Am I being too demanding by asking for 1 hour a day to exercise?

[Dad12344444]

For context, I am a 35 year old guy with 3 kids, 9 7 and 6 weeks old and a golden retriever. I work a fairly high pressure job and earn in excess of 250k a year and I’m very proud of the life this enables my family and I to have.

I do almost all of the school runs for the eldest and all of their club pickup/drop offs (4 days a week). I do the 3am night feed for my youngest, so my wife can get a block of sleep.

In the house, Im almost exclusively responsible for the laundry, make the majority of kids’ dinners & bed times. I probably do 50% of the food shopping however, maybe 20% of my wife & I’s dinner.

In addition to this, we have a cleaner, a sleep nanny 2ce a week, a tutor for eldest & a dog walker which I pay for to try and provide support & free up some time. I am fully aware how privileged we are to be able to fund this help.

My wife is on maternity, however just prior to this she had recently qualified as a therapist and working 2 days a week. She suffered from post natal depression with both of our previous children and i has been something we have been really aware of this time & have tried to take into account ways to give her the best chance and space to mentally recover.

With all of this said, I feel like I need to be ‘on it’ most of the time, I don’t drink anymore as I found this was really contributing to this. It led to my mood being irritable and generally not as sharp.

The other thing that I find enables me to function to a high level is exercise. I recently made the ask of 1 hour a day to do this, I can do this in the middle of the day or night, i don’t mind getting up at 4 am or going during my workday.

However this request was met with: ‘I have carried this child for 10 months and now breast feeding and you are putting your own needs above me’. And ‘give me my time. If there is time for you great, but stop demanding it’.

This is the reason for my post. I feel like I go to the extreme to carve my wife out time, which she wastes, scrolling or lying on the sofa. So when I then try and take an hour that I work really hard to create, her response is ‘well i haven’t had any time’ and it becomes really difficult to swallow for me.

The logical side of me understands that her needs aren’t being met somehow and she has been though a rollercoaster of emotion. But I don’t know how to meet those needs to enable her to feel safe and happy.

I suppose I am asking to hear that I am not alone and that I am doing a good job. And words of wisdom from mothers as to where I am falling short as I’m not meeting my wife’s needs somewhere.

Thanks

I also was wondering what the wife does 🙈

What is this magical job which pays £250k, can be done on broken sleep, gives you time to do all the things you have listed AND fit in an hour of exercise a day?

I know lots of people earning this sort of amount and none of them manage to do this much. The job simply takes too much time for this to be possible. Either you have a magical unicorn job or you don’t do nearly as much for the kids/home as you’ve said.

Also who needs an hour a day to exercise? What’s wrong with a half hour run or 20 min HIIT?

If your wife is watching a newborn that is full on so it's good you're hands on. Can you split the hour into chunks? If you're proposing being out for an hour every evening that would be a key time for homework/clubs so I'd avoid that.

At the moment while your wife is on maternity leave having had a baby only 6 weeks ago, I think YABU - she needs to recover and if she is breastfeeding that can also be incredibly time-consuming and tiring. Later when she's back at work part-time and home with the kids the rest of the time, I can imagine the division of labour looking a bit different.

Do you do as much as you list in the OP when it's not the school holidays, and when your wife hasn't just had a baby? My partner and I both work full time with one DC, and I do most of what you list around the house (except only 50% of bedtimes, but closer to 50% of cooking - though DC eats the same as we do). She does similar. We would both love to have an hour each a day to exercise, as we did before DC, but there just isn't time to make that happen. We do our best to try and fit in time for both of us to exercise but we're lucky if we get half that much each. As your wife only works part-time, there might be less pressure on both of your time when she's recovered from the birth and the baby is older - but for now I think you're being unrealistic to think an hour a day for you won't impact on the rest of the family.

Exercise isn’t a privilege or a treat the way some people on here seem to think it is

it is ESSENTIAL, we all NEED to do it. For our physical and mental health

so therefore YANBU

Just take the hour at 4am or whenever people are asleep, as you suggested

So the woman with the newborn wastes her time lying on the sofa scrolling. I think you might find she’s fucking knackered.

Why not do 40 mins for now.

