To ask what you once the kids are in bed

[pullupinthekitcheninmyheels]

What time do they go to bed, and what do you do when they are finally in bed and you have a bit of time to yourself?

Bedtime is by 9pm here, but they stay upstairs from about 8pm. Sometimes I make dinner if I'm eating later. Then I usually read or catch up on TV.

I do minimal housework OP. What doesn't get done at tea time or first thing in the morning has to wait until a Sunday. We both work 6 days a week and quite honestly something has to give

Clear up, play on phone/Netflix, have a glass of wine and cook. Eat and bed.

DD is 8 months and goes to bed at 6.30.

• Half an hour tidy while DH makes dinner - I follow TOMM so I'm usually done with cleaning so it's just picking up after the day but if I haven't managed to do my TOMM that day I do it then
• Dinner (with a glass of wine at the weekends)
• DH clears up from dinner and I put the day's load of laundry away
• Watch something together on Netflix / play a game (video or board!)
• Bath or shower
• Reading, sex or playing games in bed
• We always make sure we have a proper chat before the lights go off

DS goes at about 6-6.30pm. If DH is working i come back down to tidy up from tea, hoover and mop the floors, light a nice candle and watch some Netflix. Takes about half an hour.

If DH is in I try to get all that done while he does bathtime so we can just relax.

It's Sunday tonight though so i'll be having a bath and a face mask.

I am truly amazed at the people who can happily leave housework until the next day or even the weekend. My eyeballs start to itch if I know the washing up hasn't been done or there is a pile of ironing waiting to be done.

DH is home at 8-9pm so there is no way he can help with the DC. You lot with partners who are home at a normal time don't know how lucky you are!! By the time he's back at home I've done pretty much all the cleaning so he can't help with that either.
I do manage to get up 1hr before DC just to get ready for the day, have a coffee and read a magazine in peace. That is the only time i can gather myself and plan the day.

I seem to spend my whole day tidying up, constantly putting toys back in baskets, wiping down surfaces, changing bums, getting toddlers socks on for the 10,000th time, wiping sticky hand prints from windows and all that malarkey that comes with having young kids. I don't think I sit down for more than 10 minutes in the day time which is why by the evening I am just exhausted.

DD doesn't go to sleep of I'm not there so I have to go to bed at 9pm with her. She falls asleep 30-60 minutes later and by then I'm too tired to get up, so I don't actually have any "me-time".

I don’t seem to have that much cleaning to do in the evenings to be honest 🤷🏻‍♀️. Most things just get done as we go along. Food is only allowed at the table so we don’t have sticky finger marks everywhere. I do things like wiping down the bathroom while I’m supervising DC’s bath. The DC’s (4 and 3) tidy away their own toys before bed. I clean as I’m going along with cooking and we have a dishwasher.

Oh and I only iron school uniform or anything that desperately needs it. DH does his work shirts. Everything else gets hung up straight from the dryer.

So DH started DS' bedtime at 06:30. From that time I have loaded the dishwasher and put it on to run and wiped down the kitchen surfaces. I have tidied the living room which had train track and all sorts all over it. I have emptied the tumble drier and put the clothes away. And now I am in my PJs.

Key things for me are a cleaner once a week, only iron for weddings, funerals etc. One parent does bedtime and the other does housework. Dishwasher.

Oh and only one DC which I do think makes a big difference.

Dd is 8 and goes to bed at 7:30, but by the time we've done school reading and bedtime story it's often 8:30 by the time I come back down. That's when I start marking and planning lessons for the following day. I am regularly still doing that at midnight, so I go to bed as soon as I'm finished.

I can't wait til DD just takes herself to bed rather than still wanting stories and a full bedtime routine!

Depends on the time and what the kids have been like that day.
Sometimes it’ll be my first opportunity that day to have a cup of tea and a quick shower, sometimes I have to do tidying and laundry and washing up, sometimes I get to have a glass of wine and watch tv

Do the dishes, clear up the kitchen, make lunches for next day, prep anything else for next day, walk dog and phone mum (usually at same time). Maybe get to sit down for a hour and watch tv / faff on internet. In bed for 10pm. I work compressed hours so longish hours Monday to Thursday. But it’s worth it to have Fridays off with DS

DS1 aged four and DD aged two are in bed for 7/7.30. She conks ouy very quickly he reads it plays with trains for half an hour or so then I check him he’s asleep by 8
DS2 is eleven months and has a tiny bit of formula then spits it out and feeds from me for fifteen minutes or so then take until the next feed to go in his cot.
If he goes down for an hour or two I will :
Try and eat, fold clothes, set dishwasher get stuff for morning ready, feed pets, do recycling have a bath with a g & t if I can then get into bed just in time for him waking g up to come in with me for the night

What is this thing you speak of called television?
What’s a book?
What’s “down time”

I have none. Am planning on embarking on starting g half sn hour of yoga at 6am and then a shower just to try and do something without a child hanging off me

Oh and we always do a washing, out washing away, and hang out a washing every evening. And hoover / tidy /wipe the living room. DS often «helps» by bringing his toy hoover out too

DS1 doesn't go to bed until 11. I do very little until I go to bed, myself. Dh has often gone up already.

