Training as a soon to be new parent

Congrats! I am a father of two kids under 3 and a full-time attorney. It all depends on your priorities and the agreement you come to with your partner, but the days of 10-plus hours per week are probably behind you for a bit once the baby arrives. I’ve found success with getting exercise when I can, how I can. These days that means a lot of 45 minute lunch time runs from my office so that my mornings and evenings are available for family time. If you’re an early riser, that’s a great option too. Try to maximize your off-days with bigger efforts (but give your partner the same time away). FWIW, having my first kid motivated my fitness to new heights – I ran my first 50k – but the second has made obtaining fitness harder than ever. My overall advice would be to enjoy this new time with your child and partner, and be gentle on yourself when you’re inevitably too exhausted to do strenuous exercise.

“The workout you do is better than the workout you don’t do.” -S. House somewhere on these forums to an overworked, under-resourced father

I think Mark and Jane nailed it and you already know what follows but it’s worth saying out loud:

1. Your priorities are about to completely change.
2. You can and should continue to train meaningfully.
3. Don’t be too rigid. It won’t work with your wife, your kid, your body, or your job. Your household is about to experience new levels of illness and you cannot get sick from over-training. Again from Steve, better to work out at 95% than 100% and get sick.
4. Do whatever feels right and connects you to the outdoors or your friend groups, BUT, I ditched the bikes once my wife became pregnant with our first. Cycling is so dangerous (it is, deal with it) and so time-inefficient (see first parenthetical.) Imo, nothing beats running for time-efficiency. Trail running > road running. Mountain trail running > trail running. I could not be the father I want to be and still ride meaningful hours on my road bike. Admittedly, I was an addict with 200-300 miles / week. (Caveat, I had a friend who built in a couple of workouts each week by commuting on his bike. Need to be able to handle the weather if that’s your strategy but it’s doable.)
5. Buy a good, reliable headlamp that you really like (even if it’s a bit spendy) because you will be using it more than ever.
6. Congrats. Best thing that ever happened to me by far. Wait until you get to watch your children do the things you love.
7. That home gym will be a blessing.
8. Without being a jerk, try to plan your vacations and weekends in the mountains. You both get access for exercise and your children grow up with that connection.
9. First couple of months post-partum, there’s not a whole lot for you to do except change diapers, feed and deal with sleep deprivation. Make dinner, clean the house. If your wife is breast feeding, she’s going to be doing most of the heavy-lifting. Neck strength comes into play at 6-8 months? Before that, you may have some time to meaningfully train. They start to crawl at 10 months? You have a year before all hell breaks loose.
10. I bought a 24 month training plan from UA. If you skip 2 workouts in a single week, they ask you to repeat the week. I repeated 4 weeks. Felt like a bummer but at the end I was very strong and fast.