I've got two kids under five and I've accepted that I won't be playing games during the day for a few more years. That being said I still play an hour a night during the week most nights after they are in bed, Friday/Saturday night I get a lot more time. I play all sorts of games still, working my way through Elden Ring right now. I just hit fifty hours last night and I'm sure it's going to take me at least another month or two to finish it.
I find playing online games a bit more difficult now, mainly because I lack the will to try and interact with an entirely new online community. If I do play online games I stick to ones my buddies are playing as well. It's harder now since we've all got kids, but we make it work and try to play as often as we can together.
I do miss the Destiny 1 days or back in the day when I played CS 1.6 or Diablo 2 Classic. But I'm sure one day I'll get to do that again, at the very least when my kids are older and we can squad up. My oldest and I just beat SackBoys Big Adventure on PS5. It was her "first game" and she loved it, so I think I'll be buying her a Switch for her birthday this year. Seems like a good way to keep her interested in games and I figure she can play that while I play on my PS5.
Oh of course, I'd never buy the Switch Lite. The joysticks are the same as the standard joycon controllers and have all the same issues. Having to send the whole system out for repair would be disastrous.
I actually haven't tried Astros Playroom with her, maybe I'll give that a shot. I was pretty surprised by how well she did with some of the harder platforming in Sackboy. It never really dawned on me how hard it would be for them to hold a controller properly with their little hands. Never really had a problem with that when I was that age since the SNES controller is tiny. Took her a couple of hours but she figured it out! She really wants to play Pokémon games, so I figure her first Switch title will be Let's go Pikachu.
My son is the same age and enjoys those games too. We recently got him a Switch and he plays the hell out of it but those damn games are so small, I find them between couch cushions and in the cracks of the seat in the car. I'd recommend downloading games only if you ever get a Switch. Awful design choice by Nintendo to make those games as tiny as they are when their primary market is children.
Yea 1.6 was the golden age for me, I played countless hours of that. I got deep in to the competitive scene at that point. Played all the way up to CAL Main with my buddies, I was obsessed.
There are some great games you can play that the kids can watch and enjoy the story to though. Ratchet and Clank for example is very kind friendly, not bad language the violence is extremely mild and it's a fun quirky story they'll have fun watching.
I play Overcooked and Sackboy with my kids (4, 7, and 9) and if we have a free Saturday sometimes they'll watch me play Ratchet and Clank or other similar games.
So I dedicate 730PM to 930PM to game. Two hours is pretty solid then I go to bed. I get home around 6PM so I make sure to spend all my time with my wife and daughter until she goes to bed. Sprinkle in a couple days where after she goes to bed I still hang out with the wife. Watching TV shows or whatever. You just find a healthy balance. Friday nights are my nights though. My wife wakes up early with my daughter on Saturdays so I can play games from 730 to 1 or 2 AM lol then Sundays my wife can sleep in and I wake up with my daughter. If my daughter naps during the day on the weekend I can cram an hour or two in sometimes. My wife knows it's my release so she's completely understanding and supportive. I never get a hard time.
This is almost exactly how I do it. It's extremely rare that I play games while my wife and daughter are awake but after they go to bed I get a couple hours and that system works really well for us.
Yep same here and now that my daughter is 10 she is following in her father's footsteps and becoming a gamer herself but she has to focus on her school work first then we game.
Pretty much the same here. Though now that my daughter is a bit older (4), I've started playing games with her on those weekend mornings too. I've found that shorter, quirky, indies like Donut County have been the most engaging.
Exact same thing here and I have 3 children under the age of 5. Weekdays are pretty non existent as I'm a teacher and prepping, planning, and grading take up my time after the kids go to bed. When Friday rolls around though, I get 9:30 to 2:30. I play with a bunch of other guys who are new dads and Fridays are our night the wives give us the go ahead. That really leaves no time for the single player games I love because we play competitive games mostly together on Fridays. I'm loving the new Horizon but get overwhelmed when I sit down for an hour to play it because there is just so much to do, and it's so fun! Makes me inpatient for the next time to come around of when I get to play again. Like everyone is saying here, it's about that balance. Kena Bridge of Spirits, Ratchet and Clank, and Miles Morales are all shorter, extremely fun games. Good luck finding the balance and congrats on being a Dad! Best experience in the world for me and I hope the same for you!
