5 Tips for Working Out with a Baby

Your alarm is set for 4:30 AM. Workout clothes have been laid out. Pre-workout is in the kitchen, ready to be mixed. No more excuses. Morning workouts start TODAY!

Then it happens…softly at first…leading into full-blown wails.

How do babies know when we’re trying to do something good for ourselves? Do they come equipped with a remote sensor? Mom wants to relieve stress and get her endorphins flowing. ATTACK!

The easy thing to do is say, “Screw it,” grab the baby, and hit snooze. But there’s nothing easy about being a parent, so here are five tips for working out with a baby.

1. Expect your baby to wake up

We’ve all played the game “In a Perfect World…” when scheduling our days. In a Perfect World, we’d get up as soon as the alarm went off, and our morning would look like this:

4:30 AM: Wake up, eat a banana, chug pre-workout

5:00 AM: Workout

6:00 AM: Drink post-workout, shower, get ready

7:00 AM: Eat prepped breakfast

7:15 AM: Leave for work

Wouldn’t it be magnificent if that ever worked?? Learn to pad your schedule. Expect something…or two things…to pop up if you want to keep working out with a baby.

2. Have food on hand

No one likes waking up early (and if you do…why??). Even worse though, is waking up early for no reason because you let your little bundle of joy be a Squat Block.

Solution: stuff that baby’s face! If you breastfeed, take 20 minutes to top ‘er off. If you formula feed, have a bottle ready. If you baby-led wean…you get the drift.

3. Cry it out

Before you attack me for being a mean, insensitive mom, hear me out. Some babies are light sleepers. They hear your alarm, your grunts as you slowly roll out of bed, and the defeated sigh as you realize waking up at this hour is your new norm…

…that doesn’t mean they’re actually ready to wake up. It just means they’re startled. Check the diaper. Make sure the baby isn’t in peril. Leave the room.

Now obviously this doesn’t always work. Some babies fall back to sleep in a few minutes. Others are bound and determined to make their dissatisfaction known. You won’t know which is the case with YOUR baby until you try, and it may change from day to day.

4. Enlist help

If available, work with your spouse or partner to be on baby duty while you workout. In lieu of another adult, bribe an older kid during the school year. it’s a great way for them to bond with a younger sibling and earn brownie points with mom and/or dad.

5. Let baby join

My children are all giants, and as such, are perfect weights for workouts. You might be able to squat the big ‘bells, but you haven’t lived until you’ve squatted a small child.

There are, of course, moves you shouldn’t do while holding a child (just say no to burpees with a baby!), but in a pinch, you can modify most of them.

What are some of the ways YOU combat your baby’s inherent need to love on your sweaty self?