How old were your children when you felt you were slowly getting your life back?

[chuckb4ss]

First time Mum in the baby phase and I dream of a time when my baby goes to sleep in his own room, sleeps through the night with no interruptions, whilst I take a long bubble bath and indulge in my night time skincare routine. I'm worried that this might not be until my child is in senior school? Please enlighten me

Mine are 5.5 and nearly 3 and life is definitely getting easier. Both sleeping, can eat independently, they will often play together or on their own for an hour at a time. The eldest is also very helpful a d will get drinks etc for the youngest or help him fix a toy etc.

When I went back to work and dd started nursery at 10mo she was so knackered she slept 12 hours through for the first week. Then she reverted to her natural state of awake I would say 3yo is good for them entertaining themselves for a short time etc.

With my first, I kept my social life for the first approx 6 months, as the baby just slept on me in a sling wherever we were. I went to parties, dinners, even a festival, and baby just slept through them. Towards the end of this, the parties became unviable but evenings round friends houses continued - I'd put baby down following the usual routine, and we'd leave just after the inevitable (for her) 11pm feed, settle her in the car seat, and usually transfer fine when we got back home.

Then as she became more aware of different surroundings etc, it stopped being viable, and our social life ground to a halt.

Then we had another child, and then lockdown etc. Now the nearly 4 year old is pretty independent, though still wakes up most nights.

From a social life perspective, it really depends on your parenting styles and things like whether you breastfeed (and are therefore more tied to baby). With my bottle fed baby, I had a night away with friends 3 months in. I've not yet been able to even have an evening away from my bf baby in nearly 2 years (though half of that is with Covid...).

I suspect that feeling back to normal again happens when you are finally getting enough rest, which can be anywhere from 6w to 6y I guess.

Probably about 2 but then we decided to have another one!

We sleep trained ours which meant they were both sleeping through from around 10 months. That was great - evenings to ourselves.

With the older one, felt like there was a mini breakthrough at around 3 when suddenly he was able to be left to play on his own for short periods of time, it's relentless when you need to actively supervise two children.

Something we have always done occasionally is take a day off when the kids are in nursery and have a day out the two of us. That works well for us as we have no family support so otherwise our only childfree time is evening babysitting.

My eldest is 4.5 and I notice a big difference in him now. Much more easy going and independent. However the smaller one is only 17 months so still some way to go until I am able to get som semblance of my life back. Toddlers are so very needy!

Our DD has just turned two years old. A huge turning point for us was when she started sleeping through. Three months old maybe? It meant that we had time together in the evenings

About 6. I had a surprise baby when my middle one was 6 and I remember thinking "but I've just got my life back!" Youngest is now 7.

Well I got mine back for a while, now I've got one dc back home age 26 and it's gone again!

I had three under four so that was a busy few years! It started getting much easier when the youngest was 3yo. Then even more so when he was 5yo. They've all been a joy since then

Mine started sleeping through just before she hit 2, and even that change has been amazing. We are expecting another one and I’m already dreading the nights.

Gradually gets easier, or you get more used to being a parent i suppose, but now at 6 and 10, I can really see us getting our life back.

Mine are older now, and so far the game changers have been :

• when everyone sleeps through the night
• when everyone eats proper food
• becoming a nappy free house
• when you no longer have to hang onto them crossing the road
• when youngest starts school
• ditching your last car seat
• when they can all get to school by themselves
• when they can take themselves to after school activities
• when you no longer have to do homework with/for them

It's such a gradual process, but once they are all at school, life becomes very different

Around 4 when they can dress themselves, feed themselves, can plug and unplug themselves from the car seat, walk a decent distance and generally have a nice little understandable conversation.

I'd also say when eldest hit 13, youngest was 8, we could leave all 3 at home for short periods of time, or 2 of them home while we ferry the other one to football/swimming/scouts etc. They all get their own breakfast and lunches and between them can make a dinner for us all if required, can play out without supervision.

When I could go back to work was a big step for me (when they were 9 months) that was also when they slept through which changed our lives. After that I think around the age of 3 when you're not quite such a slave to a routine, no more napping, potty trained etc made a big difference too.

This is clearly unusually early going by the thread but I found I slowly started to feel more like me from when I went back to work (6 months) onwards - at that point I was then confident he'd take a bottle so could start going out for evenings/afternoons with friends and have had the occasional weekend too (though all of that far less frequently than before I had him). We did gentle sleep training at 8 months and that was also a game changer.

I think it massively depends on if you have a partner and how shared your parenting is if so, though. DH and I have done barely anything outside the house together since having DS1 2.5 years ago - his first night not with either of us was a few weeks ago when I gave birth to DS2 - but I don't see why someone in a couple couldn't have at least short stints of solo time to themselves? I now have a newborn and I've had a couple of long baths since he was born by feeding him first and then giving him to DH! I haven't met many fathers who don't get enough time to themselves to have a bath or do something they enjoy for weeks after their children's birth, let alone years, but that seems to be seen as normal for mothers...

@hardbackwriter - I think some posters are interpreting the question differently. I understood it more as "when will my life overall return?" not "when can I expect 30 mins on my own sometimes?"

I think also "life" is different for different folk. I have had a couple of weekends away and evenings out but I really miss doing that as a couple. Most of my friends leave their kids with grandparents for weekends away - one couple went off to Paris for a week without their 2 year old - which makes me wildly jealous to be honest.

OTOH, my brother and sister in law have always had separate interests so separate weekends away/evenings out works fine for them.

@HazelWong that's fair, the OP is slightly confusing because the title says 'get your life back' which is highly subjective and depending on your definition might not apply until children can be left home alone, but the post talks about being able to have a bubble bath and do a skin care routine, which seems like a much lesser ask!

In terms of going out it's all been skewed by the pandemic anyway - we were due to have our first night away as a couple the weekend that ended up being the first one of the March 2020 lockdown, so it wasn't by choice that we'd never left DS1 before I gave birth to his brother... But on the other hand it's made the fact that all our couple time is at home, in the evening seem like no especial hardship as even if we had a million babysitters on tap that would still be all we could do!

I never forget when I took my daughter back to nursery for her first day in July last year, after me being on furlough since March and looking after her full time. She'd only been there since February, so had probably only done 10 days there before lockdown. She was 2.5.
Her lip started trembling as we approached but when we stopped I looked at her and said 'Have a nice day, I'm so proud of you' and she said 'I'm so proud of you, mummy'.
It was a sunny day, I went to a cafe and had a coffee and lovely peaceful breakfast and had a little cry. Felt like I had really turned a corner then with getting some of 'me time' back and it's been the same since.

Probably when he started pre school nursery around 3. Got some day time to myself, he was tired enough to sleep better and they also helped a lot with encouraging the kids to do stuff for themselves like coats, shoes etc which helped me see what he could perfectly easily do if I didn't give in on the first wail and do it all for him

Age three, after potty training and when they can start nusery