older? How do you / or do you divvy up time between you and your DP if you have one? What do your typical weekend days look like?

(Btw I KNOW it's really sad I feel this way so please don't come on here being all judgemental and saying what a "shame" it is I can't enjoy my child).

It isn’t sad, toddlers are exhausting. During the week I go to a lot of different groups and activities with mine but of course they aren’t on at the weekend. So that’s tough. Plus as the weather turns you can do soft play and so on but then it is so busy.

Does yours do swimming lessons? Mine does so that’s Sunday morning taken care of. Other things mine enjoys are a trampolining session Saturday morning - don’t go every week but it’s nice now and then, farm visits go down well and even better if there’s a little soft play centre, feeding ducks and the park (of course.)

I am married to a lovely man but he does need telling I have found. I need to say ‘DH please could you take DS to the park for an hour, I really need a break!’ Otherwise he just does not get it.

I thought it was just me! Weekends are really, really shit with toddlers. Worse than weekdays because attractions, parks & shops are more crowded and there are all those random shit and chores that need to be done. DH also "expects" to rest after a long week so a large chunk of the weekend is also spent alone with DD while he sleeps or does nothing.

We made it slightly more bearable by always planning a day out and leaving first thing after breakfast on Saturday. We try to find some attraction (ideally in nature) that's within an hours drive so it feels a bit more exciting than just going to the same neighbourhood places during the week. Once there, it's actually quite fun and more manageable with two people. If we're lucky DD will sleep in the car on the way back and that's almost half the day done. Then a bit of playing at home in the afternoon and one of us will go get groceries.

The trick really is to stay out as long as you can on weekends and not have the day stagnate or end up feeling like a weekday. Taking a toddler around for errands also works, literally do whatever gets them tired. We sometimes have a playdate or visit friends and in hindsight I wouldn't stress too much with nap or bedtimes either. After 2, all toddlers will sleep when they're tired and it's not such a huge deal like when they were babies.

Seasonal activities are always nice for breaking up the monotony and give you some sense of time passing. Pumpkin farms are good now, going into Christmas markets in Nov-Dec. An underrated tip is to visit a big pet store...basically a free zoo and they are go look at all the animals.

Thanks! Glad to know I'm not the only one!

All down to ones ability to multi-taks, no secrets, no magic wand, it's what you are capable of and want.

We did it with 2 kids about 12 month age difference.

We have one lie in each, and one afternoon or morning to ourselves. DP normally takes DS to the library one morning and then one afternoon I'll take him to the playground. The rest of it we spend together, so we get family time but also time to ourselves to do what we want and have a break.

Luckily DS is quite good at playing by himself so it's easy enough to get things done at home if needed. Otherwise we take him for a walk in the forest, or swimming, or to see friends, our for brunch or lunch. Even a trip to the supermarket is one of his favourite things to do. We don't have anyone to babysit but occasionally we have a games night with friends and we take DS and put him to bed there, then he comes home with us around midnight and we transfer him. It means we still get to do adult social things out of the house together, which we really enjoy but is rare post-kids.

Weekends can be such hard work at this age when the toddler wakes up ready for action at 6am. Honestly it is relentless whether you are working FT, PT or a SAHM. Worse in winter when you have bad weather to deal with too.

I think you can ask DH to give each other a break from childcare for a block of time and to each have a lie until 8am once or twice a month.

My DH will sometimes take the kids to PIL for an entire day, leaving me free to do chores and other tasks without constant interruption and background noise. Those days are golden and I always feel so happy when they come back and I've had some respite!

My DH and I used to give each an hour off each weekend day to do whatever we wanted, read the papers, watch sport, have a long bath etc. This worked really well.

I find it helps to have one thing each day planned so the days don't drift away/turn into TV days all the time.
So maybe, going out for picnic/walk/lunch one day and swimming/having people over the other day. When I have something planned I can cope with the rest.
Also if you are a roast family then take it in turns- one person cooks roast the other takes kids to the park and alternate weeks.

Oh my god yes I used to dread weekends, especially during covid with a 2 & 3 year old. The days felt sooooooo long and boring. Now that they're 4&5 I don't dread them anymore. But I still need to have a plan otherwise there's far too much tv and bickering. Hang in there, it gets easier!

We get one lie in each, one lazy day at home so i usually watch lota of tv/boxsets etx and DD plays with her toys/kindle etc, and other day we will have a trip out to softplay or something for a couple of hours

We live in the city so try to do one play date every weekend. It seems to break up the time a bit. Also My husband and I get one 2h block each where we can do hobbies. We both work full time though so the "I've had a long week" argument wouldn't wash here. However, I'm surprised it works anywhere tbh, looking after young children is just as tiring as working.

DP and I each had a lie in, def needed.
We're past this stage now but I used to think of the weekend in 4 quarters and think of things to do. So, Sat morning supermarket, home for lunch, afternoon park, home to make dinner. Sun morning swimming, afternoon film. Interspersed with an hour here and there of playing with whatever DC wanted at home.

Sometimes do day out with packed lunch eg one of those farm+play area type places, or country walk in the woods for free.

I found it worth sitting down with DP one evening and making a list of everything we might possibly do so we could refer to that when tired and out of ideas. If adventurous write them on individual bits of paper and stick in a jar for lucky dip.

Zarzuela I used to do the four quarters thing too.