Mom and Toddler Workout

  I pulled out this DVD I bought for me and Hannah right before I got pregnant with Addison to try today.  Instead of using it with Hannah like I had planned when I bought it, Addison was my toddler partner!  It's called Mom and Toddler Fitness and Addison loved it!  It's for children 16 months and up, with older children encouraged to work out with you/next to you.  Hannah (5) enjoyed watching and doing some of the exercises with us and next time I may encourage her to grab a stuffed animal as her "toddler".

  You use your toddler for weight (for me that's 24 pounds of giggling girl) and you fly them like air planes, curl them like logs and squat and lunge while you cuddle them.  Is it hard?  YUP!  My tush and legs were killing and I think they will be screaming tomorrow.  After most exercises she would turn to me and sign and say, "more more".  What's really nice is they show/tell you the exercise and then you can focus on doing it with your toddler.  A little bell rings which tells you it's time to tune in again and find out the next exercise.  It moved fast enough that she never cried when we didn't do "more" because we moved on to something else fun.  It was about 35 minutes and I would say more toning than aerobic but you did really get huffing and puffing sometimes.  It was a nice mix of doing things with your toddler and doing things BY your toddler.  Let's face it, there's no way your going to convince a 1yo to do what you want and have fun doing it for 35 minutes!

   As a mom of many I often feel like Addison gets lots of attention from everyone but not a lot of focused time with me.  She's always with me, but I'm often holding her while I explain math or entertaining her while the boys are at basketball or piano.  I wasn't sure I'd like doing the workout but I felt very connected with her for the rest of the day.  And as an extra bonus, working out is a lot more fun when a cute toddler is giggling and laughing with you (or was it AT me??)... either way, a definite thumbs up from me!