9pm til whenever I choose to go to bed. Life with young kids is beyond exhausting. DH and I thought about having another but don’t think we can do this AGAIN.

We have two under 4. We started carving out actual alone/free time early into the pandemic because we realized we would go insane without it. During the week we equally divide the time between when the first kid wakes up and 8 am. If they sleep to 7, we each get 30 minutes. If they wake at 6, we get an hour. We tend to alternate who has to do the early shift but will flex if one of us slept poorly or was up late working. Usually I drink coffee and scroll my phone in that time, and will get dressed and put makeup on if I have time (but I’d rather do that with the kids around since so I don’t waste my alone time getting ready). After bedtime (6-7 depending on kid) we spend about 30 min cleaning/picking up. Then 8ish to 10 is personal time. Sometimes it gets spent working, or opening boxes or doing a random house project, but a lot of the time I get to read or have a glass of wine in total silence.

Then on weekends we recently got into a good routine. We each get a day to sleep in until 9. Then the parent who has been up gets 1 hour alone. I usually get up and read, take a bath, go on a walk, drink coffee. My husband would rather stay up late the night before watching a movie and then sleep till 8:59. We also take an hour each during the kids quiet time to work out on Saturdays and Sundays. If I don’t feel like it I just take the hour to read or check in with friends guilt free. It has gone so far in improving our sanity.