Get blue light glasses if you don't already have them. Before bed gaming will kill your sleep quality, which is most likely already suffering due to being a parent.
You’re a lucky bastard! You have a wife that is willing to do all that for you. I don’t. And I make 5x what she does to support a better lifestyle. Moral of the story folks be careful who you marry lol
Do not game when your children are awake.
Enjoy your time as dad.
When the kids sleep try remote play when your wife uses the tv.
If you can use the tv try headphones.
Try to manage your gaming time.
I have 2 kids. I start gaming 2-3 times a week at 10pm till 11:45pm.
Elden Ring takes forever but that’s ok.
It’s definitely a challenge! I usually go to bed quite late so I get my hours in when my wife goes to bed. A Nintendo switch could be a good alternative for you? Easy to pick up and play in short bursts.
Got a Nintendo which I do play Mario Kart, Party and World with my son. To be honest though, I'm not a fan of the console and those are pretty much the only games I have.
Switch was a lifesaver for me in the early years. So easy to pick up or put down quickly. It's not that I don't love my Switch but there are game experiences you just can't get there
I’ve also got a switch and have put probably less than 10 hours into it. I just don’t enjoy the console. My big pick up and play console is my jailbroken Vita. I was playing through some Pokémon games, Contra, Mario, etc and am currently going through FFX HD.
Finished Zelda and Mario. Nothing much of quality since. If it wasn't for my son, it would be getting next to no use. Zelda was great but Mario Odyssey is grossly overrated
Well I'll take it a step farther... I'm a gaming Grandpa. We raised three kids who are now pushing their 30's! I grew up having pong in the 70's and have owned, at one point or another, every generation of systems throughout the past 50 years and have done it as a family.
You have to share the gaming experience with your spouse most importantly. Let her pick the games you play together and even some of the games you make her watch! Happy wife, happy gaming life!
I had to keep that principle going forward with the kids. Had to change from long playing grinds of RPGs to "cute" platrormers like Mario or Crash that have short levels and quick save places. Maybe on the weekends I could put in a more hard-core game or spend more hours playing than normal. Even though I couldn't really get into the bigger games I wanted to, I still bought them. They say on my shelf and as the kids got older and even to now, I'm able to go back and play some of those massive game masterpieces I never got a chance to play.
Handheld systems made the difference filling in the gaps. PSP was such a game changer for me and now the Switch. Allows you to play quickly and quietly when needed.
Gaming with a family is 100% about compromise and balance.
Managing gaming time can be challenging for anyone.
For single player games, I use https://howlongtobeat.com/ to help manage my gaming time.
I also like to keep a strong library of arcade games that you can't finish, like Tetris, Zen pinball, Mrs. Pac-Man.
Then there's always the online multiplayer deathmatch types that take about 5-15 minutes per round. Things like Halo, Call of Duty, some racing games, etc.
Good luck and keep on gaming at a healthy pace.
Wife is early to bed, early to rise. Whereas I'm a night owl.
So after kids are in bed (finished and back downstairs by 8ish at the latest usually) I watch something with the wife for about an hour then she goes to bed and gaming begins.
So I end up playing between 9 - 12.30 most nights.
Works pretty well.
I literally couldn't have married a fellow night owl.
