It is our first child (8.5 months now) and I am trying to foresee what lies ahead, and if life is really going to be miserable from now on because we won't be able to do grown up things by ourselves for a very very long time until LO start going out on his own with his friends!
Tell me:
1. How old is your child;
2. What do you do over the weekend as a family? (or any suggestions instead of always doing things that only the children enjoy)
3. Are you and your husband happy?
admin / wonderful grape / 20724 posts
I think once our kids are both 2 or so, we will start ditching them more to do fun things... both for the evening (e.g. babysitters) or for the week/weekend (hello, Grandma!).
For now, we do kid-centric stuff but it's actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be!
Still though, I do miss watching movies whenever I wanted. I really want to see Looper in the theaters, but don't see that happening unless I do it during the week... hmm, maybe I'll do that actually!
GOLD / wonderful grape / 20289 posts
1. How old is your child; Almost 15 months
2. What do you do over the weekend as a family? All sorts of things! This weekend we're going camping. We'll go swimming, either in my mom's pool or break out the kiddie pool. Picnics in the park and play on the playground/swings. Go to the beach. Aquarium. Friday nights there are usually events in the community like food truck rallys, arts and crafts, live music, etc. And we have our families here so we'll usually spend time with them. We have a dog so we like to spend a lot of time outside so we can bring him 
3. Are you and your husband happy? Very happy! I do miss going to movies, plays, and things like that.... but for the most part I enjoy doing the things that we do and I wouldn't give it up for anything. We're actually planning our first one night baby free vacation soon and I couldn't pick anything that I wanted to do because everything that I want to do I want my LO to be there!
honeydew / 7444 posts
1. LO is 6 months old
2. We will go out for brunch/lunch with friends or just as a family, walk around the farmer's market/city/parks, etc.
3. Yes, we're happy. We have to be a little more aware of the time to avoid any meltdowns caused by overtiredness/overstimulation but we enjoy our time as a family.
We are planning on having someone watch LO after she goes to sleep so we can slip out for a couple of hours and enjoy some alone time.
What do you guys do now?
nectarine / 2964 posts
@caffeinated: For me:
1. LO is 8.5 months old;
2. We used to be more flexible when he nurses everywhere, able to nap everywhere, and didn't need to do solids. We'd go out for brunch / lunch and go to the mall while he naps and life was OK! It started getting more difficult when he gets older and would wake up even if the car engine stops. So now our weekend flow is strictly dictated by his nap schedule.
There are occasions we'd go to the aquarium, and last weekend we went to the pumpkin patch farm. It was fun but there's only so many times we can go to the aquarium and farm. we are not huge outdoor people and we don't really typically go outdoors every weekend. Nowadays we just run errands and have to plan around his schedule. It gets pretty tiring and annoying.... and we don't have family here so no one is available to watch him....
Our weekend (if no special events) goes like this:
9:30am - 10:30am NAP at home
10:45-11 Bottle
11am go out to eat lunch / brunch
noon maybe go to the baby store, or ikea, or mall, or grocery, or whatever
1:30pm bottle then have to get back to the car so he naps... but he usually would wake in 30 minutes unless we keep driving... so we can't really go anywhere, and we pretty much have to go home 
after that we'd probably stuck at home until after his 4pm bottle, then we'll go out and eat dinner while giving him solids. We'd head back home at 6:30 to begin his bedtime routine.....
3. As you can tell it is very boring, and it is taking a toll on us. I think being dictated by his nap schedule is the problem.... I miss being able to go places spontaneously without having to worry if he's going to be able to nap! It would be nice if we can stay out from 11am till 6:30pm for once. Argh!
For me I miss going to movies and museums. I thought about taking him to the art museum but he started enjoying screaming recently so may not be a good idea.
GOLD / wonderful grape / 20289 posts
@irene: After my LO turned one she went down to one nap. Now we can do things in the morning, go to lunch, and then we're home by 1:30 and she naps then. She wakes up by 3:30-4, we can go out to dinner, we usually like to go for a walk or something after dinner, and then we're home by 8:00 bath time. It's much easier once they drop that nap and get down to one!
squash / 13199 posts
LO is 6 months old in a few days
On the weekends we go to church, we go for walks in the park, go shopping and sometimes lie in bed together for long naps.
honeydew / 7444 posts
@irene: i know what you mean about saying good-bye to spontaneity! i'm always scheduling things around LO's nap schedule, and DH seems to forget about awake times. Have you tried using a carrier when out? LO doesn't fall asleep as easily as she used to when she was younger, but i find that we can extend outings if i put her in the ergo.
apricot / 370 posts
LO is now a little over 2 years old.
