Weekends with young children

[mockorangey]

I have two DC - an almost 4 year old and a 10 month old. The 4 year old goes to nursery 3 days a week and then I have 2 days with both kids, and then of course there is the weekend. During the week I pretty much totally focus on the children. I can make simple dinners for them, laundry, and manage to get a bit of cleaning done on the days when I just have the baby, but I don't try and do anything too big.

I feel like weekends should be more relaxing, but they rarely are. There is always some job that needs to be done, not necessarily anything big but enough that it takes up the morning (at least with the distraction of the kids being around). We try and have some family time, but usually it is just the playground or swimming. Then we need to cook dinner (usually try and put a little bit more effort in at the weekend to compensate for the simple weekday dinners).

I get frustrated with it all. The weekend still feels full on even though we are not trying to do big jobs or day trips out. We seem to achieve little in the way of tasks and rarely get any downtime - neither DH or I tend to have a lie in unless really knackered, and we don't tend to take any time to do anything for ourselves either as there just doesn't seem to be an opportunity!

Is this just par for the course do you think? What are everyone else's weekends like?

Yep that’s normal for life with small children. It will gradually get easier once the smallest one is past 3.5 years old and has dropped naps and being a Slave to routine for food to avoid melt downs.

I think it’s normal. Your kids don’t know it’s a weekend so it’s business as usual for them and small children don’t really do downtime unless one parent takes them out.

I’m a sahm to similar age kids and always find weekends a bit disappointing unless I’ve specifically planned stuff for us to do. DH and I have one lie in each though and we try and give each other some downtime over the weekend, although I usually use mine for cleaning, I do try and do one thing for myself over a weekend, like meeting a friend or going for a coffee and a browse round the shops alone.

I would second trying to have a lie in each at the weekend - when our dc were small that was the one thing that was sacred and kept us sane, especially as ds1 was a 5.30am waker.
Other than that, yes, that sounds about right. It will get easier as they get older (until your weekends are taken up with standing on football pitches / at dance / gymnastics / rugby...)

I’m a SAHM to a 4 and a 3 year old. I love weekends just because DH is around to take some of the pressure off (he can answer half of the 3 million questions I get a day!). We don’t tend to do anything exciting but will go out for lunch, go scootering in the park etc. We don’t really bother with lie ins as both DC sleep well (7-7) so aren’t particularly sleep deprived (well I suffer from severe insomnia but a lie in wouldn’t help as I still wouldn’t be able to sleep!). DH tends to do most of the cooking at weekends.

Oh and both DC do an activity on a Saturday morning so I take them to that whole DH cleans the house. It means that by lunchtime on Saturday the vast majority of the chores are done.

I guess you were asking how we achieve that. I consider the weekend mostly in blocks of time of around 2 -3 hours so we kind of decide in advance which block we want. Some of it for fun stuff, some of it for things like diy or projects. The other one is in charge of the kids for that time

Mine are now five and just turned three and weekends are starting to become actual weekends again and it's amazing the difference it's made. Last week while they were playing I actually got to read a bit and sit down with a cup of tea.

We take in turns for weekend lie ins.
We will usually do a couple of fun things but often one will parent in order to give the other person some time out (or to go and do the shopping alone!)

Similar story here. We usually write a list on a Friday evening of everything we want/need to get done that weekend, and also try to go out somewhere together as a family too. Then if there's any time leftover we take some time for ourselves. We also try to give each other a lie in, but that is 7am in this house (seems like a lot when you have a 5.30am wakes!)

waker*

I've only got the one so not sure this is much help but:

• Plan the day before.
• Divide the day into chunks, like PP said.
• Stick to easy food. We eat healthily during the week - on weekends it's pizza, curry, maybe a takeaway.
• Don't be too ambitious on what you need to achieve around the house by the end of the weekend - one small task each, done fully, is better than a bit of Polyfilla'd wall, half a reorganised cupboard etc.

Glad it’s not just us...!

Thanks for your replies. I would say we genearly split the day up into morning and afternoon, as mealtimes are busy and work better with a 1:1 adult:child ratio. It generally seems like we can do two things a day, so chores in the morning and family time in the afternoon. There's just not enough time for everything!

Sounds about right. I've got two - 3 and 5. The main difference on a weekend is that no alarm wakes us (the kids do) and we aren't in a rush to go out so we tend to have breakfast in our pjs!

However if we do actually want to get out and do something of a morning, me and DH need to get up and showered/dressed as soon as we wake otherwise the whole morning is gone.

We tend to do 'something' (trip out) on the morning of either sat/sun. It's too much to do both. Then tend to be at home in the pm to do some chores/cook. I try to keep food simple / easy as possible to do (ie minimum effort).

I also do have a cleaner once a week so my cleaning chores are mainly tidying/washing/cooking though (which makes it LOADS easier).