that weekends and free time are solely about the dc?

[dampmuddyandcold]

So I’ve genuinely been wondering about this a bit because I’ve realised our lives look quite different from our friends. And in fairness all our friends have just one child while we have two which I think does make a big difference.

Our children are two and five. I work two days a week and the other days I have the two year old, we go to groups, walks when the weather is ok and feed ducks, go to the park, sometimes to a little soft play or farm.

At weekends both children have activities like swimming, sports and so on on both mornings and then the afternoons we will generally do something as a family - national trust place or swimming or soft play (depends on weather) sometimes there’s an event like a birthday party.

Friends I made when dc1 was a baby seem to have more of a ‘normal’ life; they go shopping or out for meals or just chill at home.

I guess I’m just wondering - I think if we just had the one five year old maybe our life would be more like that, I don’t know.

If you have young children, what does your ‘free’ time look like?

Yeah .,. You’re right. I guess an hours rugby is robbing DS of his childhood

I am glad I had no idea how full on the older primary years + would be with activities! If they find a hobby they like you can find yourself with multiple nights take up with it and some weekends. It was much easier for us when they were younger and we could decide what we were doing!

We have two kids, 7 and 4. Our weekends are mixed. Mostly like yours - we visit national trust or our local botanical gardens where we have membership, pretty frequently. Our eldest has piano and they both do swimming. No sport yet but I’m hoping my eldest will join netball little league next year. We will most Saturday mornings, potter to our local high street - I do an exercise class and then meet everyone else for a coffee and pop into the local library.

In January the weather was so bad we stayed in and played a bit more but we usually get out. Meals out are just about becoming reliably enjoyable but we don’t linger! I take my eldest shopping sometimes. Our weekends from Feb half term onwards get pretty busy - holidays, birthdays, day trips - until after Easter.

I think what you’ve described is very normal! We both have a day off with our youngest in the week and that’s usually quite chilled too.

I sometime compare my kids relative lack of scheduled activity to her friends who do brownies, gymnastics, theatre, piano, swimming, dance, tennis etc but I resist the urge to add because we like to have genuine free time and to go away at weekends.

As a teacher I have noticed a real shift in children’s behaviour at the beginning of the week. Years ago they used to come to school on a Monday well rested and ready to learn. Now they are tired and unsettled and behaviour improves as the week goes on. I think families feel pressured to cram so much into the weekend and no one gets any down time. It’s also good for children to learn to entertain themselves and for parents to chill out a bit!

That’s good to know that in the next eighteen months or so things will shift!

It’s interesting everyone is honing in on the small amount of scheduled activities - one does swimming on a Saturday morning while the other has a ballet class and then ds does rugby on a Sunday morning. So it’s an hour and a half ‘scheduled activities’ for ds and half an hour for dd - and yet everyone is complaining about how terrible that is; I’m not seeing it but maybe something has been missed in translation.

What is a bit frustrating is that it is started a thread saying the children and I were a bit bored and frustrated I’d be urged to get them out … we cannot win!

@Joanne200019 how much ‘chilling’ do you think parents of toddlers typically do? 😂

My second child is much calmer than my first but even so, chilling isn’t happening for a while yet!

I think a lot of people fall into this trap, they cease being individuals and solely become parents, then before they know it they look up, have no social life, no friends, and their marriage is one of co parenting only.

id advise you to try to carve out time for yourselves, and try ri find ways to be a couple. A family is more than just being a parent.

Do the kids need so much going on? The 5 year old goes to school 5 days a week. Surely, chilling at home for a day or afternoon in the weekend would be welcome.

@Notsosweetcaroline there may be some truth for that but we can’t leave them on their own, we don’t have anyone to have them and a regular babysitter would work out very expensive. Again, it’s for the future.

@Farticus101 how long do you think a swimming lesson and a rugby lesson take?

I meant the going out every weekend even on family outings like NT places. An afternoon at home where one parent reads/ paints/ plays with the kids whilst the other meets friends, shops etc would help you get your own time back.

This. One 5yo here and sometimes we have very wholesome child-led weekends at the zoo, soft play, riverside walks and play dates with cousins, but sometimes we’re mad busy and he has to come to Sainsburys and B&Q with me and then spend the afternoon at home playing with his toys, drawing, crafting, baking or watching a film.

and to the slightly veiled comments about the terrible shame of only children having to entertain themselves on occasion: lol. It’s fine.

Today we've got no plans. DD is at school in September and I'll probably go back to five days a week then, so we are using our Friday's as a combination of "adventure" days and downtime til then.

We will take the dog for a walk (rainy one but the pair of them love a puddle) and we might go do the food shopping today but that's it today. She's had a VERY busy week, I had to go to London for a day (we are not London or SE based) and so this week downtime is necessary.

