What are your top tips for making family life work ?

[carriemumsnet]

While we wait with bated breath for the results of our work/life balance survey we thought we'd tap you for your top tips on how you make family life work, in terms of work/life balance, family time, sharing responsibilities for children/ house /money etc

How do you make the parenting partnership (great phrase eh? ) work in your house?

will be reading this thread withinterest as I can't make it work
You'd think after 10 years, I'd have some ideas but, nah...stillmaking it up as we go along.

Ok, here is my tip.
Have a plan. By all means, have a goal. Have a destination. Have a dream.
But be prepared to be bloody flexible along the way. And make sure you try and fit in as much fun as possible while you're at it, otherwise it's a wasted journey....

lol at living on the moon

• keep talking, even about the stuff you are bitter about

• make finances totally fair (IMO this means a joint account and equal monthly 'pocket money')

• have a partner who has the same housework standards as you (if you are both happy in a hovel, that's fine; if you both like it anally neat, then he'll have spent years doing as much housework as you)

• if you are a SAHM have a partner who comes home early to do all the evening bath/bed routine (this was a dealbreaker for me at a recent DH-job-related crossroads)

• Have a life outside the home: volunteering, working, even just keeping up with current affairs

• Don't turn into his mother / her father

• Don't spend your life on Mumsnet and playing Scrabulous and only talking to each through MSN

Take the odd 5 minutes here and there and step back to appreciate and enjoy what you have. This time with children only comes once and as hard as what it can be at times, its still so special

• have equally demanding/needy old parents

wine

sense of humour

wine

sense of humour

routine pretty important too

Bloody hell. Concept of meetings and agendas and debate and planning and negotiation makes DP and I shudder. If I wanted that I'd have a corporation, not a baby.

I'm definitely not one to be offering advice on harmonious family life, but I know the things that have helped us hang together have been showing patience with one another through tough times, little gestures like cups of tea and massages and being able to laugh about everything, one way or another.

sounded like a good routine to me, Posieflump. Can't do the sense of humour bit at the moment but the wine? Got that sorted!

We both pull together.
We have a cleaner.
We have an ironing lady.
We have a dog walker.

We could have more money, but we would not have as good a quality of life IMO.

If you have some spare cash, throw money at the situation.

Weekends are sacrosanct, and will only be spent with people who appreciate family life, if my vile SIL wants to visit she can do so midweek. (if we can fit her in)

Eat together as a family every chance you get.

Have silly private jokes, DH and I call PC's hossifers, it drives DS mad,but he enjoys it.

cut out the dead wood.

Set aims and objectives and penalise those who don't reach them. This ain't no disco, this is Life for Achievers.

We try, but only manage about 3 days out of 5 during the week, to ban/ignore the children and sit and talk for half an hour before we do boring chores/cook supper etc etc etc as they can all easily go on for a tedious amount of time. Otherwise it's easy to get to 9pm and find all you've said to each other is "did you get that thing?" and "did you fill in that form?" and "has dd had her hair washed at all in the past 3 weeks?"

If DH and I are both getting busy in work at the same time, we will sit down with diaries to trade drop offs and pick ups (generally my job), otherwise it is fairly fluid.

Oh and if we feel we are not getting enough time together, we will roll over when the alarm goes off at 5.30/6.00. Guage the morning weather and if it is pleasant we will
sneak downstairs and make a pot of real coffee and do our best talking of the day.

Be kind to everyone. Especially to your partner. You get much more help from a bloke who gets to watch Wimbledon instead of putting kids to bed than a pussy whipped one.

Pussy Whipping???

Are you people pigeonholing those of us fortunate enough to have homes on the Moon as uber rich?

I'll have you know that DH and I bought there long before lunar property prices went stratospheric as did most of our neighbours.

Its a decent little community, not much in the way of atmosphere though.

say sorry. and mean it.

Don't be a dingbat.
Keep calm and carry on.
Work hard and be nice to people.

We talk.
We decide as a couple how our children are going to be raised, boundaries, discipline etc.
If one is not coping then the other takes over.
We make sure we do things as a family.
We also go away once a year as a couple very important to us.

Patience.

More patience.

Enough sleep.

Making time in every day to have a proper conversation with DH.

Getting out of the house on my own to do something non family related at least once a week.

Paying attention. To the DDs of course but also to DH. Sometimes if he's seemingly not pulling his weight its because he is dog tired and utterly stressed from work. To nag or moan does not help in this scenario.

Not being mummy martyr, but asking / demanding help when its needed!

Message withdrawn

We are both morning people, and we only do it in the summer, it is not scheduled it is more a case of ............you awake...yeah... so am I... fancy a coffee ??

And we take our coffee into the garden, so DS 7 has to come and find us, as opposed to shouting Morning Peeps.

I'd just like to big up pointydog's excellent 'dead wood' post. No-one else laughed but I am rofling.