How to Sneak in Workouts With a Toddler

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When I was pregnant, I had grand visions of being that marvelously, awesome mom. You know the one, she’s always challenging her kids, has a killer body, hits the gym daily, makes perfectly balanced meals, nails always done and not a hair out of place.

Fast forward to my reality, where I’m in yoga pants 2/3 of the time, my hair is in a messy bun just about always, my toe nails have vague remnants of purple polish, and I haven’t had a gym membership in well over 2 years. Yes, I believe I’m an awesome mom, but I’m not the awesome I envisioned.

You guys, the truth is that as much as I adore my (free!) at-home workouts, sometimes I just can’t find a spare minute to fit one in between chasing around Ryan, making meals, and attempting to keep a relatively livable clean house.  So I’ve had to get creative with ways to keep myself active. I want to put a focus on being and staying active in my family so that Ryan learns that it’s just a part of life – that being active and moving your body isn’t something that you do because you “should” but because you want to and it’s a part of your daily life. Now that Ryan’s running around, I’ve found that sneaking in a workout by playing with him can actually get my heart rate up and my blood pumping!

How to Sneak in Workouts With a Toddler:

Dance party: Ryan loves to dance. His little booty is always bouncing when one of his jams come on, and if you start singing he’ll go at it with full force. I love to put on the Disney Junior channel on Spotify and have  dance party. Sometimes we’ll just dance together, and other times I’ll pick him up and dance around the house with him. Have you ever danced around your house holding a 25 pound weight? No? Well try it. You’ll be sweating in minutes.

His perspective: When Ryan’s a little cranky and bored, I like to stop what I’m doing and get on his level. We play and crawl around (the crawling is key!) the house on hands and knees together exploring.

Okay, so I think Ryan was winning this tickle fight!

Tickle fight: The great big belly laughs I get out of Ryan when I tickle him like crazy makes my heart so big. Just five minutes of keeping him in one spot and tickling like crazy can put us both out of breath – even if it’s just from non-stop laughing!

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Obstacle course: A fun way to keep Ryan active while we’re stuck at home is to build a little obstacle course. Along our hallway, I out pillows, boxes, hang blankets etc for him to climb over and under. Sometimes I join in and as silly as it seems, I definitely feel a little sweaty after a few rounds of crawling up and down my hall way! Ryan LOVES to climb over things, so this is always a hit with him.

Keeping him out of trouble: The main way I get a “workout” each day is simply keeping Ryan out of trouble. In the past month or so, this kid is a tornado. He gets into everything and sometimes we genuinely feel like he has a death wish. I spend the majority of my day chasing after him, pulling him off things, and kissing boo-boos. Especially now that he’s walking more than he’s crawling, I definitely feel like I’m on my feet and go-go-going all day.

A big problem we faced when Ryan started crawling at super speed and then later walking was leaks. Some diapers we tried would leak when he did a lot of moving since they weren’t made to be used on a non-stop moving booty. We tried a few different diapers until we ended up with Huggies.

Huggies Little Movers diapers with new Dry Touch have been amazing at stopping leaks by absorbing on contact. With 12 hour Leak Lock protection, we can play and move without worrying about uncomfortable accidents to messes on my floor. They also work great as a night time diaper, keeping Ryan dry and happy through the night. Little Movers are Huggies’ driest feeling diapers, and I can definitely tell – Ryan never complains about a wet diaper! Keeping Ryan dry through the day is hard enough (uhm, does the kid had a hole in his lip?! Also, SO MUCH DROOL.) without having to worry about a leaky diaper.

Know what else I’m obsessed with on these diapers? TWO different sticky/velcro spots. My middle finger above is pointing the type of closure that most average diapers have that stretch to connect the back side of the diaper to the front. That purple square near my pointer? A Godsend. It sticks to the INSIDE of the diaper – so little to no movement or shifting of the diapers when the little guy is on the move!

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