What do work mornings/ evenings look like for you?

[Anewmum2018]

Just looking for reassurance- my 2yo boy goes to nursery three days a week, and I work those 3 days. Even on the best of days they end up looking like: wake up, get breakfast, watch tv for an hour while we get ready for work, go to nursery. And in the evening basically, get home, collapse all together on the sofa, watch tv for an hour, go up for bath etc.
Basically, on days I work, there isn’t a whole lot of quality time going on between me and my son- were all too knackered, so any down time is watching tv together.
Just looking for reassurance- this is normal right? I don’t need to get home and set up some enriching activity?

Morning. Get up, shower, dress. One gets DD up, change nappy and dressed while other preps breakfast. All have breakfast together. 5 mins run around/ play, then teeth, shoes, coat and out.
Evening, DH picks DD up and gets home at 5. They usually play a bit, I'll get tea ready, we all eat together, then we have about 45 minutes of play, books before bath and bed.
So no, not much quality time!

That was me 5 days a week with my oldest 2. They both turned out ok!

Mine are older and in school now. When it's a school day, our mornings are I get up and get ready, then the kids get up and I basically spend 90 minutes on a constant nagging repeat of 'Eat your breakfast' 'Brush your teeth' 'Get Dressed' and 'Hurry up' while trying to get them out of the door. I drop them at school and then I'm off to work.

CM gets them from school. Then I pick them up about 5/6pm. Generally, they chill out with telly on or gaming while DH and I get tea or just chill out. Sometimes if it's dry and light, we get out for a walk. It's obviously all gone to pot with Coronavirus. But that's what we will get back to. It's a long day for all of us so I don't force my kids to do much more on school days. They're happy just to be spending time with us and enjoy cuddling up on the sofa together with us.

DP and I are both WFH full time but our mornings are still chaos and our evenings are still mostly sofa collapso.

We get up with DD anywhere from 5am (she cosleeps from around 3am), and take it in turns to be run ragged by her while trying to shower, get dressed, make coffee, assemble breakfast, empty/load dishwasher and other things, hose her down and dress her afterwards. Apply Hey Duggee as needed depending on if it’s bin day/grocery deliveries/other interruptions. DP starts work at 8 the lucky bastard, so I then watch her rampage and drop her at nursery at 8.30/8.45. She gets picked up by him at 4.45, together they set fire to the house/destroy everything/cause chaos, then I see her when I stop work at 5.30.

Our quality time is then an hour or so of her buzzing around, running up and down and shouting, then we take it in turns to suppress her into sleep (it takes a giant rubber mallet these days) while the other cooks. Eat at 7 ish, tidy up, exchange mumbled words about having a life one day, then I’m usually in bed by 8pm. On date night I go fancy and stay up til 9pm. Sometimes.

Lather rinse repeat, dream of winning euromillions and changing my life entirely.

I work 3 days too, at home. Basically it’s wake, we all chill in bed for half an hour with cartoons (cuppa for us). Get DS ready and I take him down to play for a bit while DH gets ready for work. They leave for work / nursery and then I quickly get dressed and start work (eat while I work!). DH collects DS from nursery at 4 and they come home, play together. I log off later on and we feed DS tea, then bath and bed (we alternate this) for 6.30ish. I do feel like I barely see him at all on my work days but I have two days off to spend with him and weekends for family time so I don’t feel bad. Plus nursery is good for him and he seems to enjoy it (finally!!)

Haha thanks everyone. People are much more honest here than in real life and I appreciate it! Just got the classic ‘am I doing this right?’ guilt this morning as I looked at our child, glued to CBeebies any moment he’s in the house.

We don't watch tv in the morning as we don't have time, but I would say there isn't loads of quality time. We get up, get dressed, breakfast, packed up, off to nursery/school/work. Then get home at 5pm, he tends to play outside for a bit, have a snack, then he watches tv while we tidy up and cook dinner, have dinner, up to bed. We don't do tv as a family activity though, it's more of a 'I need you occupied for an hour so I can cook or answer emails' sort of thing.

Much the same here. We don’t do tv in the mornings but that’s because we only have 30 mins - an hour between DS getting up and him getting to nursery. He’s nearly 3 so old enough to play by himself for a bit while we grab showers etc. We’re WAH at the moment, so getting ready doesn’t take very long as it’s just throwing on some casual clothes.

When we get home, I encourage DS to play for half an hour or so (usually quietly with his wooden trains) while I flop on the sofa, before giving in and watching 30-45 mins of tv together before the bath/bedtime routine. I then return to the sofa to flop, eat dinner and watch tv before I go to bed as I have little energy for anything else! I think it’s fairly common. Kids have a busy day at nursery, I think a bit of downtime and cuddles are much needed after all that.