@caffeinated: yes we used our baby carrier since LO had been 2 months old, and that allowed us to do all sorts of things easily without lugging the stroller around, and she could nap in that thing.
@irene: even though we could do more things with her, for her, when she was down to 1 nap at about a year old, I thought we could spontaneously do more things with her when she was a baby, since we’d just put her in the baby carrier a lot of the times. Now she wants to walk or not be stuck in a stroller or shopping cart, so she’s inserting her independence and her needs are coming out more. There have been a few times we don’t stick to the schedule, and she would go without a nap or we’d stay out late, and granted it’s a hit or miss, sometimes she was just fine, and others yes, she would start getting really fussy and irritated.
Of course, with a young kid in the picture, we try to find things the whole family can do like the park, the pool, walks, the beach, friends homes, play dates, street fairs, and will have to save those fancy dinners and movies for those few date nights we manage to do.
my husband and I are happy. One of my favorite things to do with her is when the 3 of us are walking somewhere, and she’s in the middle holding both of our hands, it’s a thought and a memory I know I will love forever. I certainly miss the independence of those days when we could go out all day, eat at all kinds of different places, stay out late, go on vacations and just worry about myself, but I do remind myself too, and it’s a little cliché-ish but it is true, she won’t be so little forever, and to cherish these moments, take a step back every so often, breathe, and take in the moment of having your little one.
grapefruit / 4120 posts
1. How old is your child; 20 months and a newborn
2. What do you do over the weekend as a family? (or any suggestions instead of always doing things that only the children enjoy) we are out all weekend! Out to eat, mall crawling, errands, supermarket, church. Since our older child was a month old we've been on the move! I have breastfed EVERYWHERE.
3. Are you and your husband happy? yes, and I think it helps to take full advantage of our weekends together. It helps that neither of us has some all-consuming hobby that takes up tons of time.
clementine / 959 posts
1. Almost 6 months
2. We like to all go to the farmers market (LO loves people watching!), run errands (like Home Depot), go for walks, or just relax around the house. LO goes to bed at 7pm so sometimes we have the babysitter or DHs parents come over after he goes to bed so we can go out on a date or get dinner with friends. We also like to have people over to our house since then we don't have to worry about LOs sleep schedule.
3. We are totally homebodies so we are happy. We like just hanging around the house on weekends with the occasional social outing.
blogger / pomelo / 5400 posts
I agree with @artbee that it's easier to get out and do family activities once your kid is on one nap. We transitioned LO to one nap about a month ago, and now we have long stretches in the morning and afternoon. The flip side of the coin is that he usually needs to be in bed earlier (7 or so). Also, it's not worth it to travel for short periods of time because I don't want to mess with his sleep routine since he's such a sleep champ now. I totally get what you say about it being easier when they're little. He went everywhere with us then and would just snooze wherever!
I think it's also easier once LO is weaned, or at least down to just morning/night feeds, which he was around a year.
1. Almost 16 months
2. Pretty much everything. Ditto the farmers' market -- it's downtown and everyone has their kids and it's just a lot of fun to browse and let him run around and point to stuff and pet the dogs and such. Brunch as a family (sometimes we pack stuff for LO, sometimes not if it's a place that has a lot of good fruit and things). Festivals/fairs are fun. Mall is always good because he can burn energy in the play area or just walking around. Sometimes we go on long walks at one of the local greenways or my husband takes LO on a bike ride with one of those little trailers. Bookstore. Park/playground. Errands like Target/grocery, etc. Zoo. Kids' museum. In warmer weather, pool/splashpads. We're going to a big farm with a pumpkin patch and all that soon -- I'm so looking forward to it!
3. For the most part. There are some things I definitely miss (long shopping trips, leisurely dinners, movies, spontaneous travel) but we have started hiring a sitter and we're starting to get "date night" here or there, and it's very good for us.
cantaloupe / 6751 posts
1. How old is your child: she's 8 months old
2. What do you do over the weekend as a family?: everything! We run errands, shop, visit with friends or family, go on walks with the dogs, check out new restaurants, etc. I nurse everywhere and wear L as much as possible so she can nap. If she falls asleep in the carrier while we are out, we typically just walk around and continue browsing or something so she can sleep. It's getting a little tricky with feeding since we just started feeding L solids three times a day, but I pack her food in little containers with ice packs so they will stay cold (or I'll feed her Earths Best pouches).
