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Hate weekends

6 replies

Lostwords · 02/06/2019 09:02

’m really struggling at the moment with how hard I find weekends when everyone (DCs age 1 & 4, and DH & I) is together. I feel like I should enjoy family time all together. But the truth is I find the week much more manageable when DS is at Preschool 4 days a week and DH at work. At weekends it feels like everyone is swirling around with their different demands and issues. My 4 year old son is not easy, he needs loads of activity or can be very difficult. DH is constantly tense and we disagree a lot at weekends. I experience him as another source of stress. He is also massively messy, and I get tired by the huge mess the house gets into at weekends. I’ve tried having more structure and making sure we have planned outings, which is better than not having this, but the bits at home are still difficult. We’ve had a hard time because our youngest has had v serious health issues, getting better but there are still sudden hospital admissions occasionally, which are unpredictable. I wish I could enjoy family time but I actually often find myself hating it at the weekend then feeling a lot happier during the week again. I also actually find it easier, for the most part, looking after the kids on my own than with my DH. Don’t know what to do... Sometimes I wonder about separation and divorce but there are good aspects to the relationship and DH is great in many ways.

OP posts:
hormonesorDHbeingadick · 02/06/2019 09:55

Can you try one joint family day with a big outing and then splitting the second day between each parent so each parent gets me time?

hormonesorDHbeingadick · 02/06/2019 09:56

^ We don’t do it every week but occasionally and it works for us.

DuchessOfBallybrack · 02/06/2019 09:59

Good idea hormone.
I used to dread weekends as well

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Jellycat1 · 02/06/2019 10:34

It does get easier. I'm just starting to really enjoy them with my kids - 3 and 5. I still lose it on occasion but it's very rare now ! Grin Yes - definitely getting out of the house helps. Mine only ever fight in the privacy of their own home for some reason!!

Caterina99 · 02/06/2019 20:02

My kids are 4 and 20 months. I don’t love weekends personally. I’m a sahm and have a great routine during the week, preschool for my DS and lots of play dates and activities. But on a weekend my friends are usually doing family time and the kids are demanding and DH and I are tired and don’t want to spend every second of the weekend entertaining them, so they watch more tv then I’d like and then I feel guilty about that. We have zero family

What’s helped us is having clear times that we each get a child free break away from the house for a couple of hours, as well as a lie in each one day (til 8 or 9am latest so we’re not in bed all day). We also do some set activities, so I take my eldest to his swimming lesson and to the supermarket, which is a break for me as I’m not chasing the little one round, but DH gets to stay home with DD and spend time with her alone for a change. And some family activities too of course. I don’t want to have every second planned out as we need downtime, but if I didn’t arrange anything then DH would happily stay in his Pjs watching tv until 3pm and the kids are feral.

We also made a point to hire a babysitter occasionally to watch them for a few hours on a weekend afternoon and we go for an early meal. We prefer that to evenings out as our kids go to bed easily and quite early, so we’d rather pay someone to watch them when they’re awake.

Lostwords · 02/06/2019 20:41

These are really helpful tips, everyone, thank you. X

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