How do you spend your weekend with kids?

[ChickenNoodle1]

Just curious really, we have a 6 year old and I feel like as a family we are always on the go. The school week is busy, our daughter has 2 afterschool clubs which with work does feel like a lot but she really enjoys them. Then the weekends she has another 2 clubs. On a weekend too we are generally busy doing something all day on both days. I don’t remember weekends being like this as a kid, I remember days out were more of a special occasion like a birthday. I want to start having Sunday as a kind of stay at home, potter, do nice slow time things, I feel guilty not doing something, I know I shouldn’t but I just wonder what others do? Is it more or the norm to have a Sunday or even whole weekend at home?

3 kids here so things are a bit crazy. Saturday the 2 older kids have sports fixtures and the younger (6) has a club he goes to, so basically with that and birthday parties were usually just ferrying them all around.
Sunday is ‘family day’. We usually go for a nice walk somewhere in the morning (country park type thing), stop for a drink and cake etc. Afternoons we’re at home, DH cooks something nice for dinner, we potter, watch a film, play games etc. We rarely do a big ‘day out’ outside of school holidays as we’re generally just too busy and knackered.

We use to be busy with swimming on a Saturday and constantly visiting family /day trips out.
Now we try to chill a bit more as we realised we were permanently exhausted. We visit family over night once or twice a month . And see other family/ do activities a couple times a month but try to have at least 3 or 4 rest days where we chill out at home.

I do think with really young children it is important to organise some activities, even if just a visit to the park, as it’s harder for them to entertain themselves. I imagine that gets less pressing as they get older.

My kids have sports on Saturdays but we keep Sundays clear. I like to have one day of the weekend clear from regular activities.

I feel like my kids needed to be out and about every day until they got to about 6/7 when suddenly they became able to spend a day at home. Our rule with home days is if they start to go a bit loopy, we go out..

Sundays we tend to do at least one short local outing - park, library, soft play, that sort of thing - but the rest of the day is reading, board games, homework, TV. Maybe once a month or six weeks, we might do a bigger day out.

2 kids- each child has a sport club, one on Saturday one on Sunday morning and both have swimming Sunday afternoons.
Before we ramped up the clubs we were always on the go regardless- I find it much easier to parent outside the house, especially when my eldest was younger (boundless energy). When I think of a lazy weekend, in all honesty in my head it’s without kids, and that’s not happening anytime soon.

Saturday is swimming and see in-laws, but they’re back just after lunch. Then it’s park, or chilled games at home. Try and get them to bed a bit earlier as they’re knackered and we cook a nice meal have a sort of ‘date’ night when they’re asleep! Sundays we go out, walk along the canal and late pub lunch, or museum/art gallery/show, park walk, whatever is going on in the area (we’re in London so there is always something on and it’s generally free), then early dinner out (6pm ish).

My kids are older (teens) and they're all sporty so we always have sports matches at weekends. It's rare for us to have a day just to potter, but if that's what you want as a family then that's great - make it happen.

As mine have got older things have got less hectic & currently we do less on the weekends. One does a sport Saturday morning & the other one sometimes has sport at school so afternoon is free.

Sunday, one does a sport in the afternoon. I like to be home after that to get ready for the week.

I find it easier to potter if they have been o it & have used some energy.

We stick pretty local now & do a mix of seeing friends, eating out, park, games, watch a film etc.

We save the bigger days out for school holidays.

My ds is 5 and does sports club until 4:30 twice a week after school then after school club once a week until 6. He also has a 30 min swimming lesson at the weekend. We relax and also pop out if we’re bored at the weekends. I try not to fill the weekend with clubs as they’re only little once and won’t want to spend much time with us when he’s older!

2 kids here - DS1 has football both days, DS2 usually has a birthday party (year 1, still lots of big parties), we usually go to church at some point...I like the family mass with DS2, DH and DS1 usually go to the Saturday evening Mass. If I get some spare time I might do some baking.

Sunday afternoons are usually free to go out.

If you feel the need for downtime, then take it.
Sundays for down time and relaxing is a lovely idea. Why is it a waste? You don’t sound like you’d spend every Sunday lying in bed watching tv all day. I’m sure you’ll end up doing a few things but just more grounding and gentle.
There’s a lot of benefits to that.
For me, it’s nice to have a slow Sunday in the colder months as often as I can. I do get a walk in usually but it’s often a more relaxing day with slow cooking in the oven, some chores, reading, watching tv or a film.

DS is 6; during the week he’s in a mix of after school activities and wrap around care until 5.30, Monday- Thurs. He does swimming on a Saturday morning and then will go to church with DH on either Saturday evening or Sunday morning. Some weekends, that’s pretty much all we’ll do other than potter around our local area. From time to time, he’ll announce he wants to stay in his pyjamas all day on a Sunday. Other weekends we’ll see family or friends but we don’t tend to do many big trips out.