Thread: Fatherhood... did it alter your training..eating and life early on?

Originally Posted by RedKola

I know all situations are different but I don't see how having a kid could interfere with your gym life tbh. Surely the mother/family member could look after the kid by herself a few hours every few nights?

I don't know if this is true for everybody, certainly for the first few months of maternity leave my wife had, being at home with the newborn / young baby all day, meant having me come home after work, being able to take over, gave her a little time to feel human again.

I mean if you've already been away from home all day, then taking another couple of hours is a bit tough - especially for your first baby, because that's such a huge change.

I can't remember at what point I shifted my training from being early evening / after work, to during lunchtime, I suspect I gave up the gym for a few months with our first child (probably because I would have trained after work / early evening at that point), but at some point around then I did start training at lunchtime.

I've found with having kids, having an increasing amount of kit at home, helps for being able to - if nothing else - maintain a certain degree of fitness, during the busiest months / years. A heavy bag outside, some matting I can use on the patio for jumping rope / skipping, some dumbbells and a noddy ;-) barbell for some basics. I guess things you can do that keep your hand in whilst you're only getting limited or sporadic gym time.

If you normally train at home, then it's just going to come down to energy and finding the right time. The energy and motivation will likely take some working at, though ;-)

The only other advice I'd give about being a new dad - get involved, right from the off. There's nothing magic or difficult about dealing with babies - newborn, or older - it's just about doing, getting your hands dirty ;-) (probably quite literally) and not leaving things for mum to do. If you do as much as you can with changes, feeds, bottles, baths, and just giving baby's mum a break, it helps both of you - you being comfortable being able to fully look after the baby, and for the baby's mum, a little bit of breathing space to feel human again.

When I went back to work (think I got a couple of weeks paternity leave) I still did night-time feeds, and we'd alternate the most difficult feeds between us.

I think time spent right from the off, getting involved helps a great deal as kids grow up - because I think then there's no gap, there's no things that dad can't do as well - and kids go through various phases as they grow up, in terms of which gender parent they feel aligned to / drawn to, getting in that close time right from the off, means you are best placed to weather those storms, IMO.

I think one thing to expect, though, unless you are very motivated and have the time, and can easily compartmentalise things, is that your training will be affected, and probably quite significantly, if you are going to play an active role with the baby. I think it's rare, for the people who've been able to balance it so well - and I have a lot of admiration for that, because I recognise how difficult it is.