When you’ve got little kids, weekends are not naturally relaxing — though they can feature relaxing times if you plan ahead and make some smart choices. But as kids get older, some more possibilities for crafting wonderful weekends open up.
Today’s episode of Best of Both Worlds is all about creating weekends you truly enjoy. We acknowledge the struggles of the infant/toddler years, and offer suggestions for that. We also talk about how we are planning our weekends these days, and what makes weekends feel “good” for us. From double-planning to anchor events to intentional downtime, there are lots of ideas for upgrading this little mini-vacation we get each week.
In the Q&A a listener asks if it is OK to hire childcare for a few hours on the weekend even if you work full time. We talk about how to do this strategically to maximize individual fun and couple time.
Please give the episode a listen! As always we welcome ratings and reviews. Our Best of Both Worlds Patreon community has had several good discussions going this past week on overnight childcare, and cleaning routines, among other things. Membership is $9/month. You can learn more here. We will be publishing our 2026 curriculum (for our Zoom meet-ups) soon.
I’m going to write my summary of how to love my Saturdays and Sundays below.
1. Planning for the Saturdays and the Sundays.
2. Ask oneself going into the 2 days, “What do I want to remember from this Saturday and Sunday?”
3. Plan in some me time.
4. A very short Saturday and Sunday to-do list.
I’d like you to tell me whether Mr. Cal Newport is one of those who believed that his spouse is the one who was going to keep their 2-year-old from sticking a fork in the eye, which enabled him to relax on Saturdays and Sundays, Ms. Laura Vanderkam. This way, I can assess how seriously I’ll take his suggestions for spending Saturdays and Sundays in the future. While I’m not currently caring for a 2-year-old, I’m quite sure I haven’t given anyone any advice on how to manage their time, either. I invite you to investigate whether I’ve ever advised anyone how to manage his/her time.
The following is not directly related to this episode, but I wonder if you know the incident that Lisa @ Lisa’s Yarns experienced in late September, which she wrote about in her blog post, “A blogging break”, Ms. Laura Vanderkam. When she’s recovering from this incident, her Saturdays and Sundays will not look quite the same as before for some time, but I do want to root for her here.
@Yukun – I didn’t have anyone in mind, the fork in the eye was just an example of the sort of disaster one has to worry about with toddlers! But I think all of us can make weekends better if we try.
That’s fair enough, Ms. Laura Vanderkam. Now, if I am actually spending time with a 1-year-old, I think there’s no doubt that I will need to plan meticulously for my days every single day to make most days reasonably tranquil. I also agree for sure that all of us can strive to make our Saturdays and Sundays work for us.