She has some classes throughout the week (We're off Mondays too and that's mega busy) and we've considered some weekend ones but we tend to visit family on a Saturday and then have family time on Sunday, which is either all in the garden or we'll make use of the NT membership or something like that.

If she desperately wanted to do something else we'd do it for her, but she loves what she does and she genuinely loves a downtime day. She gave DH a very long look the other day when he suggested we go out and informed him she was having a PJ day 🤣

Do what works for you.

@Farticus101 we sometimes do. But honestly having round the house for a whole weekend wouldn’t be much fun for anybody. I must admit I’m a bit lost as to why a walk round a lake with a play area is apparently massively contentious and exhausting and poor kids never get a chance to chill etc but apparently going out for a meal or shopping would be OK!

But I would say on balance ds is high energy; now it isn’t pitch black after school he’s outside playing (I think he’s mad but he is happy so …) and prefers to be on the go. If he’s in the house too long he can be unintentionally destructive as a lot of his games involve a lot of props shall we say.

I do clubs / swimming on weekdays and never have a permanent thing arranged on weekends

4 and nearly 2 year old here as well

so our weekends always free

we take turns exert other week having a day to ourselves an the other has both kids

sometimes we take a kid each and do something different (example might take big girl to cinema and then lunch)

last week husband took older one to b&q and sat for an hour and a half closing the items we need for new bathroom and let the 5 year old watch the iPad and eat some sweets 🤷‍♀️ had to get it done haha

and I carve out time mid week for ourselves too - I go gym at least 2 evenings and cinema or meet a friend one evening too.

It's not about staying in for me it's about the fact that you centre your childrens wants in everything so they don't get to experience doing normal stuff or just boredom. You don't take them to restaurants or shops, I doubt you would take them to the supermarket, the tip or the car wash. They don't get to see you hanging out with your friends whilst they have to create their own fun for a bit. It sounds like you have lost yourself in parenting which is easy to do, but I don't think it creates very well-rounded kids.

Most of DS' clubs are after school in the week, he has gymnastics on a Sunday morning at 9 but other than that we keep weekends free so we can go out and do things as a family or see friends or just have a quiet day at home.

This.

DD is obviously the centre of my world, because she should be. But sometimes we HAVE to do the food shopping. Or, like this week, I'm knackered after a very heavy week at work so she'll play with her barbies or Bluey stuff for a good chunk of the day. She's learned how to keep herself entertained for an hour or two when she needs to.

She has a great imagination and if I structured her whole time, she'd not use it and then she'd potentially lose the ability to.

Exactly. OP is quite defensive though and not really getting it

My youngest are 10 and 8 and up early every weekend - no chilling in our household!

Yea I noticed that. it's either fill your kids time with whatever they want to do or sit inside and stare at the walls apparently.

Haven’t had young DC for a long time but when they were very young we did a combination of family time/outings (sometimes meeting friends with their own children) and occasionally we’d get a babysitter and go out on a Sat night (PIL or other family babysat until DS was 4 then we had our teenage neighbour).

We’d also tag team a bit so dh would stay at home with them for a couple of hours so I could go out and vice versa. Once they were 3 and at school nursery there were a lot of kids’ parties too!

Why can't they entertain themselves for an hour while you chill, though? DD is 4, she got up at 6 this morning which is late for her. She had breakfast and then got her teddies out and started playing a game with them, while I had my breakfast and drank my coffee in (relative) peace.

We'll do something together in a bit, but it's a good skill for kids to be able to relax or at least entertain themselves.

Haven't rtft but I would think the biggest advantage of PT work or being a SAHM is that you can do activities mid week and free up weekends. I know not everything can be done this way, some are weekend only. I was SAHM for a while and the biggest difference between FT work and not working at all was my weekends. I still worked my ass off all week from dawn to dusk but made sure I was on top of everything, cleaning, laundry, meal prep, groceries, errands, personal exercise, appointments etc so weekends were free. We still had parties but enjoyed them, we weren't running around buying cards and gifts just showing up because that prep was done. I felt lucky to do this. Honestly having two children IS your whole life whether you work or not so you have to find that balance. It sounds like you have more free time than most people so it's a matter of time management.

I think your life sounds very normal. Fast forward ten years and your children are going to want to be doing things with their friends rather than their parents so make the most of family time now. These family activities, not visits to a shopping outlet are the things they will remember in the future. Shopping with small children is not a fun activity for you or them. You will have plenty of time for doing more adult orientated activities soon enough, shopping is one of the few activities your teens will be willing to do with you, as long as you are buying😀..