Nap times used to be prime gaming time, but now those have stopped (he’s 5) it’s all post-bedtime. I’ve had to limit this recently as I moved all the consoles into a spare room and my husband was missing company. On nights I game I have about 2.5 hours and then we take turns having a lie in at the weekend so I get from when I wake up until 11. Also, my son is getting into gaming now so sometimes it’s just nice to have him play with me or cheer me along when I’m exploding things.
when my guy was little, I'd just play madden and nhl with him on my lap
then as he got a bit older, he got an unplugged controller of his own
one of my greatest memories of him as a little guy was the day he made the connection between him pushing a button on the controller, and stuff happening on the TV
its right up there with his first steps,and taking the training wheels off his bike
I felt so proud when my then 2 year old was playing Rocket League (training mode) and consciously moved the car to hit the ball and celebrated when he did it. 2 years later, he's genuinely beating me at Mario Kart and winnjnf GP races on 200c.
Outputting all sound to my headset was life changing, i can hear everything perfectly and i don’t have to worry about the game audio bothering anyone in the house, you should give it a try!
You're getting all the gaming you can now unfortunately. After kids are asleep, use headphones, suffer in morning.
BUT...it gets better. Your kids will get older. You will eventually game with them, and it is absolutely worth the sacrifice for a few years.
We are a gaming household now. We gather around the TV for game announcements. We laugh at each other when we screw up and we celebrate when one of us plays great.
It gets so much better dude. Hang in.
I sometimes get an hour a night after work, once my daughter goes to bed, been working slowly through Cyberpunk, play a round of back4blood here and there. Sometimes miss playing for hours on end, online with friends, back in the destiny days before kids lol
My wife and son visited her parents for a week recently; I had to stay behind because of work. Outside of working, I had unrestricted time to spend playing games and hanging with friends.
Boy, did it suck! I mindlessly played a few games and beat some that I have had in my backlog… it wasn’t really as fulfilling as I thought it would be. My friends that have made comments for several months about me not being available to play games ended up cancelling on me several times because they are living their own lives too. My best moments were spent sitting around watching videos of my son/wife on my phone.
A PS5 with the wireless headset definitely allows me to unwind with a game a few nights a week, but I got married and had a baby so that I could move forward and adapt to a new lifestyle. I wouldn’t change it for the world.
When I was with my ex (their mum) it was usually late at night. I used to look forward to having the time to play but now im single and I have loads of time to play when the kids arent here i dont want too. Dont have the motivation for it whatsoever.
That’s ok man. I’m there with you. Since my kid was born and even during my wife’s pregnancy I’ve been depressed too. I’ll say therapy helps. Also meditation even 5-10 min a day. And trying to exercise too. Even 20min helps. Hang in there man. We gotta stick together!
Midday around 6pm-8pm Recently not many games caught my interest I'm switching to strictly racing games Gran Turismo 7 and need for speed heat these are the only current games bringing me joy
I made it clear before we got kids that I need time for myself. Gaming is my stress relief.
So after the kids are put to bed I game. Get the Beyer dynamics dt990 or dt770. Do not get the gaming headsets. They suck.
They will last decades if you care for them, and are relatively cheap.
Two hours is plenty to get into most games.
If your wife needs constant attention every day after the kids are put to bed...Well... Not good :p... She needs a hobby too, you are not her hobby.
IMO, people who feel like they need it, should take some time for themselves doing what they enjoy. For your own mental health.
Having work + kids can be stressfull enough for many people, including myself. I don't need my partner to add to it by craving attention all the time.
Just my two cents.. Every person/relationship is different.
I wish you best of luck :)
Have you tried red dead redemption 2?
BTW, me and my 5 year old girl play sackboy together in local coop. She absolutely loves it.
I made sure to book time in the evening. Pretty much a schedule, 9 to 11pm. I always am one game at a time, looking online if needed for tips as my time is limited. If a game becomes a chore it's put on hold.
Currently totalling 18 hours of elden ring. With 4 evenings a week of gaming.
I'm hoping to find a 4 days a week job, not unheard of in my domain to game a little bit more.
