To not understand how people have an evening.

[Littlebittiredoflife]

My children are 8 and 12 and we've not had an evening for basically that long. 8 year old is in bed by half 8 and older one up later but sorts themselves out. We're always washing up, prepping lunches, putting washing on, unloading dishwasher, until at least 10pm at night. I mean at least one of us is (obviously not me tonight as I'm writing this). I saw someone who said they watch TV together then one of them goes and reads and the other plays video games- are they getting in bed at midnight? Obviously when they were younger and needed more help with sleep and eating I accepted we wouldn't have much time to ourselves, either together or apart but we still don't seem to be getting any.

Also I'm aware we do have an evening but it seems to be spent on routine and never pleasure!

I work and also load the dishwasher as I go. So breakfast dishes after breakfast, lunch at work/school, dinner after dinner. Yesterday I emptied it while the kettle was boiling, it didn't need running last night so we'll empty it while dinner is cooking tonight as it's full now after breakfast.

We batch cook but I do it as part of making meals over the week. If I’m making a curry or bolognese or cottage pie or stew or mac and cheese then it’s not really any more effort to make 3 lots and that way I might cook from scratch on a Saturday & Sunday when we have a bit more time but can use previous weeks frozen meals for several nights in the week. Then other nights we do something easy like sausage & mash, stir fry, fajitas etc

Ah, my sink is next to the dishwasher and we don’t have many low cupboards.

This is how we do it. DH wouldn't get his act together to batch cook at the weekend but if we are making Bolognese or orzotto or sausage casserole I just put a note on the monthly menu to make double. (He's not a natural cook but even he manages this plus washing the pans as he goes).

It sounds like you need to be a bit more organised and do things as you go. Also make the most of the delay functions on appliances and don’t worry about preheating ovens (I’ve never preheated an oven in my life and everything comes out fine).

We have 5 people living here, cook every evening, no dishwasher and we spend about 20 mins max washing up in an evening, I don’t see how it’s taking so long at all with a dishwasher! Get a robot hoover, hoovering should take 30 mins max? If you’re dawdling that long doing these jobs cut the areas where you can like a robot hoover to do it. It’ll definitely do it faster too 😆

If you have lots of crockery that needs to be handwashed buy some cheap pots and pans.
One of you sits with the child still eating and the other does chores.
Your kids are at thr age where you shobe getting a couple of hours in the evening to unwind.

If you want evening time,just getup earlier in the morning and do your stuff then.

Dc have been making their own packups since age 8 - easy enough to make a sandwich and grab some snacks. Weekday meals are a combination of easy cook (30 mins max) or batch cooked on the weekend to be heated. We have a jobs rota so dc have one small job a day - load the dishwasher, clean the kitchen sides, vacuum the dining room after dinner. I do a 30 min maintence clean each day (ie monday wipe bathrooms and bleach loos, tuesday vaccum downstairs rooms...etc) and then a bigger clean for a couple hours on a weekend day. We usually get an evening from 830/9 most days. I cant really work out why you dont. Are you doubling up on jobs? I.e while dinner is cooking i will stick a wash on or make a shopping list, while making coffee i will onload the dishwasher or clean the sink)

Sorry maybe I've missed the answer somewhere but why do the clothes need washing every day? Surely they don't wear a set of clothes, have them washed and then wear the same stuff again? Like, we purposely have enough school clothes for our DD so that we don't need to wash her stuff during the week. Then it can all go in together at the the end of the week. That way we only need 1 was for her stuff.

It absolutely is! Every fire service in the country tells you not to leave them unattended. Absolutely never to have them going whilst asleep. My car lets me drive 100mph but there’s no where I should be doing that. Just because your appliance allows you to do that, doesn’t mean its safe. Please google the statistics on appliance fires.

Washing on every morning, done an hour later and out on the line before school run/work. If its raining, tumble dryer on when im home or airer for stuff that cant be tumble dried.

Your family and home are more important than a load of washing.

