Finding Time To Exercise When There Is No Time | Laura Jawad

In my line of work, I run across a lot of lists and blogs offering advice that aim to help busy parents find time to exercise. Because those articles are often missing a critical element: the cold hard truth about life with small children. Life with small children is FULL. It’s overflowing. Finding time to exercise when you’ve got a baby or a gaggle of children underfoot is not as simple as just scheduling “me time” in your calendar.

Here I offer my own set of tips on how to find time to workout with a baby around, and I’m spinning them in the context of a little reality check.

I’m going to be real with you. There’s no magic pill here. I can’t pull time out of a hat for you (I wish!). Yes, I will offer you a few tips- but before we get there, I will also offer you a simple truth: when you taking care of juggling a newborn or small child, whether that’s your full-time job or you have another full-time job, you are going to have to choose a few priorities and let a lot of shit go. If you are finding it challenging to make time to exercise, it’s because you legitimately have a lot of competing priorities.

Personal anecdote: Working out is a high priority for me. So is cloth diapering my baby’s sweet little tush. So is spending QT with my family. All of these things take a lot of time. If you come to my house, the first thing you’ll notice is that it looks like a herd of elephants live here. Second thing you might notice is that it looks like that herd of elephants doesn’t fold laundry (it doesn’t). Our house isn’t tidy on the regular and I don’t fold laundry. Except for those diapers. That my friends, is my secret sauce.

I hope this isn’t the case always. I would like both a tidy house AND be able to swing my heavy-ass kettlebell, but right now, those are my choices. I’ve come to terms with my priorities, and I let a lot of other stuff go.

Second truth: Your workouts will have to be flexible. Yesterday, I did half my workout at 4 pm. Half-way through my second superset my youngest hurled applesauce all over the living room. Window lost. 9 pm, I finally had time to finish. Ideal? No. For everyone? No. But finishing that workout was a priority for me, so that’s how I did it.

Now here’s my third (and final) truth. You don’t HAVE to make time to work out yet. A few years from now, when you look back, it won’t matter if you started exercising at 6 weeks postpartum, 6 months postpartum or a year postpartum. Truly. Unless maybe exercise is part of your job.

Take the time you need to rest and recover after having your baby. Bond with your kids. Get your ducks in a row. Decide if adding an exercise routine to your day right now is going to add to your quality of life or detract from it. If it’s not an add, it’s not the right time. When it is, then this advice applies to you.

When you are truly, truly ready to start exercising again, check out the following tips to help figure out how the heck to add yet another thing to your busy day.