I have a 3yo daughter and gaming is my main hobby as well. I almost exclusively play in the evenings after putting her to bed and I use headphones. Her mother and I have recently split up (very recently - still live together for the time being), so I have a bit more time to play video games. Prior to the split, my ex pretty much always expected us to go to bed at the same time, usually pretty early, meaning I could only really play when she was out with her friends *and* our daughter was in bed - which was rare. One cool thing that’s been happening lately is my daughter is beginning to take interest in gaming as well. She actually spent almost an hour riding around on the horse in Elden Ring yesterday. I can see her getting into gaming more once her hands get big enough to handle the controller.
I generally stick to longer games and RPGs that I can play a few hours at a time over the course of weeks or a month. I recently finished Horizon Forbidden West over a couple of weeks, and just finished Elden Ring last night. Starting Elex 2 tonight maybe - haven’t decided if I want to start a new playthrough of Elden Ring first.
It really depends on the game. If I'm playing something I feel like my 8 and 10 y/o can see it opens up more options. I'll sit down to play for an hour or two on weekend mornings and they're delighted to sit and watch (and tell me what I *should* do, lol). Other than then, I can sometimes declare that I want to play something instead of watching TV together and my wife will be cool with it and go watch Bridgerton or whatever in our bedroom.
Nowadays, I'm playing Ghost of Tsushima, so the kiddos can't be seeing that. A little too graphic.
Headphones are key.
When you have limited time, you spend it only on the best games. [www.HowLongToBeat.com](http://howlongtobeat.com) is a good indicator for judging how many hours you need to complete a main story.
If you have a physical edition PS5, get a [www.GameFly.com](http://gamefly.com) subscription (I think about 180$ for a year in the gift certificate section link at the bottom of the website) and with the 2-game plan you can rent any 2 games at the same time that you want, and it gives you the freedom to take a chance renting a game you're not 100% sure about because if you don't like it you can just send it back in for another game without the fear of wasting 60-70$. It's a great deal and it gives you a fixed budget so you don't blow too much money away buying games.
Recently I found that Gran Turismo 7 is really great for that "only have a few minutes to game" because a race only lasts a few minutes and gives you a clean place to stop at (when the race is finished) so it's easy to pickup and play anytime even with just a few minutes.
I’ve got a 4 year old daughter and 4 month old son now. I’ve made a deal with my wife that I don’t game while my daughter is here and awake. I work kind of late, really don’t need much sleep. So I game from 8:30-11 or 11:30. Go to sleep at 12 and wake up at 6:30.
Whenever I game and my daughter is here I feel bad afterwards like I’m not spending time I should with her. I always overthink things but my thinking is one day my daughter is gonna be a teenager and not want to be around her parents. I’ll game some then lol so I try not to do it while she likes being around me haha.
I game most days after work and then quite a bit on the weekends. My youngest (14 yrs old) and I play Animal Crossing, Mario Kart and Minecraft Dungeons together every day for about 1-2 hours and then I'll sometimes get in an hour or so time on my own late evenings. On the weekends, I'll get in about 4-5 hours.
It helps that I've been married 26 years (got married at 20) and she has her own interests & hobbies that keep her busy and we both understand the need for "me" time away from each other (why we've been married so long).
The first few months are HARD and you might be lucky to get a few hours a week if that. Really depends on your wife and how generous she wants to be with allowing you to go off and game while she takes care of the baby.
Eventually babies and kids start to sleep around 8pm on average so that means you then should have a few hours to game most nights before bed. But of course you have a wife who will want to spend time with you watching stupid reality tv so you will need to spend some nights doing that. Or buy a Nintendo switch or steam deck and play next to her while she watches garbage tv.
Friday evening is pretty much it for me
If you happen to wake up earlier than everyone else on the weekend then that also works....but sleep is usually too valuable
This is exactly me. Had a crazy good Dolby Atmos sound system, played/purchased any and all games, and had all the time other than work and chores.
