- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Working Moms
dglvrk2
member
getting more out of weekends
dglvrk2
member
in Working Moms
Hi -
DH and I have a pretty solid weeknight and weekday morning routine established. Thanks to this, our evenings and mornings are quite manageable. Our weekends are another story. I need some advice.....
If we are away from home, we usually have a good time and few issues. We have two daughters, ages 3 years and 7 months. Having a "relaxing" weekend at home, however, is getting troublesome.
The days usually start with me getting up early (6 am) to do work I haven't accomplished during the week. - I'm the parent who does daycare pick ups and drop offs because daycare is closer to my work. This may change in the future, but we love our daycare and logistically me doing the pick ups and drop-offs make total sense. Nevertheless, not matter how much work I have, I must leave at a certain time to get the girls and I cannot drop them off earlier in the morning than I do. - DD2 wakes up and nurses at 7:30 and DD1 wakes up around then too. I'm not sure how, but DH can completely tune them out and sleep, usually until 8:30-9. I sometimes go running on a weekend morning and H is in charge. Running aside, I'm with the girls until they go for their naps. Both fortunately take a nap around 1. They're down together for at least an hour. DH sometimes helps with the girls, but this is often the first down time I get all day. H often wants to DTD during their nap times; it's our one time any given week when we're alone and not completely exhausted. It's usually great, but I can tell he's frustrated when I'm not initially excited about it. (Think - getting this suggestion after being with kids for 4-6 hours non-stop.) He usually goes for a surfing session or a long bike ride when we're home on a weekend. He also does house projects or works on his "project" car. I'm more on my own with the girls in the afternoons too. By the end of these weekends, I'm feeling more like a nanny with benefits and less like a wife. I'm bitter about the amount of time he gets to do his things compared to the time I get for myself. I love spending time with my girls, but feel it's rather out of balance.
I need to discuss my feelings with him. He hasn't done anything wrong. I definitely need more "me" time, whether it's errands on my own, time at work on the weekends, or just escaping without an agenda. He's great with our girls too, so I know I'd be leaving them in competent hands. Perhaps I need more definite plans for weekends as well. It's always nice to think of having "no plans," but perhaps carving out time when he has the girls and I have "no plans" would make weekends more refreshing for me.
How do you get the most out of weekends? I'm open to suggestions. TIA!
<a href="http://www.thebump.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Parenting Tips"><img src="http://global.thebump.com/tickers/tt1761a3.aspx" alt=" BabyFruit Ticker" border="0" /></a>
This discussion has been closed.
Re: getting more out of weekends
If we have a weekend with no plans, we come up with a plan Friday evening. If he says he wants to ride that weekend we pick which day (it is not both days) and whether he's going in the morning or afternoon. When he's not riding, he gets chores and/or kid duty. And I get a break. The other day we usually have a family activity and take care of any other chores/household stuff.
My DH is gone much of the week so he tries to be pretty engaged on the weekends, but I do have to manage him a little bit, by making sure he knows what needs to get done and also by making sure he doesn't just leave me on my own with two kids all weekend when I have had them most of the week already.
Kind of reiterating some points, but here is what we've figured out:
- We alternate sleeping in. I'm naturally a morning person and DH is naturally a night owl, but we make it work. Sometimes I'll forgo my "sleep in" and go for a long run instead (training for 1/2 marathon) but DH still gets to sleep in the next day. If I need more sleep I nap.
- If DH/myself have computer work to do, we let DD watch movies on half the screen so that the other one of us only has 1 kiddo to look after.
- DH goes on bike rides, too. He often take DD in the trailer. Sometimes we pop baby in as well and go as a family.
- We outsource for almost all house projects, although DH still does lots of little things. This has helped free our weekends a lot.
- I'm also a supporter of making a loose plan for the weekend. I find that if we don't make a plan our weekends end up not being very relaxing. If you want to carve out time for yourself, just "book" a section of a few hours and tell DH he's in charge during that time. You can figure out what you do during those hours later.
