Parents of children under 5 - Describe 5pm-7pm in your house

[Teachingteacher]

This is mostly to make me feel better about my life! Tell me if yours is similar.

Mine looks like this:

5pm I arrive home with DS aged 4, and DD aged 6 months.
5:10pm - DS has a snack of cherry tomatoes (same every day!) at the dining table while DD sits in the high chair watching him
5:20 - DS plays in his room while listening to the Thomas the Tank Engine podcast, DD sits screaming in the high chair in the kitchen while I finish up dinner (it’s mostly meal prepped)
5:30-5:45 - DH arrives home
5:45 - We sit at the table and eat dinner. Everyone mostly eats their food. We finish every meal with a piece of fruit and a piece of chocolate. DD has a few bites of purée to keep her busy
6pm - we finish dinner and DH goes to run the bath. DS helps me bring plates into the kitchen
6:10pm - DH has a bath with the kids. I clean up the kitchen and put on the dishwasher. I also put on a load of washing. I then come over to the bath and wash both kids hair. DD comes out first and I change her into her pjs. DH gets DS into his PJs.
6:20 - We have ‘clean up time’ which involves tidying the living room and bedrooms, putting laundry away, and this is when I check DS school bag for leftover snacks and letters home.
6:40 - we attempt some kind of family quiet time, read a book to DS. DD is usually screaming like a banshee at this point. We finally give her a pacifier that she sucks for 2 seconds and then spits out.
7pm - DH puts DS to bed. I hear him singing him a song every evening. DS falls asleep immediately most of the time. I start feeding DD her last bottle. DH comes out of DS’s room and sinks into the sofa with a sigh.
7:15pm - I put DD down in her crib in our room. She cried for about 30 seconds and then falls asleep.

7:20pm - DH and I look at each other, exhausted. He makes us a cup of tea (earl grey for me, English breakfast for him) and we start our evening…

Regarding checking book bags,uniforms etc, I rummage through DS's book bag as soon as it comes through the door if I remember, or the next morning as I'm herding him out of the door.
We struggle to fit in reading with him, I do it when I can, often in the morning because we seem to have a bit more time then, thanks to the kids getting up before 6am most days.
We've worked hard on the morning routine to avoid the stress and shouting because neither DH or I are morning people!

I set their clothes out for the week on sundays, they have a drawer for each day, and I put in their clothes for each day, costume for world book day on thursday, pe kit for friday etc etc.
Takes all the thinking out of the morning.
DS gets school dinners as well and after he's out of entitlement I will probably keep paying for him to do that, rather than make pack lunches

This sounds great, my DH doesn't help at all. DS is usually asleep by the time he gets back from work.

Im so glad I read this after reading the original
post ! This is very much our routine with twins ! Twin 2 (loves being awake !) doesn’t settle until 830 - 845 pm

Home around 6pm. DD (2) has had tea at nursery so she just has a snack of peanut butter toast and squash while we watch Cbeebies/do some cheesy family dancing/play endless rounds of hide and seek. Bedtime routine starts around 7pm - bottle downstairs, then bath, stories then bed. We take it in turns to do bedtime while the other one tidies up downstairs, does dishes and cooks our dinner - always something quick and easy on a weeknight. She's down around 8pm.

@bussteward you made me laugh at least!

Kids have dinner at nursery.
5:30-5:45 - we all arrive home
5:45-6:15 - play in the living room
6:15 - snack (bath every few days), sometimes our dinner depending what it is
6:30/6:45 - nappy changed & get in PJs. Books/reading/more play
7-7:30pm - night night time (a bottle and bed). Little one doesn't cry because we sit with him and hold him until he falls asleep and then transfer him to cot (personally against cry it out as feel it's damaging long term). Occasionally faffs around until 8pm
8/8:30pm - our dinner if not eaten earlier
11/12 - our bedtime

This is interesting. When we first had kids my husband was still working later. I said I expected 50% when I returned to work and that's what he does. We also nursery pick-ups so that forces our hands (we both have good well paid careers so why should one have to compromise) & one or other is home by 5:45 if not on nursery pick-up. However we do live within a 10/15 minute commute of our workplaces. Sometimes we will have late meetings or away for conferences but it's once or twice a month, and sometimes we'll finish work after bedtimes but it's just important to both of us that we are home together in the evening. I think if you choose to have kids, you need to recognise things change, and I wasn't going to be the one to suffer for it!