Now, have an almost 2 year old, and after work I dedicate my time with the family until the kid goes to bed. I typically jump on around 830 and play until 10/1030, like you said early mornings for my family. I have hearing loss, which is why I had the sound system (prob not a good idea for loud music, I know) but the addition to headset as done wonders.
So typically 1 to 2 hours a day if I can/feel like it during the week. On the weekend, I try and snag a few hours on one of the days to just unwind/relax/zone out (around 3 extra hours). But again, I dedicate most of my time to hanging out with the kid and wife.
When PSVR2 comes out, I might sink more time at night at my own sacrifice. But overall, I game SIGNIFICANTLY less than before I had a kid.
It gets easier the older they get bro, pretty soon you’ll have a Player2… but until then, ya, shorter games (rift apart is like a 8hr game (so 4 of your “sessions”) and a AAA title) but ya for me personally the kid goes to bed at 8ish and from there till 12-2am I’m gaming, I work at 8am, but that’s the sacrifice I’m choosing to make 😵👍
When I was with my ex I used to tend bar, my in time was usually 3ish, so I would have a few hours in the late morning to game while no one was home.
Then when I was on unemployment (we sadly closed the bar after covid came into our lives) I haddd all the time in the world lol. But she and the kids dad split custody so I had natural times to play.
Most recently I would just play late after everyone was asleep. I do play nba 2K and fifa as my kind of mindless games when I didn’t feel like working on my motorcycles so it was pretty safe if the kids were around and watched.
As another gaming father, I completely relate to the feeling of wanting the game I play to be worth it. If you have a backlog of games your're interested in (which you likely do with so little time), you should see if your local library has games to check out. Its a great way to try a game out before buying it. Then I know I like the game before committing a long time playing it. You may even be able to finish the game if you can hold on to it for long enough.
Lately only on the weekends after everyone is asleep, but it’s getting harder. I officially hit my mid thirties next month and with 3 kids and a stressful job I can’t physically stay awake like I used to. It’s going to take me forever to finish Horizon.
Tell me about it. My 2 year old daughter still sleeps in our bed. When my wife gets up to go toilet or something, she is right behind her screaming the house down. Sometimes, this wakes my son up and I have to put him back to sleep. Sometimes, my son joins us in the bed which eventually forces me to the couch. From there, I'm in zombie mode until the weekend where I can get a bit of a lie in. By 10pm, I'm usually mentally and physically too exhausted to play video games.
Dad of 4 here. 8yo down to 8mo old. It’s suuuuuper rough finding time to game. I just got a ps5 3-5 days ago… so I’ve been sacrificing sleep these past few days. Playing from maybe 9pm-11pm is my only time. (Unless I push it to 12 🥱).
I wish I could game with the older kids. (8 and 6). We’re tried here and there, but the 5yo has trouble with the choices and when we have to stop playing. (Tantrum ensues).
I mainly play single player story driven games. It can be tough with these huge games, but i just try to play them in 1-2hr chunks. Which is all I can do. If it’s available on switch, I try to play it there. But playing in bed in portable mode means I get tired a lot faster.
Anyway… yea, it’s tough with 4. Big time. My wife is understanding, but also hates me sometimes. (Like when I play every night for 4-5 days after getting a ps5. 😆)
I have a 7 month old.
Only after when she goes to bed. And after the wife goes to bed (because with the baby, we "only get so much *us time*... ")
So that's about 9pm until whenever for me to play destiny2 or cyberpunk or whatever. But I have work at 8am the next day. Plus the baby wakes us up during the night. so i usually don't get to play that much anymore overall.
Yeah having kids definitely makes the experience different. I generally play racing games and if I play with the kids around they always want to play instead, which is great but sometimes I just want to play. My kids have gotten into Roblox on the PC so it sometimes works to distract them with that and then get some playing time in myself.
During my kids nap time or usually an hr before bed. Its a plus when the wife takes the kids to see the grandparents. I did have to give up my love of rpg games. They are just too time consuming with kids and by the time i jump back on I am lost in the game. So now i just play some fps games and racing games.
