Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Weekends with an only child

79 replies

Sofullicouldburst · 07/02/2025 18:04

Curious what you do at weekends if you have an only child
My Dc is 6.5, curious about all ages though really.

OP posts:
Londonrach1 · 07/02/2025 21:48

Go out to park, national trust, food shopping, crafts, times tables, spellings...

IroningBoardAgainstTheWall · 07/02/2025 21:54

somewhereinsuburbia · 07/02/2025 21:04

Also I love it how people who aren't single parents are posting their experiences.
It's not the same.

This thread has nothing to do with single parenthood...

IroningBoardAgainstTheWall · 07/02/2025 22:01

Sofullicouldburst · 07/02/2025 18:04

Curious what you do at weekends if you have an only child
My Dc is 6.5, curious about all ages though really.

DD is 6, and we chill at home mostly, playing with toys, reading, watching TV, sewing,
playing in the garden (trampoline/.digging in mud, sometimes lighting little camp fires),

We might pop round to Nan in a Saturday afternoon, as it's a nice walk there, and we have tea and cake.
Will see cousins and aunts and uncles etc.

Otherwise we might go to library, do the food shopping, go to playground or skate park. Will go to the woods too. Go walk round the lake and feed the ducks etc

All sorts really.

lilytuckerpritchet · 07/02/2025 22:02

We often see grandparents one day. We used to do something the other day- park, cinema, soft play etc but recently we have been having a last day - board games, movie etc

Bodybutterblusher · 07/02/2025 22:05

I home educated so Saturdays were a day like any other with a bit of laxness thrown in.

Leisurely wake up with the endless rearranging of small furry objects (girl) and writing notes to girl about when she would be available to come to his 'cafe' (boy). But this time was spent separately.

Breakfast with sugary cereal and Minecraft YouTube. Twenty minutes one to one learning time with one child while the other does practice times tables/phonics/whatever on a screen, then swap.

Then whatever learning project requires attention (if not done earlier) - weather station, cleaning lambs' bottles, investigating how effectively the plants deprived of water/light are dying (girl moved to tears, boy wants to deprive all plants of water/light), child led baking in which everything has to be done by the children (if they don't read the recipe, it doesn't work and that's that).

Take the muffins and sandwiches to the woods and meet/make friends, lose children for two hours and remember they exist when they arrive back looking considerably the worse for wear, decide on the way back that we will read books/finish an art project/ride pony/go the cinema/park (usually different incompatible decisions).

Text husband and ask him to please for the love of God put the batch cooked meal beside the oven inside the oven as I am now counting the minutes until his watch begins.

Start the last activity which turns out to be surprisingly enjoyable given the rising levels of discontent around choosing it, distributing hot chocolate if children are soggy following unspecified incident while lost in forest, long discussion about what marshmallows should be made available and why.

Watch children sit down to tea with all necessary fruits and vegetables, check there is a commitment to eat same and crawl thankfully away to curl up with a book, realise boy has left a dandelion on my pillow and love him desperately before wondering what to do with dandelion as he will ask.

Listen to the raucous merriment of their dad being everything I am not in his precious hours with them (but why does it have to happen right outside my bedroom, can't he murder them somewhere else?), start to field text messages from husband who is overwhelmed at the behavioural chaos he has invited, followed by trickle of visits from children needing to hear that Everyone is very disappointed there has been a Violent Incident which is being taken very seriously (girl)/everyone understands it was An Accident but it's still kind to apologise as there was definitely a bruise (boy),l

Utter chaos from the bath followed by more visits from very sweet bedraggled children now demanding stories (what the actual fuck, do they never sleep), more text messages from husband detailing each child's emotional state and why this apparently calls for more milk and a cracker - or does it?- advise rather sharply to be more boring in future.

Tiptoe out the front door to go the cinema and notice a betrayed face scowling out a bedroom window, return to apologise for trying to sneak off and promise to kiss when sleeping, make second attempt to leave without a backwards glance.

Remember the Asda shop at the cinema and spend the entire film asking husband to count how many tins of custard and other such fuckery in the larder until answers stop arriving (he's asleep), return to husband who is, by a coincidence, just about to make the kitchen look less like a bomb site (he had to put a pre cooked meal in the cooker, how has this spawned so many frying pans?).

Tell husband the plot of film and break down in tears because it was So Beautiful, agree that I'm overtired and should go to bed with cracker that husband has handed me out of habit.

I'm divorced now and my ex husband got residency of the children because I had a breakdown. I see them once a week for a few hours. But that was how we spent Saturdays. Until we didn't.

Antsinmypantsneedtodance · 07/02/2025 22:08

DD is 4. We do a mixture of normal family type chores and fun stuff

Local farm park
Playground
Softplay
National trust
Trip to city for shopping and brunch
Cinema
Bowling
Play cafes
Home days where she plays and helps with cleaning house or other chores
The supermarket shop
Big days out to attractions now and again.
Birthday parties
Play dates now and again.

