they don't go to bed? I work in my garage workshop from bedtime to midnight or one a few times a week. I've turned out way more finished projects than I ever did before the pandemic.
Myself, between WFH, my wife and my 18mo, I get about 1-2 hours of personal time after they both go to sleep, and half of those times I'm too tired by then to work on anything.
Maybe if they were a bit older?
We've tried extensive bedtime rituals, tried tiring them out by going to the forest and making em run etc, but we really can't get our 1,5 year old to need more sleep than we do.
Our 4 year old tends to sleep an hour longer in the morning, but the little one is really killing us from a freetime standpoint with his 7 hours a day of sleep he needs (5-6 at night, 30m-1h a day).
Naturally this is driving my wife and me insane.
Daycares were open, but we've decided to take our older one out to reduce his contacts and give the daycare some breathing room as they are also at their limits because they've had staff quitting because they didn't want to risk getting infected for this little money (understandable imo).
The whole situation for parents is absolutely disastrous, my wife should have been looking for a new job already, but it was simply not realistic for her to start working a new job with me retaining mine and the kids at home.
As a young family in a high cost-of-living metro-area we had to decide to move as we can't afford to live here while giving our kids the space at home they need without support that allows us to work effectively.
That said, I’ve zero idea how to switch sleep modes, sorry.
Our lifesaver was “healthy sleep habits, happy child” by Mark Weissbluth.
Even taking out my 2h45m (total) commute time, I'm more tired than ever. I'm sure a lot of mine is due to stress and low level depression - I have a lot on now but so does pretty much every person you interact with.
Before lockdown I was starting to get some arduino and electronics projects in during my commute, but I've barely even had time to watch videos of other people's projects.
I just remind myself that in time this will change, that I'll find time again for myself. Over Christmas I've been trying to go for a walk alone each day and also to step away from my phone more. But it is hard - but that is OK.
I assume you'd go out and meet some people? Sports? Other out-of-house activities, that's all time you can use as "you" time now.
Two small kids here, I’ll try to explain my experience.
First off, there was very little time for socializing before the pandemic. One evening a week to grab dinner with a friend was the gold standard and achieved at the cost of putting more childcare on my partner. My partner also got an evening a week for friends, so I’d have extra kid duty that day.
The pandemic has made life harder for me and my family in many ways. School closure is the obvious one. My oldest had about a year in preschool before the shutdown. They miss their school community and have backslid developmentally. My partner was already a full-time care giver, but making preschool means the younger child gets very little one on one attention, while the older one loses socializing experience.
We also lost secondary childcare. No more babysitters for date night. No more weekend play dates. Much more limited access to grandparents and other relatives.
And then there’s all the marginal stuff that surprised us. We used to take the kids to the grocery store. You could kill an hour and show them the world a bit. No longer. We used to take them to the playground and encourage them to play with other kids. Now best case my kid wears a mask and plays at a distance with a small number of kids.
I’ve found that we’re losing a lot more time to home maintenance. The kids use the house all day, we have to clean it up after they go to bed. I’m trying to get the kids to help more with that, and to move more cleaning before bedtime.
All that taken into account, I find that I can get maybe 90 minutes per day, after the kids are done, that I have some personal choice about. I can spend that time with my partner, pushing work forwards, larger chores/home projects, professional development, hobbies, socializing, or resting. There is no other time for those things.
In practice I’ve found myself avoiding large hobby and professional development projects. I love them too much. I get very frustrated when they’re started but I can’t devote any time to them. I love hitting flow State on a project, and it’s simply not possible at this point in my life.
I don’t expect this to last forever. The pandemic will break eventually. The kids will get older and need less intense supervision. I do my best to be present and focused on them during these early years. Everyone tells me they go by fast in retrospect.
PS this comment took me over two hours to write because of these circumstances