How Parents Can Still Relax on Weekends

This is one of the most exhausting truths of parenting: If you’ve got little kids, weekends are not automatically relaxing.

It doesn’t matter how hard you worked all week (whether that’s paid work or taking care of your kids). On Saturday and Sunday, your toddler will still require constant supervision. No doubt he or she will do many adorable things amid throwing Cheerios on the floor and trying to leap down the stairs. But if you were hoping to lazily roll out of bed and spend hours lounging around with a book, well, that’s going to be hard to pull off.

But not impossible. There is one way that parents of young kids can relax, at least for a while. The key for those in two-parent families is to create a formal schedule of when each parent is fully in charge. Draw up this schedule, and you can enjoy real downtime. Maybe not a full day, but at least a few hours. If you are truly exhausted, this can feel like a life-changing gift.

They organize their weekends so that each parent is officially “on” for a certain number of hours. So, for instance, Molly might be in charge of the kids from wake-up time to 2 p.m., and her husband might be in charge from 2 p.m. to bedtime.

She notes that they often do things as a family, but one parent is officially “on” during these activities. So if they go watch a car race (a Beck family favorite) at 2 p.m., her husband would be the one making sure the boys don’t run off, making sure they have snacks, and taking them to the bathroom. If they went at noon, she would be the one doing that. The “off” parent can relax and watch the race, knowing the other parent is handling the situation.

The reason this is smart is that often parents don’t have an explicit conversation about the schedule. Then either one parent always feels in charge, which can lead to resentment, or both parents are half on, and neither is really getting a break. By drawing up an official schedule, both parents know they will get some time to relax. There can be less tension and more fun.

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