Just normal life really. We do try and have the odd mornings or afternoons solo. So DH will take her to the farm or softplay or something and I get some down time and visa versa. It's good for her to have solo time with us as well. But most of our weekends are spent as a family even the supermarket shop we do as a three.

Maxorias · 07/02/2025 22:21

It's funny because I feel like there's so much stuff we'd do if I only had one !

Baking
Going to museums
Go to the park
Doing homework/reading/practice writing
Play cards/chess/dominos
Go see a movie
Playdates with friends
Softplay (there's a big inflatable one ten minutes away thay my kids looove)
Swimming pool
Crafts (clay, cold porcelain, cutting aeroplanes out of paper to colour and hang in kid's room, etc)
Just chilling at home without doing anything

Shergill15 · 07/02/2025 22:48

DD is 9 and there's just the two of us. This weekend looks like:

Saturday - DD has her monthly volunteering/community group in the morning. Then we'll be going straight from there to a Cubs event. By the time we're home from that it will be a quick tea and watching Gladiators. She'll no doubt manage to squeeze in some Roblox/watching nonsense on YouTube.

Sunday - DD at Rugby in the morning. Afternoon will be homework for her and housework for me, generally chilling out and getting sorted out for the week.

Other weekends we'll lie in on those Saturdays we havent anything on in the morning and have pastries/pancakes, something that's a bit of a treat for breakfast. We might see friends or family, go for a walk, occasionally a trip to town/cinema/trampolining/skating etc. We'll go to messy Church once a month on a Sunday afternoon. If the weather's grotty and/or we just need a quiet one we'll stop at home and watch TV, read, bake. DD would probably spend hours on her tablet if allowed but as she's not she might draw, do crafts, play with toys, build Lego etc.

InDogweRust · 07/02/2025 22:51

Some kids need others to play with. Mine are way easier if i have both than one on their own as they like to play together.

If yours is like that, find at least one weekend activity eg sports that's with other kids. In the afternoon consider going to the park or swimming pool where there might be peers to engage with. Plan for having friends to play regularly!

Olinguita · 07/02/2025 23:37

With DS3:
Free museums
Library
Park
Go out to a cafe or child-friendly pub
I'm Christian so usually church on Sunday mornings and then hang out for coffee hour afterwards while DS zooms around with the other kids
Visit family, host friends for lunch or dinner
Playdates
Shopping mall to run some errands and look at pets in the pet shop!
Reading at home
Play-doh, stickers
DS is very keen on imaginative play so a lot of time spent playing elaborate games with his never ending collection of plastic animals or Brio trains

I know a lot of people say it's intense having an only child and having to play with them all the time and I suppose perhaps it is, but I do genuinely enjoy my weekends with DS!

somewhereinsuburbia · 08/02/2025 01:56

@Bodybutterblusher I found your answer to be very moving, and I hope you're getting the support you need.

Downwiththecrumpets81 · 08/02/2025 02:06

I had 2 but with a big age gap so was like having 2 only children! We did swimming, hobbies, play dates, days out to attractions, nature scavenger hunts (you can’t print things out from the internet with check lists of things to find depending on the season). With my youngest her favourite thing to do was for us to go to the train station and just get on the first train that came along, and go and explore a different town or city, doesn’t need to be expensive, we’d just get an ice cream and have a mooch about and then get a train back again.

CrispEater2000 · 08/02/2025 02:43

DS is 11 now, he plays football for two teams so usually he'll have a match on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. He played football and rugby from being around 6 so that's always kept us busy.

For around the same time we've gone to see our local football team play, home game every other week. If we're not at the game we'll watch away games on the TV.

When we have a day off we spend time going for food, shopping, bowling, he did climbing for a while too. When the weather is nice we go to the park or the beach, we do bike rides now and then. We visit friends and family too.

A lot of the time though we're busy through the week, so nobody has any complaints at having a day at home.

PeloMom · 08/02/2025 03:19

Various classes; now in winter half Saturday is ski lessons (we live close to a mountain) followed by either social skiing w friends or birthday party, doing an activity. Sunday until lunchtime - classes, lunch at classes venue followed by play with kids from the classes. Afternoon downtime and play at home.

crockofshite · 08/02/2025 03:47

HotCrossBunplease · 07/02/2025 18:10

DS is 8. We take him to parkour on Saturday and climbing on Sunday (both paid classes). He often has a birthday party to go to. Sometimes he’ll have a friend round to play.

We watch Gladiators and the Masked Singer as a family. He does his homework. We eat brunch. He plays on his iPad. I can’t imagine it’s that different to what people would do with multiple children?

Edited

Sounds very nice.