Sounds similar to us. I WFH 4 days a week and her dad works in a hospital those days and a further extra day. DD is also 2.

I get her up and get her changed, take her downstairs, get her breakfast, make my DH a brew, read to DD whilst she's eating. My DH is in the shower/getting himself ready during this. When he comes down he takes over and has his own breakfast whilst DD is either still eating or playing or watching TV. He brushes her hair and her teeth too and applies eczema cream if necessary. Meanwhile I'm in the shower/getting myself ready.

When I'm done I come down and we all get our costs and shoes on and leave, I take DD to nursery whilst DH goes to work.

After work, DH usually collects DD from nursery straight from work but if he can't then I do. I make dinner whilst I'm working/just after I finish work. DD comes in about 6.15pm, we all have dinner although she often says she doesn't want any and just watches TV instead alone if that's what she wants. Then after dinner she mostly just wants to continue watching TV, sometimes she will want to play with other things like her car or jigsaw puzzles or drawing or playing rough and tumble games. We do her inhaler, get her changed for bed, put her to bed around 7.30pm.

She used to watch TV in the mornings too but now there's not usually any time anyway and she seems less interested it and more interested in breakfast but she does sometimes if there is time. After nursery she will literally get in the door and the first things she will say after hi to me and that is asking for telly. She sleeps less at nursery than at home as a general rule and is just exhausted so I let her veg out in front of the telly for an hour if that's what she wants, I feel zero guilt.

Morning, we get up, get dressed, have breakfast together. Then teeth and finishing getting ready. I tidy kitchen and a few bits while she does some stuff on her tablet.

Evenings, home and shower, then she has some time on her tablet. Then we have dinner, watch some tv together. Then she helps me prep things for the next day at school and off to bed.

Should add mine is 8

DH and I both work full time, but from home due to COVID. DD is 2 and has a nanny. We both have super flexible employers and are WFH which has obviously resulted in even more flexibility. Our day looks like: DH gets up with DD around 7-7:30, reads stories in her room for 20 minutes or so. He gets her breakfast while she plays, they have breakfast together (I try to stagger out of bed in time for a shower and start work at 8). Nanny comes at 8:45, DH goes off to shower and start work. End of day, I finish around 4:30, make dinner, nanny leaves at 5:15 and we all eat together. I play with DD/read stories until bath at 6:15 while DH tidies up after dinner. DH does bath and then I do stories and put to bed by 7.

We don't do "activities" but we do generally have focused time with DD if she wants it. A lot of the time at the beginning and end of the day she seems to want to play by herself with her animals, interspersed with requests to read books for us to help her with something. I think she gets so many activities during the day that the time by herself helps her process - the animals are usually doing whatever activity she has done with her nanny!

Not intending to be critical (but think I might come across that way - sorry!)

It's quite a bit of TV time for a 2 year old. Not that it's necessarily a problem, but you might find yourself wishing later on that your DS was a bit better at entertaining himself at home.... worth thinking about.

If you do want to do something more "enriching", why not do some stories while snuggled up on the sofa? That can be really nice quality time together, and doesn't take a lot of energy. We always have half an hour of stories with DD (3) while she has a cup of milk before we go up for bathtime, and it's a lovely time of the day. My DH has been known to nod off while waiting for his time to read

We have 5&3 year olds here. We get up and are dressed & ready by 7, at which point kids are allowed to get up (grow clock dictates 7am; they’re awake earlier but - so far - happy to stay in room until then). They have 45 mins telly / screens whilst we empty dishwasher, DH eats breakfast and has his morning shit (I don’t get this opportunity .... mainly because my system doesn’t play ball - maybe I should pretend ), I scrabble around getting all the clothes out for them we should have got night before and sorting the house out. 7.45 screens off and breakfast, get dressed, do teeth, ready for school at 8.30 (actually it’s later now due to staggered Covid starts so they now play from maybe 8.30-8.50 before one of us takes them round the corner).

Youngest has a nanny still and we clock off from wfh at 5.30 to be with them for run around and playing before bath.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that occasionally if I’m by myself and they’re being impossible to put to bed at same time then I do give my phone to the 5 year old for an easy life, but we tend not to have evening screen time. There’s lots of playing and dancing and reading stories to be done instead. We aren’t paragons and they get a couple hours tv every day at weekends (the same morning 45 mins and then a crash out hour 4-5pm) but weekdays as we see them so little we do try... I know it’s hard though.