How Do You Balance Parenting and Personal Time?

[youngsa]

As a busy parent, finding a balance between parenting responsibilities and personal time can be challenging. I’d love to hear from other mums about how you manage to carve out time for yourself while juggling the demands of looking after your children, work, and household duties. What strategies or tips have you found helpful in ensuring you get some much-needed downtime? Any advice on how to avoid burnout and stay organized would be greatly appreciated!

It stands to reason that the more demanded of you, the less you have to give to each of those demands. I'd say the answer to your question depends entirely on your standards and values. It's much easier to balance work and personal responsibilities/time if you're willing/capable of someone else (family, nursery, etc) basically rearing your child for you (on the assumption we're talking about when they're younger), but if you want to be present and the main caregiver then unfortunately something else has to give. Outsourcing what you can, like getting a cleaner; accepting you might have to work out in the front room rather than go to the gym; sacrificing your lie ins or your relaxing time in the evenings to pursue any ventures or hobbies. It's a 'jack of all trades or master of one' kind of scenario.

Daily - time in the evening to relax, tea and book etc
Twice a week - I love going for a run. Average 9 miles a week.
Once every 3 weeks - peace and quiet home alone once done the cleaning (dh takes the kids out so I clean in peace too)
Out for a hair cut every 3 months

Sahm kids 2.5 and 6.

I'm in the pits at the moment with an 8 month old and pre teen. I am a parent 24/7 at the moment with little to no time to myself. I'm lucky to get 10 mins to myself in the evening without baby waking up or 12 year old wanting something from me. I'm envious of these people that can go for a wee on their own at the moment. It's nice to see others do get some time for themselves in a run down fat mess that can't go to the gym to lose the baby weight.

Sorry for the rant.

I have my time for myself when my dcs are in school/preschool. Youngest goes 12 hours a week, just 4 mornings. I do a couple of hobby classes and a swim, and have a morning where nothing is scheduled but I use that time for things like an appointment or visiting a gallery.

I'm a sahm and I had no time away from my youngest until she started preschool aged 2. But I would take long walks while she napped in the buggy and do fitness workouts once she was asleep for the night, and watch streamed theatre shows at home.

It has been demanding to not have time for myself for years, but it was partly out of choice as we like to do things together as a family rather than one of us going off for child-free time, and we don't use any external babysitters. There has always been a light at the end of the tunnel though as I know I will have lots of time to myself once both dcs are at school!

I have 3 year old and 4 year old. DH and I both work full time.

We have a shared calendar and everything and I mean everything goes on the calendar.

We both get on night a week 'off' to do our sports. We both play for a local team.

We do family park run on Saturday morning.

It's planned and booked in.

We do a fair Division of labour wherever possible.

Hmm. Are you writing a magazine article on the topic?

Dh and I both work full time and we have 2 dc, DS1 is 10, DS2 is 6. We do the housework at the weekend, taking a divide and conquer approach. Our youngest DS plays football so we're juggling a lot of evening practices and games, plus swimming and school. In all honesty I get time to myself as I stay up late, usually around midnight to 1am I go to bed. Those 3-4 hours when the kids are in bed are priceless. I read, watch tv and scroll my phone. I'll book an annual leave day to spend some alone time with DH and we're very lucky that my parents have a caravan and will take the kids away a couple of times a year. i do make time for hair and nail appointments every few weeks and we do a lot of fun stuff as a family like theme parks, we're big enthusiasts. So essentially my advice is to manage on about 5 hours sleep and take annual leave and spend time by yourself/dh.

Nursery 4 days a week, but I only work 2 or 3. We intentionally bought a small house because neither of us want to be a slave to housework. We keep our belongings minimal which makes keeping on top of a tidy house much easier. We keep mealtimes simple too.

Depends on all sorts of things - a key one being the age of your dc.
But add in how many hours you work, what your commute is like, how early the dc go to sleep, what support you have in terms of babysitters, what your finances are like, what your energy levels are like.

For us, it felt really important that both of us had something we belonged to / somewhere we went that was neither work, nor as 'dcs' parent'. Whether it was hobby / interest group / sport / volunteering / meeting up with friends / whatever, it was a ringfenced time each week when the other parent 'did the parenting', and you were called by your first name and the talk wasn't about child development stages in any shape or form.

Take annual leave and tell no one. I regularly do this. Drop the kids and rather than go to work, go home, read a book, watch Netflix, dance round the kitchen. It feels wonderful. I’m doing it tomorrow when they are back in school.

Working from home has helped a lot reducing stress for me. I’m part-time and my DC is in daycare on my working days. I know I’m fortunate to have a desk job that has busy and slow times, so I’m loving the slow days at the moment.