Why do people think an hour a day is too much? There's a nanny, a cleaner and a bloody dog walker! If I paid for all these things I would literally have nothing to get out of bed for in the morning!
Quite frankly think this might be the problem, the woman has nothing to do because it's all being done already.
Might not be legit that the husband does as much as her says (can't really see how it's possible to do so much when paying a nanny, cleaner and a dog walker tbh), and mine certainly seems to think he does more than he actually does, but even so, this is absolutely ridiculous that people are telling this man that he can't have an hour a day. Pig sick of the hate against anyone with a penis these days.

Well there's no way this is real, but just in case anyone is reading and thinks it is - no of course you can't have an hour to exercise when you have a 6 week old baby. Don't be ridiculous.

What do you do that pays you a QUARTER OF A MILLION a year then @Dad12344444 ??? Are you one of the main stars in Coronation Street?

I think you are doing more than enough and should be able to carve out time to exercise. My kids are older than yours but my husband does exercise most days. He sometimes gets up at 5am on a Sunday to cycle in the garage and cycles, gyms or runs once the kids are in bed or at lunchtime.

😂 OH my ribs!!! 😆

LTB

If this is real... do it on your lunch hour and don't tell her.

But also, I have a 7 week old right now and I'm exhausted. I also sit on the couch and scroll a lot, because once the baby's sorted and the jobs are done I can't muster the energy to do much else.

I think an hour everyday when you have a newborn is unreasonable. Having a newborn and breastfeeding are exhausting. Have you considered a compromise? Maybe you could take turns to have an hour on alternate days. Also have you considered HIIT? You could do HIIT sessions without it impacting the family.

6 weeks is very early.
Laying on the sofa scrolling might be the break she needs / all she feels up to physically. I just needed time to "switch off" at that point - I played a lot of sudoku on my phone! A bubble bath or something would have probably been more productive but running it / getting dry and dressed after felt like a herculean effort.

Could you combine exercise with (some of) the kids?
Baby in a sling & go for a brisk walk?
Take the older ones for a run around the park / to kick a ball around/ swimming?

Sounds like your wife gets plenty of support. I would have your hour of excerise and offer her an hour off, in exchange.

1hr a day when you’ve got all that extra help and support isn’t asking for much. Sounds like you do a fair bit around the house / parenting given you’ve probably got a very busy job. Exercise does improve mental health and you will be able to give so much more if you’ve had your exercise ‘fix’.

Any chance of building the exercise into your commute? DH does part of his London journey by public transport, the rest by running or cycling. On wfh days he loses his commute time in the morning to go running.

Having three small children is stressful. Exercise will help alleviate that stress. Now to work out how best to fit it in, given new parents always need more than 24 hours in a day.

I don't see why not if you also have a dog walker, cleaner, nanny and do what he says he does tbh.

There really is something wrong with todays society and expectations when someone with dc can't even have one measly hour a day to themselves. Even if the op isnt true its quite depressing to see how many people think parents should grind themselves into nothing after having dc. Obviously the newborn stage is tough but even so. In previous generations people did have time, to go to the pub, around to friends for coffees or whatever. I remember my mum exercising daily, going to aunts for coffees, going to the pub and doing night classes and she worked full time. People need to slow down, drop some of the dc activities. Its not good for them to see parents never setting boundaries or meeting their own needs. Its not good for them to never have any downtime and never have to go without for a second while parents are busy. We have flipped too far into putting dc first to the point of indulgence and an individualistic society where parents are run ragged doing everything by themselves, parents are against each other feeling resentful of each other and mental health problems are through the roof. No wonder.

If it is on the middle of your day, why do you ask your wife? Unless it means working an hour longer…
otherwise - a whole hour every day where you are out and she is in with the children, on top of the time she already has the children, can feel a lot.

It's summer hols and you have a 6 wk old baby. She's probably knackered.

Aside from that I fail to see how she is stopping you going during your lunch hour as suggested.

Cycle for an hour with the older DC and the dog. It'll not be the most you could do but reasonable in the circumstances.

Devoting an hour a day to something was for your pre-family self and will be for you when your youngest grows up. These are the sacrifices you make as a parent.