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

YANBU. Everyone needs some time to themselves. You already both get a lot of help with cleaners, sleep nannies and dog walkers. Your wife spends her free time on her phone. You spend yours exercising although why you can't kill 2 birds with one stone and walk your own dog I don't know.

Reading things like this, I wonder how I managed as a single mum, breastfeeding and running a business 3 weeks post partum . Oh and I’d had a section.

Can you suggest every other day or 2/3 times a week while little one is 6 weeks with the aim to make this 1 hr a day in the future? Start low and build it up?

Did you have time for some exercise before the last baby arrived? If you did then maybe this is just the settling down period post partum.
If you didn’t then you need to able to talk to your wife to apportion child free time for each of you.
When the night nanny is on, could you not get your hour in early before the mayhem of getting everyone up and breakfasted and out?

I remember my mum exercising daily, going to aunts for coffees, going to the pub and doing night classes and she worked full time.

Think the key point here is you remember it - meaning you were old enough to remember that kind of thing. With the 6-week-old baby, that'll be why everyone is tired and short of time. It'll get easier later (I hope!).

Would you be proud of a life that wasn't well funded? I am sure you would be, but comments like that remind me of those news items where the men who lose money/have a setback, take a shotgun to the whole family

If this is for real, then you are not being unreasonable at all.
On account of being a man, however, I doubt you'll get the best reception on here.

yeah - I cant see anything wrong with this post, seems completely genuine to me

I think you are expecting too much too soon. She has a 6 week old baby. Her entire existence right now revolves around that 6 week old baby and the recovery of her own physical and mental health. Even as an experienced father, I don't think you have any idea how all consuming this time is for a post partum mother with a newborn. I don't actually see that your paid help is entirely as helpful as you think it is either, as presumably your wife still has to receive these people into her home at a time when she may bearly be able to get out of bed and shower without feeling overwhelmed. I don't doubt your exercise is important to you, but it comes across as a very selfish need when nothing about your wife's body or needs feels her own at the moment. How about shelving the exercise for a few months and focus exclusively on your wife and children? This phase won't last forever.

If the OP post is true - which I very much doubt it is - then YANBU.

Babies sleep like 15 hours a day.

@Mutabiliss

what’s ridiculous about it?! One hour out of 24?
you don’t have to be become a martyr when you become a parent

@Dad12344444 One hour of exercise is nothing!
You are completely reasonable to do this- I'd not ask, I'd just bloody do it, especially if you don't mind getting up at 4am.

I wonder if your wife is a teeny bit spoiled? Her demands sound very unreasonable.

Many woman manage with far less help, and don't throw out the ''I'm breastfeeding/I carried your child/ren''

She sounds very lucky.

Enjoy your exercise without guilt.

@stargirl1701

nah they are sacrifices that some parents CHOOSE to make. It’s not a compulsory part of being a parent.

Of course he can
My friend had an agreement with his wife that he would do the feed/wake up which usually happened around 4am, and he would do that quietly then let himself out for an hour run and come back
She got to sleep through the wake up and he got to exercise. He still gets up between 3 and 4am even now the children are older

If it is real- Clone him, pronto!
🤣

IF you are genuinely doing all of that, then I think an hour for yourself is fine. The big question is IF. I have never met a man who has a realistic view of the contribution he makes to family life. I have even met some who contribute more than they think the do....

Sorry but you absolutely are entitled to an hour a day of me time and you are offering to do it at night when everyone is asleep or instead of a lunch hour. You shouldn't”t have to do this. You are doing way better than most men and dads and I suspect if the roles were reversed and you were the wife the responses would be a million times different - but that is the hypocrisy of man hating mumsnet. Carve the time out for yourself. It is not too much to ask and given all the extra help you have bought in for your wife she has a much easier time than the vast majority of women.

I don't understand the issue. If you get up at 4am - it doesn't eat into 'her time' does it? And if you go on your lunch hour?

I have to say (and I know you've written only your perspective), it sounds like she has a lot of help and resents you taking any time for yourself, like you 'owe' her because she carried your children? Even if that time doesn't directly take away from her own?

When I had two small DDs my exercise involved them, or after they had gone to bed, before they got up, or when I went back to work I'd go to the gym at lunch time and/or cycle to work and go running at the weekend- more like when they were 9 months old plus though for the running/gym.

DH doesn't really do any sport or go the gym anyway and his only exercise is walking on his commute, but he could have done like me - nothing to stop him going to the gym before work or at lunch time or doing stuff at the weekend.

When at least one of them was a newborn baby though it was very much all hands on deck in the evenings and there was very little thought of exercise for either of us.

When the older 2 are asleep, put baby in a running pram and do that. You say you earn a lot of money so you do have options.

I mean lets face it, the chances of you having such a successful and high pressure and high earning career while doing all the cooking, bedtimes, laundry, all school pick ups/ drop offs, club drop offs etc and a night feed every night is just wildly unlikely.

It sounds like you're doing your fair share, which is great. From your wife's perspective though, she doesn't get any child free time and 6 weeks in she could still be feeling overwhelmed and touched out, and the prospect of you being out the house for an additional hour a day might be hard to deal with.
If you can fit it into your lunch break then fair enough, but otherwise an hour a day is quite a big chunk of time when you consider you'll need time to get showered again afterwards/any travelling to a gym that might be involved. I agree with a previous poster that working up to that is a good compromise, as well as being aware that some days it might just not work out that way.