I was formally diagnosed with ADHD in February, so am still very much finding my way, with medication helping a lot with my work life. However, my first child was born near the tail end of last year and boy did I not expect how debilitating things would be. I love being a dad, I love my kid so much it hurts, but any time I’m home with her around I end up in a hyper focus kind of state trying to keep her out of trouble (she’s very, very active). Even with her sleeping through the night, I have to get up at around 4.30 every morning for an 8am start, 10 minutes away, otherwise everything ends up in a shambles, usually with me forgetting to eat breakfast, or take lunch, or my meds, or me a grown man ending up in tears because of the pressure to get ready for the day, which is not something I’d ever experienced before. The worst bit is makes it that much harder to properly enjoy the moments with her. Being a parent is hard enough as is, but this is really something else.
Dad of a very active daughter here. I know the feeling exactly.
Two things helped me and her mom immensely.
For the keeping our of trouble part it is such much better to set up a safe enclosed environment for her to explore safely rather than running after her. We made the living room child safe.
The other thing is I changed to prepping everything for my morning routine in the evening. For the same reason you described. It only gets worse when they don’t sleep through the night so I was very happy I did.