Parents of primary age kids and below: how much time at the weekends do you spend as a whole family?

[TeenGreenBottles]

If you are still with the other parent of your kids, and if you both have weekends free from work, how much time do you spend as a whole family? I'm mainly interested in parents of younger kids (primary age and below) as it's probably quite different for older ones who are more off doing there own thing anyway.

Most of the weekend is spent with me, DH and DCs (5,5,2) all together. I was chatting to a friend the other day, and she expressed a lot of surprise at this - she and her DH share out the weekend so each have at least an afternoon each weekend to themselves. Eg she has Saturday afternoon to do what she wants, and her DH has Sunday. She thought that most families do this and we're quite unusual not to.

Just wondering what everyone else does? Do you all stick together or do you use the weekend as a way to get some alone time?

Obviously I appreciate not everyone is in a couple, or one where you both have the weekend off.

We do work some weekends, but when we aren’t we spend the vast majority of our time together. 95%.

Half and half together and doing our own thing.

We try to preserve Sundays but there’s a piano lesson right in the middle of it so one child and parent will be out at that.

This morning about an hour and a half and about half an hour just now -

6-8am me in bed,
8-8:30 me shower, clean kitchen, so not family time
10-11:30 DH and one DC out
Then DD straight to bed so she out of action
12:30-5:30 me out at work

Kids 5 and 2. We spend all weekend together as family time. That's what we work all week for? Occasionally, one of us will do something separate to the other on a Saturday evening etc see friends, go out with colleagues. But it certainly isn't every weekend. More like once a month. We enjoy spending time together. And we enjoy our occasional nights out/ together/ alone with friends. I think with really little kids time is a bit precious- I wouldn't want to prioritise myself over having fun with them. I imagine as they get older that will change and we will perhaps have more time pursuing hobbies/ interests.

DH works on Saturdays so I’ve got the kids all day, mainly just ferrying them to activities.

I dont like it tbh as it means neither of us really get to do our own thing as Sunday is our only family day! We do tend to spend that whole day together, which the kids love, but I’d like to have some time to myself as well!

We stick together as a family except for 1.5 hours on a Saturday morning when DH takes DD1 to a swimming lesson, and 1 hour on Sunday afternoon when she has her gymnastics class. The other parent has DD2 so it's not child-free time. We plan out activities for the family every weekend, we are always off seeing a new exhibition or soft play or other attraction. We enjoy having that time together and look for activities that are child-friendly but still interesting for adults. We swim as a family every weekend and usually have some time in a playground or museum. About once a month DD1 has a birthday party, but often one parent stats, and the other is with DD2.

We don't have any child-free time at weekends, except downstairs when they are in bed. It's fine, neither of us are very sociable and DH goes to the gym during his lunch break during the week. I work pt so I have child-free time while DCs are in school & pre-school. I figure it won't be too long before the eldest is too embarrassed to be seen with us so we are making the most of our time with them!

Same as you @memsal . We divvy up some activities but otherwise tend to be together. Kids are 6 and 9 so try and do a couple of nice things, went for breakfast before training then walked a beach in the afternoon and have cinema booked tomorrow.
Sometimes I would meet a friend with similar aged kids in the afternoon and dh catches up on cleaning.

2 camps in people that I know either 1 spending the time together as family on days out/ferrying kids to activities/ socialising tother with other families/friends or
2 Tag team care of the kids so both adults can pursue child free activities. I'd say more of my old friends in my suburban hometown are 1 and friebds who i have met through work who live in the city are 2.

In theory I get Saturday mornings to myself and DP gets Saturday afternoon (sport) (didn't bloody happen this morning though). Sundays are mostly together but we have sports things usually- DC2 and I do a sport together some Sundays (but the other 2 usually come along) and DC1 has swim training late afternoon (followed by my swim training late evening!). But in general it's a family sort of day.

If something came up though, like a special thing to do with a friend etc we wouldn't stick rigidly to it. DP only works 4 days a week so gets time to himself in the week and I work compressed fortnights so get a day every 2 weeks.

I guess you decide each weekend if you are keener on seeing your DH, or getting some time to yourself, or you want to be with your DH and your DCs, or your extended family, or your friends. I have one teen green left, and a DH, and DGC, and an extended family. They grew up.

Mostly together, although DH usually works one weekend evening and starts around 4. Saturday mornings I take DD to performing arts and DH stays home with DS and then we’ll all do something in the afternoon. Sundays generally together unless something specific is happening (tomorrow I’m meeting a friend at soft play with both kids so DH is going to stay home and clean)

The entire weekend, I think your friend is quite unusual.

Generally, we spend the whole weekend parenting, not like out at the pub or having a spa day. But we often don’t spend the day all together. We tend to spend some time together and then we also each take a child and go do something one-to-one as they have different interests and friend groups and activities.

Maybe once a month each of us will have something we need to go do - seeing a friend for their birthday, a sports thing, some other commitment, and then then other has the kids. But that’s the exception rather than the rule.

Absolutely agree with you here, we do the same. Kids are 4 and 18m. Family time is so precious to us and they are growing so fast. Also the kids love it when we're all being silly and playing together. We're all closer for it.

Mostly together but dh spends a lot of time with his elderly parents and the kids have football and parties etc so it’s not really great intents of doing stuff together

I sometimes get my hair or nails done or something and dh spends a lot of time outdoors (washing his car or stuff like that so we don’t actually all stay together) we wouldn’t really know what to do I think - I get bored of things he enjoys and he enjoys different things to me

Just turned 4 year old and 1.5 year old.

We spend the whole weekend together, shy of an hour on Sunday when the 4 year old goes to gymnastics.

Hopefully DH and I will be able to give each other breaks in the future. Currently though, they are individually hard work (primarily the toddler) and exponentially such hard work when together, that the time off isn’t worth the sacrifice of dealing with both alone 😅

DH works the odd weekend but when he's home were usually all together, sometimes I'll take the kids to visit family or out for a play date but that's certainly not every weekend. Different things work for different families though and that's fine!

We have a 3 year old and spend pretty much every weekend together as a family. If we’re catching up with friends child free, we’d usually do that in the evening and generally on a weekday. Maybe the odd hour or 2 to pop to the shops or salon or something, but never really the full day apart- with the exception of one or two hen/stag dos and times my husband is away with work.

Ours are 6 and 4.

Saturday mornings they have ballet at different times, so DH runs back and forth for that while I stay home with the other one.

Saturday afternoon we do something together unless there's a birthday party. Today it was the optician and the park. Wild times.

Sunday morning the eldest has swimming (youngest refuses to go 🙄) so one goes swimming and the other goes on a walk with youngest. We alternate that. Sunday afternoons we often have grandparents up, or maybe a trip to the park or something.

We both work Monday to Friday, so I wouldn't be giving up both weekend afternoons to parental leisure, we do prioritise spending time together. It does mean we don't get much time off though.

Ours are 2 and 3. Saturday morning my partner is out really early to ride his bike (I know) so I get the kids up and dressed then we all have breakfast together and spend the day together. Sundays I'm out early for a run and he gets them up, when I get back we spend the whole day together. He works every other weekend though so when we do have a weekend together we try to do everything as a family.

Entire weekend unless one of us has something on or is poorly then the other will go out solo. So no regular slot but no problem if one of us has something else to do.

It truly truly does.

I also really related to the idea that having them solo is so awful it's not worth the time off, we used to say that a lot when ours were preschoolers.