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!

The whole list takes 1.5 hours. Unload dishwasher, load dishwasher, dry up, wash up, sort laundry and put load on to finish in morning.

I don't understand how people aren't washing up, with have non dishwasher proof water bottler pan, oven trays that are too dirty for dishwasher, hand painted plates etc there's always something! But all normal plates, cutlery, half the oven trays, lunchboxes all go in dishwasher so it's not everything that needs doing.

Sounds like OP is living in a massive house with several fire places, and cooks huge meals. No idea why everything she lists takes so long.

Get/use dishwasher proof stuff.

I dont have a dishwasher and it takes me maximum 20-30 minutes to wash up, dry and put away everyhting after a large meal involving pans, baking trays etc.

Does he not wash as he goes? The only time I don’t do this is if I’m doing a roast dinner as literally every pan is in use. Otherwise once a pan is done it’s getting washed.

EG - if I’m doing pasta I will drain the pasta, wash the pan the pasta was in, add the pasta to the sauce and wash the colander. Then I’ll take the garlic bread out of the oven, leave it to cool for a few minutes and wash the tray it was on. Then I’ll only have the final pasta with sauce pan to wash alongside the plates at the end. It saves so much time at the end. If there’s just a pan or two after serving I’ll wash them before I eat.

I already feel like my children go to bed late they wake up tired most mornings. Older one does tidy room, make lunch, unload dishwasher, but also has lots of homework which they did between 5:30pm-7pm today so wasn't the one who unloaded it today. I will try timing another day and see if we can get any better.

I know it's the whole list! Dishwasher should take maybe 10 minutes to unload and put away, 10 minutes to fill. Laundry maybe 15 minutes to sort through and place in machine if there's a lot. How is it taking your husband an hour to wash up the bits that don't go in the dishwasher?

Edit: honestly one tip is that you don't need to dry pots that have been hand washed. Just leave them on an airer overnight.

I cannot over emphasise the role that meal planning takes in saving time in the evenings. Take half an hour or so over a weekend to plan meals and write a list. Get the shopping delivered. Batch cook. Most week nights I just take something out of the freezer in the morning and heat it in the evening, perhaps boil some pasta or make a salad to go with it.
If you don’t already have a slow cooker, get one. Throw some meat and veg in it in the morning and you’ll have an easy meal in the evening. Always always always do at least a double, if not triple batch so you can freeze a few meals.

I would definitely try to get dinner sorted earlier, especially as your children are slow eaters.

Get crockery that you can put in the dishwasher and save the non-dishwasher-safe crockery for best.

Leave pans to soak like the rest of us. 😄Seriously though, I often do this and then wash them up the next day (or day after next) while sorting out dinner.

Meal planning and batch cooking will change your evenings, OP. We batch cook all the time so during the week, something comes out of the freezer first thing and it’s just heated up for dinner. Just the container and plates / cutlery all in the dishwasher. For me it’s worth the few hours on a Sunday getting it all sorted (and we have a lot of the same meals so is so easy to whizz through now).

We do meal plan! Just missed that we'd run out of something today. Not great at batch cooking so cooking from scratch maybe 4 or 5/ 7 days then having freezer food or quick meal then remainder. Need to get back into batch cooking but DC won't eat spag bol anymore and I struggle to know what else I could batch cook that isn't mince.

OP is your house massive? How does it take 1.5 hours to hoover and do the fire?

Wow, that’s bonkers. We don’t get home until 6pm most evenings, cook, kids to bed, (sometime we eat after the kids if one of us is home earlier and can feed them then and then we have a more fancy meal). I feel I have so much time in the evenings, we go to bed around 11.30pm (one of us gets up at 5.30am, the other 7.00am). I think we often cook more elaborate meals but have never had to do two dishwasher loads! Frying pans we wash up (well rinse and heat dry as they are seasoned pans that can’t go in the dishwasher or have detergent on), but this takes minutes.

Edited to say we never batch cook or have stuff in the freezer as we are not that organised so cook from scratch each night.

We do leave them to air! Just takes that time putting away it drying up the odd bits that collect water on certain items. I think I'm just going to have to accept we are both slow faffy people 😅we definitely don't live in a mansion so the problem is us not the house.

Watching my sons three kids last year age 5 and 7 and 8. They emptied the dishwasher, put everything away whilst daddy was cooking. You could tell they did it all the time, they knew where everything went. They get stuff out of the fridge, put it away. Pour their own water into glasses. Laid the table. It was a very slick operation.

Where did I go wrong with my sons.

You can batch cook chicken chasseur, beef casseroles, curries, lasagnes, soups, fish pie, moussaka. And maybe once in a while, beans on toast isn’t the end of the world

We have beans on toast at least once a week (or at least beans with chips or pizza or fish fingers) definitely not averse to a quicky filling meal. Thank you for the ideas I will give them a go.

If vital ingredient was missing I’d be calling it an eggs on toast night rather than having to wait till gone 7 to eat. Different priorities.

Genuinely, how can it take 90 minutes to do that? (We don’t put everything into dishwasher either). Surely it wouldn’t all take more than 30/40 minutes ?

I don't have kids. But I just don't fill my evenings with shite that doesn't need to be done then. I generally walk the dogs at about 6.30 and maybe again at about 10, but other than that I chill and do whatever I want.

If I'm prepping lunch I do that whilst I'm prepping dinner and it takes a few minutes. Unloading the dishwasher takes a few minutes. Putting a wash on takes a few minutes. So I'm not really seeing where all your time has gone.

Either lean into being slow and just take your time, put music/audiobbok/podcast on, don't stress.

Or time yourself or make it a race or something.

I felt better about cleaning when I just accepted it takes time. Trying to go faster just made me hate it so it felt worse. But everyone works differently.

It takes me an hour to hoover house top to bottom- it's a three bed it's not massive. I do some of the edges with the edger and the stairs. I don't know what it takes so long. I have timed myself. The wiping the kitchen floor and sweep took a bit extra today, I guessed around half hour.

Whoever is home first should start dinner so you can eat and do the after dinner tidy up earlier.

We used to do tea, clearing up, dishwasher and packed lunches all together between 5:30 to 6:30pm.

Might sometimes unload dishwasher or put wash on, but tried to do very little in evening.

How big is your kitchen?

How often do you hoover?