Its helps to be really routined with daily stuff, although overwhelming boring and repetitive. Beds get made, windows open for airing, everything goes back in its place, taps and edge of bath/sink shined with a bit of loo roll once everyone has finished...kitchen tidied and wiped over after breakfast, dining table cleaned, any early morning toys put away. Everything is perfect. For 5 mins at least At the end of the day, when dinner goes on I check back upstairs that everything is in its place, tidy the toy explosion in the front room again, eat dinner, wipe over the kitchen and stack the dishwasher. DS3 goes to bath/ bed at 6.30 before an overtired meltdown hits (bathroom wiped down on my way out ) and DD6 watches a bit of telly until bed at 8.

The house is always in order every morning and every evening. I'm a state though and waste the entire evening, every evening, surfing the net/watching tv so not got it all worked out!

@pullupinthekitcheninmyheels
Those of you who don't end up cleaning the house and tidying toys and doing general day to day boring tasks, HOW?!

I don't clean the house every day. Dinner dishes etc get piled in the dishwasher while LO is still in her highchair. Then final play with some toys, put away in her toy box in the lounge, take her up and put her to bed. Nothing else to do normally. Also, i rarely put toys away during the day, just at the end before LO goes to bed.

DS is 7 months and goes to bed around 6.30pm.

I tidy up, make and eat dinner, have a bath, watch some trash on tv that I don't actually need to concentrate on and then go to bed to get a few hours before he wakes for his first feed or shushing back to sleep.

Ok, both my kids are now asleep. I need to put all the washing away, load the dishwasher, look at the calendar which I have not updated since September, put away bedding from a sleepover at the weekend. Plus papers everywhere, kids dance wear needs hand washing.

How on earth can I sit down????!

DCs in bed by 9pm (9yo & 12yo), although DC1 likes to appear silently at about 10pm, like something out of The Shining, panicking about something she's forgot about for school the next day.
I normally have a bath about 9.30, and watch something on netflix til 10.30/11. Sometimes DH watches tv with me, sometimes he potters around with hobbies.

Mine are 4 and 11 months. They are both in bed by 6:30. I usually come downstairs, put on mine and hubby tea, tidy up, hoover, clean the bathroom and kitchen and sort the high chair. Then hubby comes through the door some time after 7:30. I serve his tea, prepare dessert, make him a cuppa and clean the downstairs loo once I’ve eaten. I then make a few prints (my business) and fulfil any orders for that day, package and prepare them for posting. Hubs usually goes to bed around 10, I then make a hot water bottle, cup of tea and sort through the humdrum stuff in my sons school bag, get the clothes and shoes ready for the morning, make husbands lunchbox, prepare my sons school bag and clean up from tea.
Then I go to bed around midnight/1am. My baby wakes at 6:30 and my day starts. It’s lovely - I like being able to get my jobs done in peace!

I make beds and tidy bedrooms when DC wake up for the day, and also use their bath time to do a quick wipe down of the bathroom. I always wipe down sides after eating and do the washing up as we go along. A load of washing is put in the machine in the morning, hung to dry midday and ironed at night and then taken upstairs to the landing where I pile up each persons things at their bedroom door. It's not lack of routine, I think i may just have stupidly high standards. I cannot just leave things for another day because if I come downstairs to a messy/dirty house it sets me off in a shit mood for the rest of the day and I constantly feel like I'm 10 steps behind. I think I need to start having a bit of a clean up straight after tea before I can get DC upstairs in the bath. And also making them put their toys away in the living room properly so I don't have to re do it when they're in bed. The mad rush of 5-7pm is what drains me the most so I think I need to work on maybe slowing that part down a bit so I'm not completely rushed off my feet.

10 YO in bed at 8:30.

I lesson plan, mark, other teaching admin and atm study.
If I have any free time which is rare other than being addicted to MN, I usually play Xbox games with DH, read, crochet/knit/paint, play the piano, listen to the radio or watch something mindless on TV.