Weekend Parenting

[Anonymous]

I’m curious how others split parenting on the weekends with their spouses. What percentage of the time are you solo parenting (whether the spouse is around or not), what percentage of time is the other spouse in charge? How much time do you spend together? And what ages are your children?

With two kids now and the pandemic, our old set up is no longer working for me!

[Anonymous]

My husband and I each take an hour or two each weekend day- usually for exercising. In before times, one of us may have had a longer thing like going to a sporting event, but that was not the norm.

[Anonymous]

We just have one kid and he’s just 14 months, but we primarily do divide and conquer on the weekends. Saturday, I sleep in, he takes the morning shift, puts baby down for his first nap. I take the second shift, from when he wakes up around noon till he goes down again around 3. Sunday, we do the opposite, I take the morning, he takes the afternoon. So, we each get a morning to sleep in and a big stretch of midday time to ourselves just about every weekend. Evenings between when he wakes at 4:30 and about 6:15 are a bit more loose - usually family time, sometimes we’ll mix it up. Then I take 6:15-7 with the baby while DH cooks, and then family dinner at 7, and we alternate on the bedtime routine.

Works great for us.

[Anonymous]

We have 3 kids. We both have a kid or 2.

DH and I both probably take a couple hours alone while other has all 3 kids.

[Anonymous]

3 kids here between 7 and 2. We each get 1/1.5 hours in the morning both Sat and Sun. The rest we are together as a family. Once birthday parties and activities start up again, we may divide and conquer a little, but we want to mostly spend time all together

[Anonymous]

Oldest is finishing up 5th, youngest finishing up 4th.

Because of the pandemic, we're obviously doing things very differently in terms of weekend schedules. We don't really plan out who is in charge when. And at their ages, they can spend a decent amount of time being independent. There are times DH and I are working and the kids are playing outside for three hours.

We spend most of our time together, because due to the pandemic we're not really going much of anywhere.

[Anonymous]

I work Saturdays. I let him sleep until I need to leave. I cook all week, he covers that night or orders in. I sleep in Sunday. We do something all together Sunday. We each take some private time during week - like to work out. One child no sport practice or classes on weekends yet.

[Anonymous]

DH is a morning person so I tend to sleep in a bit longer on the weekends (8-8:30) as opposed to getting up around 7-7:30 with the kids. In return, I try to keep the kids out his hair if he has a sports game or something he wants to watch in the afternoon. It’s never really been negotiated. I guess we both just recognize what the other needs.

We do specifically try to schedule at least 2-3 hours each over the weekend for some downtime where we can read, go for a walk, etc. alone. During the other hours we are usually doing stuff as a family or dividing and conquering while we try to get all the random weekend chores done.

Our kids are out of the nap stage (ages 4 and 6), so we don’t have that to work around anymore. And there are times they can entertain themselves for a while so we all just sort of do our own thing.

[Anonymous]

3 kids here and DH is a lawyer - I basically have them 100% of the time during the weekends and DH tries to join in whenever he isn't working. Kids are 1, 4 and 6. It is exhausting but getting easier each year thank god. I don't dread the weekends anymore, especially now that its nicer outside and we can go play at parks more. DH tries to have most of his work done by early afternoon so we can go on family walks, bike rides, dinner and dance parties with the kids.