Working Out at Home with Young Children
Contain and Entertain!
Working out is so important for your mind and body. Especially as a parent, I’ve found exercise vital for relieving stress and improving mental health. When you’re a stay-at-home parent – especially a new parent – it can be very difficult to figure out how to keep young children amused long enough to exercise. The below picture shows my home gym setup, and I’ll explain the two steps necessary for successful workouts at home: containing and entertaining the little ones!
Step 1: Contain
You’ll need some form of containment for your child or children. In my home gym, you can see that I use an activity jumper for my younger son (about 1 yr old) and a folding chair for my older daughter (about 3 yrs old).
When my children were smaller babies (age measured in months not years), I used bobby pillows, baby bjorns, and mamaroos. As they outgrew these, I switched to jumpers (high chairs work too).
Here are the exact ones I’ve used if you want to look them up – I highly recommend them all!
Step 2: Entertain
There’s a TV in our home gym, and I use videos for entertainment – specifically Cocomelon. It’s available on YouTube and Netflix. It’s worked like a charm for all my kids (though I do get really catchy songs stuck in my head afterward!).
If you have a Smart TV then you’re all set to go! Our home gym TV is pretty old, so I use a Google Chromecast to play videos on the TV (Chromecast supports YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Pandora). It’s a steal at only $30. I also add a few baby toys to the activity jumper to keep those little hands busy too.
You might have to take a break to change a diaper or two, but this should get you to the end of the workout! Best of all, you can replicate this setup in your bathroom so you can shower after you work out (just swap the TV with a tablet).
Did this help you get a workout in? How have you modified your home gym setup for children? Let me know in the comments below!
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Thanks for posting this- extremely relevant, particularly in the COVID era!
So glad you liked it 🙂