To ask, if you have more than one child …

[thepartyistoday]

How much time do you spend as a family (you, partner - if you have one - and children.)

I guess I’m asking as to be honest when we’re all together it’s not massively enjoyable and very stressful, works better when DH takes one child and I take the other but means one of us misses being with the other child too.

I guess there’s no perfect answer.

3 children, 3 years between them, we spent a lot of time together whdn the youngest was a baby but as she grew, the older two were more involved with parties, activities, sports, so life was busy.
Outings were always simple, as were holidays.
As they grew the holidays became simple foreign holidays of beach and early meals and we have nice memories.
Keeping it simple worked for us.

Single parent, I spend every other weekend with my children, and most weeknights. They are school age now. The children are almost always together, although ds10 can now be left for short periods.

Mine are young adults now but always did stuff together unless it was taking one to a party. Thankfully they didn’t fight much, largely as DS was such a chill patient brother! After ex and I split and he worked overseas a lot, no choice but to take both everywhere as no family nearby to help. If it works right now taking one each, then don’t feel bad about it. Do what you need to get through each life phase. In my experience it got easier the older they got.

Ours are 8 and 4 and we spend most SOARE time as a family of 4. They both have a class on Saturday mornings then we do something they both enjoy, at 5 and 2 that was typically softplay or a children's museum or parks in good weather. It's a reasonable gap but we find a fair bit of common ground. All of us need to to be on board to have fun altogether though doesn't work if someone's checked out

Only one day into the weekend with all of us stuck home with a bug making the rounds of the household and I really needed to hear this, so thank you! I keep telling myself it must get easier (in some ways, probably not others…) because you read some of these comments about people being able to spend time all together, with each individual child, make time for their marriage, hold down jobs and probably exercise and cook from scratch too and I’m just over here feeling a million dollars if I even get to shower that day. I can only think they’ve either suppressed the trauma of this stage, have bigger age gaps and didn’t have two really little one fully dependent on them simultaneously, or had the world’s easiest children/lots of outside help to be able to wear all these hats.

OP- solidarity from the trenches!

I have a boy and a girl age 6 and 2, we spend all our time together really. No it isn’t always enjoyable but that’s family life. They enjoy doing things together like the park, dog walks, building a den, imagination type games, and youngest is getting the hang of simple board games.

3 kids 10, 8 and 3.

Not much time all together doing the same thing.

(Feels like) Lots of time in the same place (home) doing different things.

LOTS of time one parent to 3 kids - eg I work Saturdays so he has the kids, and DH often abroad so I have them all then.

Most of the waking hours we are in different places.

Sundays are ‘family time’, we will try and go out or do something all together.

Nearly 3yo and a 6 month old. Some things are fun and doable to do all together. Some things are not. We do as much together as a family as we can, but if Some things are easier to do split up then we do so. Also think that splitting up sometimes is a good thing so that each child gets 1 on 1 time with each parent, even if its just DH taking the toddler to a playgroup for 2 hours or me taking just Dbaby with me when walking the dog for eg

My sons have a 5 year age gap! They do the same sports but are in different age groups. Me and my husband also have season tickets for different premier league football clubs and one son support same as dad, one same as me, so either they are at the match or we are depending on who’s at home. We spend our time one taking one and one taking the other and just mix it up who takes who! We then tend to only do family days out in the 1/2 terms. And we will do movie nights at the weekend.

it is a MN thing to a point; apparently life doesn't change when you have children, they and their husbands alternate going out every night, they're exercising and living their best life and spending wholesome family time together and apparently any mum who isn't, is a martyr.

wtf 🤣

but no seriously … I feel bad as I just haven’t really seen ds today but otoh it’s been such a NICE day (not because I haven’t seen him, it would have been just as nice if I hadn’t seen dd!)

Two, though they are almost grown up now. We always did things all together tbh. Dd and ds got on well and were pretty easy to manage together. I don't think we ever deliberately divided them between us in order to make anything easier.

We have a 2 year old and 5 year old and we do most things together

The kids usually tag along to each others classes e.g. 2 year old in viewing area for 5 year old's swimming, 5 year old at library for littles ones Story Time

The food shop, dog walks, playground, visiting family , playdates, meals out all done together...

