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.

95% unless things like hair appointment (every 3 months or so) DH also does sport so when he competes maybe 6 events over 7 month period? Saturday he gets up with kids and I have lay until about 8.30 and Sunday I get up and he has lay until similar time.

Other than that it's full on and mental and lovely and crazy and exhausting. All at the same time. DC are 2 and 4

I agree. I get a bit annoyed when people say 'oh of course we spend all weekend together, the time is so precious, why wouldn't you want to spend time with your children' etc, as if that's how you SHOULD feel.

I live for time to myself. I have to have my own space, goals, hobbies and interests or my mental health really suffers. In fact my mental health was at its worst when I was on maternity leave. My career went down the drain, I had no time for myself at all.
It's one of the reasons I only have one DC. In fact, no, the main reason.

Long story short, it doesn't matter. Spend the weekends however you want to spend them. For us, we share it out a bit.
There's no right or wrong way!

2 primary school age DC so past the relentless exhaustion phase.

We separate for DC activities - prefer to get them over and done in the morning so that part is a divide and conquer approach. We make sure each of us get 45 mins each day alone to exercise but otherwise rest is together as a family.

If there were a specific social event one of us wanted to attend, would go and the other have the kids but it’s not a regular occurrence. We will have an evening out with friends once every 3-4 months and kids stay with GPs.

I work flexibly so manage to fit in a lot of admin on my wfh days in time that would have been spent on commute. I catch up with my own friends in evenings after bedtime (and DH does same with his).

We have three children, We don't have any outside support so we get very little downtime. We try to divvy up some on the weekend but it's never a set time or day just as and when.

It's spent either in the garden or working on the house as we have been renovating for an eternity. So we are still about, and children will sometimes "help"

If not doing jobs then it's spent all together or one to one with one of the children. We are still in the young years and one with SEN so we have found it's not worth the hassle or trying to add in clubs/hobbies/socialising. Plus can't really afford it. One day I'm sure. We are still very much survival mode.

My husband will sometimes have to work over the weekend which is hard going for me solo parenting. I'm someone who thrives on time alone to reset my energy levels. On those times the next weekend my husband will take them all out for the day or as long as they can manage. They love being home after a week of school/nursery so we have to balance that.

Whilst I don't want to wish time away I do look forward to the future being more fun and spontaneous.

We are together as a family all weekend generally. We work full time so it’s important to us. Exceptions are when one DC might have a party - only one of us would go and the other look after the other DC. I do an hour of exercise every Saturday and might pop to the hairdressers or similar once every couple of months. We might socialise at night separately. I also tend to take my eldest away for a night a couple of times a year.

I work Saturday mornings but the rest of the weekend is spent together. We have 3 kids though, last week I took the 2 eldest to the cinema whilst dd2 had lunch and a nap. On Sundays dh takes dd1 and ds to their swimming classes, sometimes I'll stay home with dd2, at other times we all go out and head to the shops afterwards or pop in on mil.

Also going against the grain, we have no outside support so give each other downtime amounting to about one full weekend day each every 5-6 weeks. Works for us. Good for our mental health, good for the kids to hang out with one parent sometimes