What do you do with your evenings (young children)

[PoolTime345]

Somewhat lighthearted, I have no friends with kids to chat to about this. DS is 11 months. Until about now, I've been in survival mode. Terrible sleep deprivation (he's been a terrible sleeper since day 1), back at work when he was 6 months (I don't live in the UK so I had a short mat leave), breastfeeding and pumping round the clock etc.

Suddenly he's sleeping 😅 like, actual 12 hours. And I found myself realising 1) I have some energy (as much as you can after a full day of work and then entertaining the baby until his 8pm bedtime) and 2) I can't go anywhere. Like, for the next 15 years? I mean, we can, but we have to get the nanny (which we have done a few times but I don't want to overwork her) or we go out individually (which we do once a week). We have no wider family at all.

But mostly we're just stuck at home from 8pm. Surely everyone else is too? What do you do? I can't watch anymore TV. Even my phone is boring me. I exercise at lunch already. I'm too tired to do anything productive really. Also, I sort of read a lot for a living so the last thing I want at 8 pm is a book, well at least at the moment.

Are we all just sitting at home with some wine / tea until 10 pm?

@slidingsideways one tip I learned during my mat leave when I was going crazy with sleep deprivation and having zero time to enjoy myself, was to not leave chores for when the baby sleeps.

And we still abide by that. We both finish work between 4-6pm and while one of us plays with DS, the other one cooks and tidies etc and we switch. Obviously we also go out a lot, the three of us, as his bedtime seems to be 8pm but when we're home we try not to leave chores for bedtime. Well, some still gets left, it's not a foolproof system but it helps.

@passmeaglass haha don't ruin it for me yet. We've had one week of sleep 😅 i thought I would die of sleep deprivation several times. I may have even googled it 😳

I love this!

Well usually I'm so exhausted I scroll or read for a bit, then join DP for some TV.
But board games (I like Agricola, chess and Scrabble)
Jigsaws - realised how much I enjoy after doing some with DS.
Tonight, I'm feeling a bit over-screened, I may bake a cake.

On a side note must re uptake some exercise.

My 4 year old has just started sleeping through properly and my nearly 2 year old now only wakes twice, and truly I feel giddy with rest 😂😂 I also googled can sleep deprivation kill you (yes) but also realised I would make a decent spy if someone tried to use sleep deprivation as a method of torture!

We have hobby nights where we so sewing/writing and painting in the same room so we can still talk to each other.

Other nights we watch films or tv.

Wednesday nights we play DND online with our friends (who are also parents 😅).

Take turns to go out - meet friends, do hobbies, cinema, theatre, meals etc

We used to have supper at 8pm or so (DH home around then) and settle in front of the TV. Once a month he had bridge night so we’d have people round for dinner first then they’d play (I’d watch tv other room). We did have other people round too. But yes basically that’s it - even if you don’t have kids most people on a work night at least are home watching tv or crafting whatever.