I'm struggling to think of when we're separate tbh! Really only when the 5 year old is at school

DH shift works so is either around a lot or not. When he is at home, he comes along to everything with us (unless he is catching up on sleep).

Same. 4, 2 and 9m. We also spend most of the weekend doing family stuff, although try and take it in turns to sometimes have 1:1 time with the bigger two - something like a babyccino date or a parkrun.

My family is together al,ost 24/7 .... I work with my husband and we home Ed our 4 kids. Only activities we do separately is motorbike riding, I won't pillion the kids in the winter, and soft play as the teenagers obviously don't want to go, oh and perhaps older kids films at the cinema cos the younger ones can't see a 12 or 15.

Plonk 2 year old DD on the back of your bike or get her a balance bike. 3 years is a very common age gap and it seems a bit mad that you don’t do things together because of it. If DS wants to do Lego do duplo with DD so she gets the idea of it. All the farms, soft plays etc are all aimed at under 8s. Maybe let go of it being perfect for one child and facilitate the relationship more. It’s a good skill for your older one to be able to include and accommodate a child a bit younger.

I have a 5 year age gap between mine and the little one is a baby. I have plenty of time with the 5 year old alone for example I will bring him out to the cinema at the weekend . If I go to a play centre I’ll bring baby but rarely will we all be together as in I wouldn’t expect dh to come to the play centre if I bring the 2 kids . I mean why should he ? I don’t think there is a need for us all to be together we all spend plenty of time at home together. He will bring the kids out sometimes so I can have a break. I really don’t think it works to be out together all the time with an age gap like mine.

She won’t use balance bikes; we’ve tried. Hoping she will - will keep trying.

We do things together just … prefer not to really 🤣

At the weekend We spend probably half our time together (outside the getting up and dinner / bedtime part) as a family and half not. Sometimes I’ll take both kids somewhere do DP csn do something, sometimes he takes them. We don’t do much ‘divide and conquer’ at the weekend although family time can be stressful (2 & 4). I’d say do whatever works best for you and don’t stress about it too much it’s starting to get easier for us.

We do tag team parent unless on holiday because we both work and if one can take the DC the other needs to be working.

I have three, 7, 6 and 3. DH works 7 days a week quite often so a lot of the time I have them all together. When the third was a baby/toddler, whenever DH was home I'd be desperate for a break from the status quo so DH would often take the older two out for a bit. We never really separated the first two but they were so close in age and it was lockdown so nowhere to really go(!)
Now the youngest is 3 it has definitely changed/got easier to all be together. We still do separate but it's more the children's choice (today for example I took the youngest to a class and the 6 year old asked if he could come along, eldest wanted to stay back with dad). It's nice to try and get a bit of time with one or another. I get solo time with the 3 year old while the older two are at school so it's nice to take one of the older ones out sometimes.
DH and I also have different things we like doing. I don't feel it does any of us good to have one or two kids plus one adult grumpily tagging along to something they don't want to be at when we could be separately all having a nicer time

We have 5 ranging from 18 to 5. We don't spend all our time together but we do spend a fair amount all together. Today for example, we went to soft play this morning with the two youngest while the older three were still in bed, then we went to visit family with 4 of the kids, then we all had a takeaway together and watched The Masked Singer. Tomorrow the youngest one has a party and then we'll all be having Sunday dinner together.

I found 2-3 years is a very common gap.

Yes, it is

Mine are 9 and 6, we do a mix. DS1 has football both weekend days and DS2 still has a lot of whole class birthday parties but for bigger days out we tend to do something they'll both enjoy like the cinema/museum/country park or a big new playground. We've recently discovered clip and climb as an alternative to soft play now DS1 is getting a bit old for it.

We have 6 kids-11,9,7,5,3 and a baby. We do a lot of things together- I’d say 75% of days out are as a family. And we also do things with just 1 parent if it’s a more age limiting activity or something that just one or two are interested in. For example- I’m taking the smaller ones to disney on ice soon and husband will take my older two boys to a gaming arcade that night. We also do one on one time with each of them- I’m taking my eldest to a concert soon or will take him for dinner and cinema and husband will take our 7 year old to an art session she likes etc. we try to keep it balanced.