3. Are you and your husband happy?: VERY!! We were actually just saying how this is the happiest we've ever been I feel like she constantly makes us laugh and she's definitely the center of everything. She makes our family feel complete.
pear / 1837 posts
1. LO is now 18 months
2. It's definitely true that our lives are very baby-centric. We don't go out to fancy restaurants (unless we have a babysitter), we don't really see movies, etc. But we're lucky for a couple reasons- first, all our friends are either parents of young kids, or enjoy hanging out with young kids. We go out with friends more now than we ever did before kids, and we all kind of help out with all the kids, which in turn gives people some time off too. You kind of just wrangle the child nearest to you when they need wrangling :). Secondly, we live near a big city with lots of cool stuff to do, much of which is baby-friendly without being lame. So we go to the zoo, and farmers markets, and various festivals, and museums, and the aquarium, and we take long walks in interesting areas, and we go on hikes and bike rides (with special carriers for bebe).
Also- and this is huge for us- DH and I each get a significant amount of baby-free time. Usually that's because we switch off with LO... maybe on Saturday we all hang out in the morning and through naptime, and then in the afternoon, I go out and do whatever I want/need to do while DH hangs out with LO, and then on Sunday we switch. It's pretty integral to our sanity.
3. Yeah, we're good. I mean, it's not sunshine and rainbows all the time in our lives or our relationship or our jobs, or anything, but I'd say we're just as happy, if not happier, than we were pre-baby.
Seriously, the friends-with-kids thing is huge. If the friends you have don't have kids, or aren't into doing kid-things, I definitely encourage you to find some additional friends that you can have full family hang out time with. Even if it's just getting together for dinner or to watch a football game, I think it makes a big difference to all of our moods that we have so much interaction with other people.
blogger / watermelon / 14218 posts
1. How old is your child: 3 months and 2 years, 10 months
2. What do you do over the weekend as a family? We're always on the lookout for local activities for families (our town does a lot of things like fall festivals, flag day parades, etc). But if there's nothing exciting going on, we'll usually plan a day (or morning or afternoon, since Wagon Jr. is still napping once a day) at the outdoor mall near us, a park, a big shopping mall nearby, the outlet mall, etc. We also go to church on sundays.
3. Are you and your husband happy? Overall, yes! These activities and outings definitely stress us out and tire us out, but there are so many moments where we look at each other and say "this is nice." and even though we're EXHAUSTED at the end of the day, after the kids are in bed, we're really happy with how the day went. This didn't happen much when it was just Wagon Jr. (we'd have a lot of disastrous outings) but now that we have 2 kids and Wagon Jr. is a little older and able to do more things (REALLY have fun at these things rather than just observe), it's a lot more fun.
nectarine / 2964 posts
@Lozza: Thanks for the idea of designated mommy-time and daddy-time! I mentioned it to my husband and he seems to be thrilled with it. I think he was upset at me because there are times I'd leave LO with him and sneak out to do other stuff (well, not really personal stuff, but I'd go downstairs and wash bottles and he'd be upset because he thought he was just "visiting" and ended up being tied down to have to play with LO until I get back!)
So how long is your shift and how long is your husband's shift on the weekend? Do you mind sharing your routine so I can follow? 
I also agree having friends with kids are huge...! but unfortunately we don't really have that. I mean we do, but only the moms and babies hang out, and the dads usually don't want to join . I don't know how and where to make friends that we can all hang out with the whole family though....
pear / 1837 posts
@irene: Having alone time keeps us sane
The amount of time varies- sometimes it's the period from shortly after he wakes up from his nap through dinnertime, so that might be about four hours. Or sometimes if LO wakes up early and I'm feeling beat, DH will take LO for a couple hours while I sleep a little longer (we're talking like 5:30-7:30 AM), and then we'll switch and DH will go nap for a couple hours while I hang out with LO, and then I'll wake up DH around 9:30 and we'll go out for a couple hours before naptime. But there are also plenty of times when one of us goes out for dinner with friends and stays out late, while the other does dinner and bedtime for LO. (We actually split up a lot, now that I think about it). I know that I really feel recharged after an evening out with friends, and I think DH does as well.
I also think that I can get frustrated if I think that DH is hanging out with LO and that I have some time to do stuff (whether that's at home or somewhere else), and then LO comes and finds me, or I end up with LO, and I do a lot better if I'm able to know in advance when I'm "in charge" of LO, and when DH is "in charge."
Re: hanging out with whole families, we find that it's fun to add friends to stuff you were going to do as a family anyhow. Like if we were going to have to go to the mall to buy shoes, we'll check in with friends and see if anyone else wants to go too, and it's just more fun to do it with a group. So it's less like "adding the dads to kid time" and more like "adding friends to routine family stuff." Does that make sense?
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