Though I imagine with multiple children of different ages, interests and temperaments, life would be more hectic generally and harder to focus on just one child.

horsesonright · 08/02/2025 04:23

DD has a swimming lesson on Saturday mornings then we have a trip out somewhere in London (different every week) - in winter we go to museums, galleries immersive places, soft play, historic properties, theatre, touristy places. In summer we visit parks, zoo, farms, gardens, beach, festivals, farms. On Sundays we have a family swim and she does a martial arts class, then we visit somewhere nearby (museum, farm, parks, market). Out of term time we do day trips and weekend breaks further away.

We generally spend all weekend together as a family as we work Mon-Fri, and prefer to spend daytimes out of the house. We never spend much time at home as there is so much to do in London that we'd never see it all if we mooched around at home.

Poppins21 · 08/02/2025 04:58

Ice hockey as my daughter plays so she has a match most weekends. Next weekend we are going to see Terracota Army at the museum then get lunch. She will often have parties to attend (I am raising a social butterfly). We often have movie nights as a family and go to the climbing wall together.

dottiedodah · 08/02/2025 05:21

I grew up in London as an only.stayed with grandparents ,went to various markets. Often went to parks, days out and so on .Happy times

Poppins21 · 08/02/2025 05:35

Londonrach1 · 07/02/2025 21:48

Go out to park, national trust, food shopping, crafts, times tables, spellings...

Ah yes I forgot spelling! My daughter has an English spelling test on Mondays mornings and French on a Wednesday so lots of testing of spelling

margeyoursoakinginit · 08/02/2025 06:46

Mine plays computer games, loves cooking with me, reads a book if pestered ( the whole thing), loves our animals aaaaand plays computer games. He hates sports. He swims in our pool sometimes. I am a terrible mother, but if he's not playing on the computer with friends all over the world he's playing against his father ( no TV for me to watch🙄).
He started his youtube channel when he was 5yo ( all I said was he couldn't give his full name or show a photo). He's now 12yo and regularly gets 100000 views of his content. Still doesn't earn him a cent which annoys him.
During COVID we went for lots of walks and painted rocks and hid them and picked flowers , but generally he is a computer boy. When he makes a friend they last, he has been to 4 schools( not his fault, us moving, and him going to gifted and talented classes) and he is still friends with at least 2 friends from each of those schools. So the computer games have not caused him any problems socially IMO. He will say " Dante, haven't chatted for weeks how are you?" Dante lives in Florida USA. Then they will spend an hour playing a game and talking. He has heaps of them all over the world so personally I don't think computer games are the terror they are made out to be, especially for only children. Sorry so long!!!

margeyoursoakinginit · 08/02/2025 07:08

I kind of meant I don't think it's terrible if your only child spends a lot of time of the computer, best thing is to have a DH who is better than the child at the games. Annoys the heck out of them. Looking at my last post we also do other things, and he meets with friends and family , I was just trying to say that as an only child they can form lovely groups of friends all over the world via computer games. (Roblox, MInecraft)

AliasGrape · 08/02/2025 07:30

DD is 4.5

We mix busier days with chill out days at home. She’s shattered since starting Reception and definitely needs downtime. We don’t have tv or screen time in the week (used to but we’ve found this way works better) but are pretty lax with it at weekends.

So Saturday morning she usually wakes up at her usual crack of dawn and we’ll let her watch some tv in our bed. Breakfast, playing with toys, colouring etc. I go to a gym class and DH and DD loll about for a bit, not unusual for her grandparents to call in on their way back from supermarket. Then maybe bike ride or park or if the weather is awful I might take her to run a few errands with me, or call and see a friend or her cousins for a bit. She has swimming late afternoon and then we usually have family ‘movie night’ although lately she’s started liking to watch Gladiators instead.

Sundays is usually more of a day out - can be anything. Seaside, NT place, farm, go into the city centre for a walk/ look round.

Not set in stone but just how it tends to fall.

We are thinking about adding in another class or club in maybe sat morning, at the moment we can’t really fit in anything after school in the week but maybe when she’s a little older.

AliasGrape · 08/02/2025 07:38

Meant to say - the only difference that I can think there might be to a family with multiple children is that I do find myself trying to think about/ plan opportunities for her to play with other children. Not every weekend, but some days or some activities just go a lot more smoothly/ are less intense for us if she can do them with a friend or her cousins.

Skigal86 · 08/02/2025 07:56

We do a mix of things, birthday season is in full swing in DDs class and this weekend is about the only one in 2 months where she doesn’t have a party! She has a swimming lesson, well usually go to the park or on a bike ride at some point. DH might take her to soft play later as I’ve got some work to do but that is fairly unusual (soft play is usually only for when there’s a birthday party). When we are at home she likes to draw and craft and she often helps DH make dinner. Sometimes we meet up with friends - usually our friends who have kids the same age although we occasionally have play dates with her friends from school.

natalieplusone · 08/02/2025 08:01

Costa

Swipe left for the next trending thread