I don’t get an evening either. Can’t work from home in my role and 1-2 times a week will have a 12/13 hour shift so need to organise around that. Generally:
17.00: arrive back from work having collected from after school club en route
17.15-18.00: support homework and music practice for DC aged 6 and 9
18.00: cook dinner whilst DC have tech time. DH catches up on emails
18.45: dinner
19.15 DC bath and bedtime (also +++distractable if not supervised
20.00 Meal prep, laundry, ironing, catch up on work
22.00 bath and bedtime by 23.00

I do go to adult choir one night a week (with pub after!) and I watch tv and listen to podcasts whilst meal prepping and doing laundry but otherwise same as you OP.

Tbh I could probably shave an hour off if I ironed less (I like an ironed bedsheet, it brings me joy) and if we had slightly less fresh fruit/ veg. I will spend 45 mins at least 2-3 times a week chopping big Tupperwares full of veg sticks, chopped watermelon, washed slices of little gem lettuce etc which we all snack on. I don’t really mind, I enjoy listening to a podcast and chopping, it’s quite calming. My robovaccum is a help and goes on nightly.

I also wouldn't wear a top more than once without washing (under normal circumstances), but I just put it in the washing basket until there's a full load.

Growing up, the washing cycle started on Fridays - we'd come home in the evening, get changed out of school uniform and a parent would say 'come sort your washing' in their room there'd be a pile for each load (darks, red, whites etc), then the washing would mostly be done Friday eve/ Saturday morning (probably about 5/6 loads), with washing swapped to dryer/radiators/line/airers as soon as it had finished, and the next one put in. Worked really well as a predictable schedule - we just had to have enough uniform to allow it (eg 5 tops, 2/3 jumpers, 2/3 bottoms). Everything was ironed on Sunday afternoon/ evening, and then put away altogether (laid out on the couch, so we couldn't chill til that had been done). Throughout the week, we'd just put dirty stuff into a basket in our bedrooms.
I pretty much do the same now, but washing happens on WFH days usually (good 2 minute job to stretch legs away from the desk).

@laralou how many wears do you give a bra?

I've just googled this, £700 😱😱 I really want one now though

They are worth every penny 🙌🙌 one less job to do! I’m all for an easy life!

Eufy are often reduced on Amazon.
Absolutely worth every penny.

I agree with @Ludinous
Why wash everyday if the clothes arent needed?
Im convinced its a vicious cycle where more and more washing is created to fulfill the must wash daily need.

I don’t get the hardship of laundry but admit there are only 3 of us. I put one load on every 2 days. The machine does it for you. A couple of things that can’t be tumble dried are hung on a clothes horse, the rest is tumble dried. Again, the machine doesn’t for you. Laundry is the quickest of all household chores.

Now ironing on the other hand… That can piss off. I don’t buy clothes that need ironed.

washing up wasn't done so one parent did that

How long did that take?

It wasn't me, I believe it was around half hour, maybe a bit less but we didn't time it.

Ah come on now. You’ve a dishwasher and washing up took half an hour?

And you didn’t time it? What do you mean?! You’ve timed everything else to the bloody minute 😅

We get home at 5.45ish. I give the kids tea (usually toastie and fruit as they had cooked lunch at school) and whilst they are eating we sort school bags, chuck a load of washing on, prep dinner. Once they’ve eaten we will supervise homework/music practice then get them showered and ready for bed (usually done by 7pm latest). Only the youngest needs help with this so the other one of us will do any cleaning/tidying/sorting of clothes for the next day. I cook dinner once kids ready for bed, husband washes up as I cook. Once I’ve plated up he just has the pans to do which takes a minute or two. We’ve usually eaten by 7.45, put the youngest to bed then can relax by 8 and start watching tv etc. Will pause tv to go and put washing in the tumble dryer/tuck eldest in to bed. I think you’re faffing massively to be honest!

I was sat down having my evening and not in the kitchen😅

You said before that it was just a few things, Non stick pans etc that couldn’t go in the dishwasher. How can that take anywhere near 30 minutes? I could wash up an entire three course meal for six people in 30 minutes!

Hmm. Are you sure your husband isn't actually standing watching something on his phone every time he's meant to be washing up? I've just done a full sink of mugs and plates (dishwasher was running a cleaning cycle on empty) and it took me about 6 minutes.