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On March 22nd, my wife and I welcomed our first child, a beautiful baby boy named Xavier Lopes. As amazing as Xavier is, there is a lot more work involved than I ever imagined. We received a lot of good advice from friends and family but there is no preparing you for those long sleepless nights. Waking up every 2 hours to feed your baby is no joke. How are you supposed to find time to do anything, especially getting a workout in. What I have found out these past few months is that you can’t. Between taking care of your baby, work and just life, working out is usually the activity that gets skipped over and before you know it, it’s been a few weeks since you’ve done anything resembling a workout.
Here are some suggestions that you can do when you can’t work out and when you finally get some time - some suggestions to get your activity level up.
Exercising is supposed to give you energy, improve self-confidence, decrease anxiety and increase strength and conditioning. But when you are walking around like a zombie none of this is going to happen when you are dead tired. Try to sleep whenever you can, don’t stress about not getting a workout in.
It will be of most importance that your diet is on point during this time. So not only are you tired, lazy and not working out but with the decreased activity level there is a good change that you will put on some unwanted pounds. There doesn’t need to be a complicated diet program, keep it simple. Eat real food, avoid artificial and/or processed foods and drink water.
When you are finally up to working out again, start slow and find time when you are with your baby to get started. Taking your baby out for a walk around the neighborhood, squats/split squats/lunges while holding our baby or even performing planks or pushups while playing with your infant all good ways to get some work in.
There doesn’t need to be this all or nothing attitude when it comes to working out. Performing some squats or pushups while you wait for the baby’s food to heat up can help you stay in shape especially if he’s eating every 2-3 hours.
A good workout doesn’t have to last over an hour. You can definitely get a good workout in 30 minutes or less. Be efficient with your workouts. Pick something you would like to work on and get it done.
If you hate to run, when you finally get some time for yourself to workout I doubt your motivation will be high to go outside and run a few miles. Whether its strength training, Yoga/Pilates, circuit or cardiovascular training (walking, running, dancing), working out outside or doing videos inside, do what you love.
This will help with the efficiency of your workouts. If you have something that you would like to improve on, perform exercises/activities that will help you achieve that goal. This past Saturday I participated in a Spartan Race. Having signed up for this race gave me that motivation I needed to get in some workouts throughout the week. Whether it was going for a run to build my cardiovascular endurance or strength training to help me get through certain obstacles, each workout had a specific goal.
There is no such thing as a normal routine anymore with a baby. When it comes to working out, you have to be flexible. Whether it is working out after the morning feeding or late at night after you put them down for the night, have your workout clothes on so at any moment to can get some reps in. And if you can’t get something in today, do not stress, get it done tomorrow and have fun with it.
In conclusion, sleep when you can, do what you can when you can, eat right, have fun and most importantly enjoy every moment you have with your newborn.
