If you've got young kids, what do your weekday evenings look like?

[Anothermanicmonday23]

I've got two DC - age 4 and 2. Generally evenings look like this: Finish work, collect 4 year old from her school nursery and walk home, back in the door about 3.45. We'll have a snack/chat/play/read etc. My husband works from home and collects our other DC at 5 from private nursery (it's in completely the other direction from DC1 nursery and don't drive so I don't tend to collect them at the same time). Once we're all home, we make dinner while DC play/watch TV/argue. All sit down for dinner at about 6. Have the usual slightly chaotic dinner where my 2 year old is up and down constantly. Finish dinner about half 6, bit of play and then head up for bath/stories etc at around 7.

On Mumsnet I often hear about after school play dates and activities etc. It sounds good and much more enjoyable for the kids especially. If you've got kids the same age as mine then are you weekdays evenings spent doing playdates, activities etc? For reference, during weekends we do playdates, fun stuff and the DC both have classes like swimming and gymnastics. I'm just feeling like we've got stuck in a rut of focusing on dinner/bedtime routine since they were little and things could be more fun for them/us if we changed things up a bit.

We have a nearly 2yr old. Husband picks up from nursery just before 1800, they have a snack and we play. Bath/bed/story starts at 1900, asleep by 1930. We have dinner around 2100 and sit and chat, listen to music, watch tv, etc. Friday-Sunday we try and spend outdoors as much as possible, no real routine with mealtimes, but always aim for bed 1930. It works for us!

At that age they dont need to be doing playdates or anything after nursery, full day at nursery is tiring enough.

I personally, wouldn't be feeding a 2 year old at 6pm, as feels quite late. Appreciate some families all like to eat together, but when mine were your age we would give kids their tea then go upstairs about 6ish for do bath time and stories with a view to both being down not longer after 7.

OH and I when then have a fairly free evening, where we would eat together, chill out do a couple of jobs etc.

Unfortunately at the age your 2 are, evenings are really just about getting through the slog of tiredness/dinner time/bedtime. Sounds like they have plenty of fun so i would say what you are doing now is fairly perfect.

Mine are a bit older (4 and 7) but at those ages we tended to go to the playground after nursery, activities at that time didn’t really begin until oldest in school. Youngest does one weeknight activity and one weekend. Play dates for her happen midweek as I’m sahm, after school time she’d be too tired for a lot more.

Our evenings are pretty much the same as yours.

We have a 2 year old. I collect him at 4.15, his dad gets back about 5. We do some playing, some chilling, have tea & then bath & bed.

To be honest, my little one is tired out after a full day playing at nursery so I don't think he'd want to do anything too strenuous as he is quite grumpy after nursery!

I always think he's has a full day of adventures so he seems to not mind some wind down down (which I like too! )

At nursery age, we really didn't do playdates because we didn't collect from nursery until 5pm anyway and weekends were for family time. I figured they spent 40 hours a week playing with friends at nursery, so I didn't feel the need to facilitate anything else outside those hours. We would occasionally meet up with friends who had children the same age or bump into them at the playground, but it wasn't strictly a 'playdate' in that sense - more just dh and I meeting up for drinks with friends and the dc played while we did it.

At that age, we collected from nursery around 5, home by 5:30. Then tv/playing outside for a bit while I sorted out the house and started on dinner. Dh would often take them to do something while I did that, out for a walk, sometimes to the playground if it was summer time and still light out. They'd have snacks when they first got home. We eat dinner later than most, more like 7:30pm, then up to bath and usually in bed for 8:30-9pm.

Mine are now in primary school and they do often have time to play with friends in the afternoon because school ends at 3pm. It's less 'organised' and more just in the sense that they go to each others houses after school or I bring someone home from the school run with us. But we have a lot more time to fill 3pm til when we eat dinner at 7:30-8pm and they get bored without friends. Also keeps them occupied as I'm often still finishing up work or dh/I are doing something around the house.

Sounds absolutely fine for the ages of children you have. I definitely wouldn't add in weekday afternoon playdates or activities at those ages, they need downtime and some time with you rather than more stimulation.

When they get to Year 1 and have adjusted to school routine you can add in playdates or activities every so often.

DH collects DS 4 on the way home from work about 4.15, they play etc and DH makes his tea for 5ish. I either finish work at 5ish or arrive home at 5.30ish and I have half an hour with DS playing etc. he then goes in the bath or shower at 6ish and then is in bed asleep for 7ish usually. We then eat. DH cooks so if I do bedtime then he’ll cook our tea or if he does bedtime I tidy the house (we alternate). No midweek classes or play dates for us. I am off with DS on a Friday though so we spend all weekend doing fun things. We all eat together when we can on a weekend.

When he starts school in September we’re going to start trying to eat together on an evening, but 5.30/6pm is too early for us. I’m sure it’ll change when he gets older. We’ll also be looking for an activity a week for him for after school one evening.

This is really helpful and interesting to read these replies and what everyones weekday evenings look like. You're right, things will naturally change once my eldest starts school and settles in there, I guessed I've just been worried whether I'm doing 'enough' in that time between nursery finishing and bedtime. It sounds like it's fine though.