My DH has been like this too. He thinks that as long as he's in the house he is fulfilling some obligation, even if he's watching TV, reading the news, etc.
I've snapped a few times, and I don't recommend that approach.
What works best for our marriage and my sanity is to have a plan and communicate prior to the weekend and prior to becoming bitter about it. That way I'm delegating responsibility calmly and DH doesn't react by going into battle mode.
So on a Thursday night, I might say something like "Here's what I all want to get done this weekend. I really need to catch up on sleep, so will you get up with DS on Saturday? Then I'll take him grocery shopping, run errands on Saturday morning and keep him out of your hair, but them Saturday afternoon I really want to go to the mall by myself and look for some new shoes. Sound good?"
DH is always fine with it if I lay out the schedule and expectations. He's just the type of guy the needs to be told what to do and is never going to "guess" the right way. And I just have to be proactive about it and not yelling at DH and telling him that it's his turn with DS when I'm already bitter about it.
MMC 3.30.16
I think our house is different from most. I may be kind of a dick but there's no me time in our house with the kind of schedule we have during the week. I mean okay, that's an exaggeration. Maybe once in awhile. But we have literally zero family time during the week as a family (out the door at 6:45 a.m., home at 6:20 p.m., bedtime routines start at 6:45 p.m., etc.). So I personally, don't want me time on the weekend. I get me time on the train ride to work, me time at my desk all day, me time at lunch, etc. I see my kids about 1.5 hours a day during the week, about 90% of which is spent dressing, changing, nursing, bathing, etc. (i.e. we aren't playing, snuggling, reading together, etc.--it's all just logistics to get out the door or get people fed or get to bed). So I don't want any me time on the weekend other than showering and doing my hair. DH may want me time, but I don't really care at this point. Again, I know I sound like a huge dick, but that's just the truth. We don't spend any time as a family of four during the week other than about 15 minutes in the morning before daycare, and a quick 10 minute dinner (immediately after we get home and before bedtime routines start). It would not sit well with me for DH to then go golfing for 4 hours on Saturday morning, or to go to the gym both days, or what have you, since the weekends are literally the only time we have together as a family of 4. So honestly in our house on the weekends we try to do everything as a family or at the very least we split up stuff between us--he'll go the hardware store with DS, I'll take DD to the pediatrician's office, etc. We just have too hectic of a schedule for either of us to be absent during the week.
That being said, I absolutely think we are outside the norm and that I'm kind of a dick about this sort of thing. If you want me time, you deserve it for all you do, and you should tell DH that. Something I have learned from MH, is no matter how great YH is, and no matter how involved he is, how active he is, whatever, he isn't going to know what you want unless you spell it out like he's a 5 year old. You just have to come up with some sort of compromise. OK, you can go surfing on Saturday, but on Sunday I'm going to get my nails done. I do mornings 6 days a week as it is, you can do 1. Just work something out and stick with it. Anytime you leave it open, someone is going to get screwed because the other person will inevitably say, hey, as long as we don't have plans, I'm doing ___, and then the other person who waited too long to say something sounds like a dick if they then go, "Well wait, I wanted to do ___." Well then why did you wait to say that until I told you what I wanted to do. I almost think you sort of need a weekend routine too. 8am - 9am is surf time. 9am-1pm is family time. 1pm - 3pm is nap time for kids, gym time for mommy from 1pm-2pm, then gardening/outdoor work time for daddy is when mommy gets home until kids wake up. GL, I know you'll figure something out that works great for you guys.
BFP #1 6/28/11 ~ EDD 3/7/12 ~ m/c 7/15/11 at 6w2d
BFP #2 8/29/11 ~ EDD 5/12/12. 4/25/12: Our take home baby is here!
BFP #3 8/27/13 ~ EDD 5/11/14. 4/27/14: Our second take home baby is here!