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For the dads that exercise, what’s your preferred time? (self.dadvice)

submitted 10 months ago by orangeNgreen to c/dadvice

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When I had one kid, once she started sleeping through the night fairly regularly, I woke up at 5am a few days a week to exercise before work. With two kids, that seems harder to do. Every time I set an early alarm, at least one kid either has trouble sleeping through the night or wakes up very early, making an early workout difficult or impossible.

My own personal options seem to be to either wake up even earlier and accept the fact that I’m going to be very tired, or try to stay up later and exercise after the kids go to bed (usually around 8:30pm, with any luck…).

So, to the dads that find time to exercise, when do you do it?

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[–] Khanzarate 7 points 10 months ago

This does depend on your kid, but I find it's best to just allow them to be awake while you exercise. The perfect kid will wanna do it with you, but a good amount will be good doing something different in the same room. If they're old enough for screen time, that's another good time, or a time where they're playing together.

Again, depending on age, this isn't a sleep issue it's a boundaries issue. My kid isn't perfect, but once I set a boundary that this time is me time, and follow up by redirecting them to specific toys (you can play with your pikachu or you have some hot wheels, or you could use your magnatiles), my kid got the hang of boundaries pretty quickly. That doesn't mean they don't interrupt me, but it means I can redirect them again verbally without actually interrupting what I'm doing.

If they take a while to eat a meal, getting them set up with options that let them refill their own plate is another great option. mine will happily graze on raspberries and I have no issues with them eating the whole tray if they're hungry, so it gives me a chance to set them somewhere where I can keep an eye on them but they're occupied, and I can do my things.

None of these methods are all that reliable individually but in combo I could exercise most days for at least a half hour at some point in the day.