If you have children and work and have little support, how do you get time for yourself?

[RibbetyRib]

How does anyone achieve this? Or is it not realistic until they’re teens?

Babysitter? Days off work while they're at school/nursery?

Day off when they're at school/childcare. My husband and I work full time & we have no family support so only paid childcare. It's brutal.

Honestly, I just dropped an hour a day and do what I need to during that extra time while they’re in nursery.

I felt guilty when I made the decision, but actually I was drowning before and it makes me a better parent to have that time to workout/sleep/read. I pay good money for nursery so make the most of it.

Just to add - I have a 2.5yo and 11m old. It’s full on!

It’s rare, lunch hour if possible at work- just a call to a friend with no interruptions can be a luxury. Weekends I get the occasional morning whilst my partner has the kids. Sometimes manage a workout or swim after bedtime. My girls are 2 and 5. They are getting better and better at entertaining themselves so I do sneak 5 mins here and there of chill time.

Yep, bunk off every so often.

FT and kids is a fucking slog. Go to bed early though as it’s even harder tired!

I kept working part time when they started school.

Took it in turns with DH to have a morning to myself. Even if it is one weekend morning a fortnight or a month, just to know if was coming!

Took a morning/afternoon off work once in a while to get on top of things.

Paid for extra childcare at a time when I wasn’t doing any work. We had a nanny, so she did overtime, but I know that nursery workers do this, or babysitters or whatever. Pricey, but sometimes needs must.

Delegate what you can, and pay for that, if you can afford it.

Best thing overall for me though was to have early nights. And then I’d feel more on control of everything. I wasn’t more in control, but I did feel that I was! If your children sleep in, you could get up early having had proper rest, and use the time for whatever it is you want to do, or do nothing. This doesn’t apply if you have an exceptionally early riser child like mine though!

Have a supportive partner. DH and I split the school and nursery runs, and aren’t allergic to parenting solo for an hour or so on the weekend so the other can exercise/meet up with friends/whatever other plans are happening.

As a single parent it was very minimal.
Left them with the childminder till 6 and managed a 45 minute gym session.
Had a very strict evening routine so I had some evening time.
But mainly waited till they were teens.

Have days off every so often from work where you don’t have the kids if my main advice

This for us too. Also, stopping at one child, we wouldn’t have managed with more.

Half an hour with a quiet cup of coffee each morning, before I wake ds up.

90 minutes on Saturday morning while ds swims and I do parkrun.

An hour after ds goes to bed - as long as I can avoid falling asleep on the sofa 😀.

And once in a blue moon, ds spends a weekend with his df.

Erm, I don't really! Teacher so have quite long holidays but always with the kids there. Mine are 10 and 12 so not the most needy age but there is an incredible amount of running them around to places etc.

Don't fall in to the mindset of weekends have to be "family time". Divide and conquer with your DH if you have one, have a half day each to yourselves.

If you wfh try to work like a bloody demon so you can carve out a half hour to read a book or whatever.

Take up running, it's soooo good for getting rid of frustrations.

Tag team with DH.

Day off work when children are at nursery.

Currently work 3 days and don't plan to increase when both are at school.

For all the people who say day off work when they're at school, I assume you work part time and don't mean using annual leave?

No, take annual leave. Or pull a sickie. Or go part time, if finances allow.

By working 4 days instead of 5

Take annual leave now and then as a day to myself whilst he is at nursery. Technically could say I have time to myself after he goes to bed but that’s hoursework/ fall asleep on the sofa.

I don't 🤷🏼‍♀️

Work FT, single mum, ex barely involved (supposed to be EOW but I haven’t heard from him in 3 weeks), no family, low wages (can’t afford babysitter), days off need to be saved for when kid is sick etc

I shirk other stuff if I feel like I’m going mad. My house is untidy. But if it wasn’t I’d probably have a breakdown from the constant grind and then we’d be worse off overall, so sometimes I just need to take a couple of hours in the evening to immerse in a video game or something

3YO, full time job and hubby in the armed forces here. On days he can do the nursery run I try to get out to run/do some exercise. If I can I go for a walk at lunchtime on the days I wfh, otherwise I just end up being sucked into chores every lunchtime. Otherwise I take a days annual leave/flexi to recuperate, as it is the only way I get any time to myself!

I take parental leave (unpaid) 3.5hrs one day a week and leave them in prechool/school.

Are you a single parent or do you have a partner to split the time with? We both work full time and live abroad so we have no one to care for DS except nursery and us. We’re super strict about bed and asleep by 7.30pm (DS is 2) so we have a couple of hours in the evening. We each have an evening out during the week for sports/hobbies and the odd evening out with friends. DH’s sport takes him away for a full day at the weekend around once per month and so I then get the other day to do what I want. Other weekends we do most things together as a family. We do balance it well but I miss going out with DH in the evenings. Expecting no2 at the moment so not sure how well it will go with 2.

I have ended up with an excess of annual leave this year so I have a couple of days off booked and DS will be at nursery. Realistically I will end up doing house stuff but it’ll still be bliss!