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

Some super helpful opinions, thank you.

Some odd ones thinking I would lie on an anonymous post 🤣.

for further context, I work from home, so nipping out is always noticed. I do run with the dog also, and the kids on bikes, however I want to do an IronMan next year so need to swim and bike (which I have in the garden).

My wife is also fantastic, she isn’t lazy at all, is just understandably tired, but doesn’t feel like her ‘me’ time is ‘me’ time if she isn’t out doing something.

Anyway; thank you all.

That's a bit of a reach!
In many parts of London £250k is small beer, Bonuses alone can be more than this.

I'd have a lot of staff if I earned £250k/year

This. Because having baby is hard, exhausting, and made bloody harder after a section, but the perceived amount of recovery time is unrealistic. The world doesn't stop spinning.
Hands up to you, well done for getting on with what you needed to do.

Is this going to be picked up by the Daily Mail, it has all the ingredients they like?

Taking into account everything you have said in your OP, YANBU at all.

Your wife is getting her share downtime and spends it on her phone, you want to spend yours exercising.

Its not your fault if she feels she is wasting her 'me' time, but perhaps you could encourage her to use that time in a different way, so she gets more out of it. Buy her some nice bath stuff so she can have a lovely long bath.

I have three young children. When my youngest was 6 weeks old I was absolutely exhausted. I was woken up every 1-2 hours all night to breastfeed and could never catch up on sleep during the day as I had two other children to look after. Sometimes it would be midday and I still hadn’t had a shower or anything to eat because I was too busy looking after everyone else. If my husband suggested to me that he would like an hour to exercise each day when I couldn’t even get my basic needs met (e.g. sleeping and eating) I wouldn’t have been happy. At this age, things are really hard. It won’t always be this way but at the moment I think that you need to prioritise your wife getting enough sleep as it makes a huge difference to mental health. If everyone is able to get all their basic needs met then maybe you could work out a system where you each get a break away from the children to do as you please in that time.

I really don’t think this can be genuine.

My DH earns similar and we have two kids. There is no way at any point he would be able to do any of this house/kids stuff. Once or twice he may have done a night feed when I was shattered or was unwell and helped a little bit at the weekends in between sending emails and taking client calls. As for doing laundry and the school run, haha, no way.

TBH OP, if I was on 1/4 million quid, had all the hired help you list, I'd pay a PT to pop over in my lunch break, do a workout out and then get back to work!

Babies sleep like 15 hours a day.

Hahahahahahahahaha

I don't think you are being unreasonable, I get that your wife is still early days post partum and feeling overwhelmed though.

I think you need to look after yourself in order to look after your family and if you need an hour then take it. Unless there is an absolute crisis going on. She will get used to it.

Christ when I had my second baby my husband was back to work after 1 week, I had a 2 year old who was not in childcare, a labrador and no family support. It was an extremely tough few months but I didn't resent him exercising (he gets up 5am to do this) because I knew it was helping to keep him sane. Which is pretty important!

It's definitely fair for you to ask and you sound perfectly reasonable to me. I agree that exercise needs to be prioritised as this will keep your own mental health in a place where you can best support your wife. Many people on here do not understand the pressures of earning £250K and you'll have to dismiss a lot of the answers. Do the exercise and keep some balance.

@Jayne38c

exercise is a basic need

Wtf, who is this man, can I have him?! I have a 7 year old with special needs, partner works full time, I do most of the cleaning, laundry, cooking, school pick ups every day, have a 6 month old to look after, I Breastfed him and was recovering from a c section, I do the food shop, all the night feeds. Yes she has a 6 week old, but she has a night nanny, cleaner, dog walker, husband who does school runs and night feeds, she's fucking lucky and privileged.

Yeah this happened.🙄

Would you really exercise at 4am? If you do the 3am feed, exercise at 4am, then presumably you wouldn't go back to bed so effectively you'd be up at 3am every day. You'd have to go to bed pretty early or make up that sleep somewhere.

My ex used to be up early to exercise on the weekend and then sleep half the day when he got home. Annoying.

What exercise are you wanting to do?

My friends who both love the gym, converted their garage to a gym with a Playpen so they could exercise and keep an eye on the baby. The 9 and 7 year old should be ok on their own watching tv if your wife is upstairs and you are in a spare room/ garage/ garden room gym.

Exercise keeps me sane so I would do whatever it takes to get something set up at home and then possibly alternate between exercising at home or out of the home. Even without kit you can put baby in a rocker and do a HIIT workout on YouTube

I am in a Les Millls on demand group and the body coach and lots of people work out with a their kids nearby or even joining in.

What about taking the younger two to a running group or getting them into exercise?

No unreasonable at all. You sound like a great husband/ father and very conscious and understanding of your wife's feelings.

In your update you said about her 'me' time not feeling like 'me' time I do get that. Are you located easy walking distance to a café or similar? Would she like to go there with a book/ podcast sometimes? As she recovers she might like to get out to exercise too

I would do you have a brother OP?

I’m so glad you got in how much you earn really early on because that makes a difference…..

If all your wife can manage right now is scrolling on her phone then I think planning an iron man thing is a bit self-centred. If there is an hour spare, maybe focus on your wife and baby. Not right now, give it a year. I’ve never met a woman who would/could start training for an iron woman 6 weeks after birth. So imo you shouldn’t be doing this either. It’s taking the piss.

This ran through my mind too. Wondered how I managed when I was left with a 7 month old baby when husband buggered off with a work colleague. I did everything and paid for everything for the next 18 years all by myself. Reading some of the stuff on this site is like visiting a fantasy world, all these people on massive salaries living in lovely homes. Nobody in my quite large circle of friends and acquaintances live like this. Of course some earn more than others and some have larger homes but honestly this thread is stretching my credulity. I am wondering how someone on £250k has the time to post at such length on here

Some odd ones thinking I would lie on an anonymous post

Not so much lie, as delude yourself about how much you actually do. This is very common.

Also - exercise is necessary. Ironman training is absolutely not necessary. You can do that in a few years when you don’t have a small baby or toddler.