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.

It varies for us.

We have a general schedule of Saturday mornings for extracurriculars - so DH takes one child to their sport, I take the other, then we have lunch together.

Then often one or both children will have a birthday party to go to, or a play date so we will have one child each.

Some weekends we visit family or go to family events.

Some weekends one of the adults wants to do something solo - a weekend away with friends or whatever.

My children are older, but we still have most of the weekend together. They enjoy spending time with us.
DH and I are usually out together either Friday or Saturday (and we’d get a babysitter when the children were smaller).
when they were little, we’d have time when one or the other were with the children, but it was usually running errands or shopping.

Not that much usually, when ours were that age.
It always made more sense to split up, to get more done.
So if one (or potentially 2 in your case) was doing an activity on a Saturday morning, then one parent would take them and the other would stay at home with the other(s). Then after lunch maybe the parent that had been out in the morning would stay at home with one or more of the dc and the other would go out to get something else done (shopping, tip run, off to get something for work on the car or some DIY), etc. through the weekend. Pointless to be dragging the whole family out and about everywhere when there are two adults.

Mostly altogether. DH sometimes works weekends so it's just me and the kids. We try to give each other an hour of "me time" on weekend days but it doesn't always happen!

Life is so much easier when the DC grow up, but after they do it is hard to adapt back so it is more like when you were single. On gransnet so many lovely DHs get miserable and grumpy when they get older. If you have the chance, enjoy your hubby/no hubby/hubby away/whatever, but mainly, the DC. It seemed to last forever when mine were little. However the independence skills you need to have a happy life are quite hard to get back, I found, when the DC grow up, for me, anyway. But finding myself again and my old friends has been absolutely lovely. The odd thing I found is how safe having a little family makes you feel, that bond you have with the baby DC from the moment they are born, and before that, and every single day of their childhood after, it cannot be described, it has to be experienced. I do remember how hard weekends were when my DC were little, and I would never want to go back. I find my DGC exhausting, but the close relationship I have with them is magical. I feel so lucky to be able to have DC and DGC.

DH plays golf all weekend- starting at 2pm on a Friday.

I am generally on my own with our youngest.

Might come in useful when he retires. Mine plays in a band :)

We not have one child, so no need to split to take multiple kids to multiple activities.

Saturdays are chore days - sometimes I’m working, otherwise we do cleaning, house repairs or run errands. DS has a swimming lesson. DH and I are together about half of the time, or one of us might arrange to see friends. Sundays we take DS to rugby then do family stuff - Sunday lunch out, or go for a walk or to the park or to a museum.

It varies. This weekend DH went to a gig Friday night so got home 2am, I got up with the kids this morning at 7, then went to a 10k race, got home after lunch, then we took the kids to town for opticians appointments, then for dinner. I stayed out with a friend for a drink so DH brought kids home to get ready for bed then came to pick me up. Tomorrow DH will take eldest to rugby match in the morning and I will take youngest to stagecoach. Then we will hang out together in the afternoon.

We will both run at some point over the weekend too.

Hmmm that's really interesting, we're in a London commuter belt and the friend in question recently moved from London, so maybe that's the reason for a different perspective.

Yes, I definitely agree with this! It's so much easier and nicer to be all together (or both involved with parenting even if one has two, the other one) that I think that's why we haven't really thought about another way before this conversation.

Yes, I think this is the angle my friend was coming from, so she was a bit aghast at our situation. It's not something we've ever really decided on as such, it's just always what we've done and we've not really thought about splitting it.

We've never had a time where we've just had one child so I wonder if that's contributed, as it's always been difficult for the one who would be on duty alone!

DDs are 11 and 9 but we've never done the taking in turns parenting. We never took turns sleeping when they were babies. It helps that they both like the same things / do the same activities - I know some families where they have to divide and conquer because the kids are doing totally different things.

We have always kept the weekends free as well, all extra curricular activities are during the week. This generally means everyone is shattered by the weekend.
I do Parkrun on a Saturday morning but given that everyone was still asleep when I got home yesterday there wasn't really the potential for any fun family activities 😅

I think also a lot depends on what you actually like doing - I used to have neighbours who were both very into their hobbies which had weekly commitments. Their weekends were spent tag teaming so they could both get to them.

Neither of us has hobbies like that. We like to go away child free with friends sometimes, we like theatre and other ad hoc things. So it's not particularly a priority to get child free time every single weekend

I’ve one primary aged and one secondary and I have never made a conscious decision to spend every weekend or not with my kids - this is bonkers to me 😁 Generally we do spend a lot of time together but not at the expense of one off adult activities like seeing old friends, going to a gig, a sporting event etc.

Generally Saturday morning the dc do an activity, Saturday afternoon we do something together unless someone has something on. Sundays are sadly for chores and prep for the week mostly. We do more in school holidays as we have more time as there is less prep.

Mine are older but when they were all at primary DH and I split up the driving to all the weekend activities so we were often apart. We have 3DC that do a lot of activities though so it was a scheduling nightmare. When they were really small we'd try and have a family day out at the weekend but that got increasingly difficult so only happens rarely now, my teenagers still like holidays with us though so we still like spending time together.

Yours are still young yet @TeenGreenBottles , but over the next few years, there will come times when it is really nice to spend some 1:1 time with each of the dc. I think it is really important to carve out time for this - even if it is only when you are taking one of them to an activity, supporting them and driving back. Otherwise, as a family of 5 you will always be compromising, and sometimes, it is nice (for you and also for each dc) to not to have to do that.

I'd say you are both unusual because the man of the house doesn't have more leisure time than the woman.

I go to Parkrun on a Saturday while dh does swimming lessons and dh does a bike ride on a Sunday morning super early then we’re together from lunchtime onwards. I’m not sure what camp that puts us in?
those who are all together all weekend - how do either of you get any exercise? Do you fit it into the working week somehow? That’s something we struggle with which makes the weekend run/ride very important.

Oh yes, we do 121 time. I guess my question is more 'are you both focused on parenting all weekend when DCs are awake, or do you have time to yourself during this time' rather than strictly being concerned about every family member being in the same place at the same time.

It really depends. This weekend for example, I had some volunteer work this morning, DH and DC came to meet me later, then while DD2 napped, DH and DD1 went out to do something together for an hour and a half or so. Yesterday I also had something on in the morning, but I took DD1 with me to that, and DH and DD2 stayed home. Then we spent the afternoon and evening together.

So it's really variable, there's usually different combinations, sometimes we are all together, other times one of us has both kids, or we have a kid each. It just really depends on what we have on.

And we will divide and conquer at home sometimes too to give the other person some time to do stuff they want (or have a nap, I love a nap!) Today DH took DD1 out while DD2 slept so I had a nap and read a book for a bit.

We each get a few hours to ourselves each weekend. I find it helps us recover and have a break from parenting. I go to a yoga class and have a coffee in my time, it makes such a difference - I feel like a better parent after having some downtime.

Oh, right.

That wasn't the way I read your title or your previous posts.
I see so many posts on MN where people see to have this focused "family time" ringfenced and shutting out all the other opportunities out there, and assumed that is what you meant.

Usually all together. Sometimes I take DD swimming, other times DH will take her to the park or something so I can get jobs done. They often prefer to play instead of walking the dog with me (I don't mind the peace and quiet!). Other than that, we usually go out one of the days as a family and potter about the other day.