I grew up an avid gamer. But now, among my 50-hour work week, helping my kids with their math homework, grocery shopping, and house chores, I’m no longer able to find enough free time to really dive into a game. I mostly play casual games that I can drop in and out of but forget about the 40hr+ games requiring commitment. Despite not having the free time to game like I used to, I do enjoy watching my kids play while I’m doing other things around the house and then listen to them telling me about their accomplishments afterwards. I would like to hear from community members with similar circumstance about how you manage your time.
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Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch. Instant pause/resume is invaluable.
My son is 11 months, and if I didn’t have my steam deck I would probably not be gaming at all right now :) That instant off/resume is absolutely amazing.
This 100%. The only games I’ve managed to finish in the past ten years are on Switch or a portable system.
I picked up a Switch thinking it would always be attracted to my TV. Maybe it was for a bit, but when my child came along the only way I used it was handheld and for spurts at a time.
That’s how I knew the Steam Deck was an instant buy for me - the pause/resume is key.
It’s mindblowing how smooth (and fast!) suspend/resume is on the Steam Deck.
I wrote a piece of software that does this for any Windows game as well after my first kid was born. Obviously doesn’t work for multiplayer, but it allowed me to play games when he was still waking up 5 times each night.
Cheat engine has a speed multiplier that can be set to 0, which worked in several (offline) games for me.
My thing is a global key bind on the pause button. So I hit one button (or Fn+P on my laptop) and I don’t have to think about anything else. And it works for every game, regardless of cheat engine support.
Nice! I haven’t run across any offline games that won’t let me use CheatEngine’s speed multiplier, including flash games, but I would be interested to know if you’ve run across any!
My thing is a global key bind on the pause button. So I hit one button (or Fn+P on my laptop) and I don’t have to think about anything else.
Just one kid or stair step kinda kids? You are lucky, and nice job on the scripting!
One back then, two now, but the second one was much, much easier in every way.
My 3 year old still wakes up 3-5 times a night 😭
- Sneak the time when you can
- Play games with them
- Wait until they are 12 (-ish) and they decide you are uncool
Otherwise, you’re doing what I ended up doing. There was a long span that, I just… never played games because I was too busy. I regret that a bit because it’s a thing that makes me happy and even if I’m “Dad”, I’m still a person that deserves some time for “me”.
This more or less. My wife games too. We went through periods where we probably gamed too much and had to correct that behavior (house was becoming a mess and kids ignored school too much)
For us it put a decent amount of pressure on our marriage for a while until we admitted that gaming needed to take a backseat to life in general. Its hard. I grew up with gaming and both my wife and I were 8+ hours a day of MMO before kids. But life demanded we become adults for a while and be responsible.
My kids are finally on the older side where their demands on my time is lower. I still don’t game much before dinner and most house chores are done. I try to game with them a bit after dinner and then I get about 1.5 to 2 hours to play a few League of Legends games (yes, I know i hate myself) if I don’t want to ruin my sleep.
It’s one of those “season of your life” kind of things. There’s just a certain period of time where the family takes priority because of what the kids need. Just like everything else related to kids, at some point it will change and your time management will as well. They will become more independent, and you’ll have more time, but you may even find that your interest in gaming has changed.
Games will always be there, but your kids are only kids for a very short amount of time. Treasure it while you can!
I found a job that doesn’t ask me for 50 hours a week and they go to bed at a reasonable hour. But don’t ask me what I’m not spending enough time doing, like working out. Or how much we spend on takeout (way, WAY too much). And on top of that I have pretty great family support.
Basically, it’s hard even under ideal conditions with some less than great compromises.
at night when everyone is sleeping.
My girls are still only 1 and 3, but so far I’m sneaking in an hour or two in the evening, after everyone else has gone to bed. I’ve started introducing the older one to Pokemon Go and Let’s Go Pikachu, and she loves it so far despite not knowing much english. Hopefully I can get them into gaming so we can have that in comon 😄
I have never been into Pokémon before my kids started to play Pokémon GO a couple of years ago. It was really nice to have a pastime that we all enjoyed.
They still play occasionally but I became hooked on Pogo. So you might find new gamed when playing games together with the kids, be sure to give it a try if your kids are playing it.
Recently my wife and I agreed on me having one set night a week for gaming and it’s been great. I get my gaming time in but it’s a reasonable amount considering all the other responsibilities of work and parenting
One night of personal time for each parent is the real LPT here.
We have this as well. Wednesday night is CS GO with the boys for me. Sometimes I skip it, but it’s nice to have it planned out, when everything else feels like chaos.
The kids will really remember the times they sat down and played games with you. So you end up trying to make the best out of roblox and minecraft to find a nice balance of everyone being happy.
Embrace mobile gaming. Especially the classic Nintendo handhelds. I can rock my baby to sleep and play Pokémon Ruby on my GBA at the same time. Embrace RPGs and other games where reaction times don’t matter. If I’m sat in a chair with a sleeping child I can even play a game where reaction speed matters, like Tetris.
Get a flash cart so you don’t have to switch games or carry a library of carts with you. Keep it in your car for play if you’re out a lot. Oh, and get a decent modern screen mod so you can see the screen outside.
I canceled my WoW subscription the day my son was born. Now both kids are teenager I’m getting back into some slightly more serious gaming, but I have to admit that my priorities have changed a bit and I still do much less gaming than I did before kids.
Joining the parent club in about 3 months, but in preparation, I’ve purchased a “Couchmaster lapboard” and I cannot recommend it enough. Having shoulder support basically makes it feel like you’re sitting at your desk but comfortably on the couch. The only issue is the couch itself; if it has a lot of bounce you’re gonna have a wobbly desk any time someone sits / stands up from the couch.
Btw I’ve since found you can pretty much just buy some upholstery foam, cut it, put a plank over it and have your very own “Couchmaster” for roughly $20 instead of $200…
I have twins that are just shy of 2. First, I play way more mobile gaming. The ability to play only a few minutes at a time makes a huge difference, so multiplayer games are largely out.
When not mobile gaming, Xbox’s instant resume is a godsend. I’ve made it through the entire Yakuza series playing in small chunks and instantly resuming when I can.
5 year old and an 18 month old. I used to work nights so I’d basically have three hours a night from when they went down, to when I had to leave for work. Unfortunately working nights wasn’t tenable anymore, and as such I now work days…and get significantly less time to game.
If I’m lucky, both kids are in bed at 7:15. And if there’s no bedtime theatrics…I can usually carve out 2 hours to play, three if I’m feeling risky (have to be awake at 4:30).
Ah ah ah. 😭 I just can’t play as often or as long as i’d want…
My kid is a toddler, I can’t play games around him, even on my Switch or Steam Deck because he’s too distracting and wants too much attention. My wife and I usually play games for about an hour after he goes to sleep and we finish all the chores (laundry, cooking, dishes, food prep, daycare prep).
Between about 9:00pm and 10:00pm, on weekends if either of us have the time we’ll try to get chores done during the day while he’s awake which would give us maybe one more hour.
That’s it though, probably a third of the time we spend that single hour with some other form of relaxation (TV, book, social media, maybe ½ a movie). Another third of the time we just have other obligations or extra chores - maybe we need to do taxes or buy airplane tickets or book hotels for travel. Then, probably one or two nights a week on average we’re just too tired to do anything past 9pm and go to bed early.
So… all said, maybe 3 hours of gaming a week on average. Every so often my wife or I will take the kiddo out by ourselves and the other week have an extra hour or two for whatever but that’s not every week.