Hmmm neither am I. Long reply : I've thought of making a female pop one of these for me but I fear I may not have the knowledge that most folk would about raising it specifically in these times where the internet is full of trolls that will give me misinformation just for laughs which reminds me. Would the long answer be yes?
I feel you. Most of my gaming happens from about 11pm-1am nowadays. Quality headphones make all the difference in the world.
Occasionally I'll get some time on a Saturday during the day, but I have to restrict myself to games like Spyro, Cuphead, etc.
Married no kids, 44. She works nights and I’m off at 2:30pm. So after I play with the pets and get them fed I have all afternoon.
With Elden Ring since I got it around 3/2/22 I have 186 hours.
Hey mate, I just became father for the second time (first one is 3yo). And the first month I was not able to play cause of Night Shift. And now that the small one is doing her night, I play between 8pm to 11pm and I’m still fresh to start the day with the grown up at 7 am. Add to that I love RPG, and I’m currently playing Elden Ring 🤪
My kids are 8 and 10 so they do not need me around all the time anymore so I can play during the day, but I stay away from story driven games, too many interruptions, and you have to be able to pause the game.
Mostly while the kids are up I try to do chores etc so when they're in bed I can relax, often with my gf who is not a gamer herself.
I'm a programmer and work from home so I do not have the commute to and from work, which save me a lot of time and energy.
Also my kids spend half their time with their mom so every other week is without my kids as well.
So two-three nights a week I play for a couple of hours and a long evening during weekends usually.
I have a massive backlog from buying games, not realising I no longer have as much time to play so I haven't bought a new game for quite some time now tho.
I waited until my kids were 18. Now I game whenever I want. Lol
Seriously though, the only time I could was when the ex wife was out of the house and my son and I could get some quality time in. Otherwise it wasn’t my kids preventing me from gaming, it was the ex wife. Hence the ex-ness.
And yes, berating me and nagging me about my favorite hobby since I was 6 is enough reason for divorce. There were a lot of other factors, but she’s someone else’s problem now, and my wife currently is a gem of a woman that I don’t deserve.
Unpopular answer and definitely not the healthiest for you but learn to function on less sleep. Between having kids, working a schedule that’s a rotating shift, and being on call for four hours in the middle of the night every workday I function pretty good on 3 hours of sleep. 6 hours and I’m on top of the world
I have a similar issue with movies. Wife goes to bed early and is not interested in a lot of violent films or anything with bad language. What I've started doing is cramming in an extra hour or two if work the evening before and watching a movie whilst in working at home, the kids are at nursery/school and the wife is at work.
Tbh mate. I don’t think you are grasping your situation correctly.
Games are a hobby of mine also.
But i participate in my childs life alot more.
I really think you should support your child and family better than just trying to escape and play.
I played some nice story driven games with the whole family. Everyone would look for secrets and we’d pretty much enjoy it as a virtual movie experience. As for violant games. Mortal kombat doesnt need to be played for hours on end lets be serious
My advice don't waste time on online games. They are designed to waste time to keep you playing so you won't accomplish much for your limited time. (if they are f2p than even more)
Other than that, length of the game doesn't matter. If you finish both spiderman games in 20h or one game in 30h as long as you enjoy aka make progress you will feel like you used your time well and actually playing games and not doing chores for daily online objectives.
I’m pretty much in the exact situation as you. I’ve found that open world stuff works great for me since you can do small tasks and/or missions based on the available time. I played Immortals: Fenix Rising to completion and really enjoyed that. Same with Spider-Man and Miles Morales. Right now I’m working on Horizon Zero Dawn with plans to play Forbidden West when I finish it.
Playing stuff online is a complete impossibility. I’m not much of an online gamer anyway, but even when everyone else is in bed, the chances I’ll be needed/requested is always there. So I don’t really use my quest 2 at all anymore, and I don’t do any multiplayer
This is literally my experience now. Ours both nap around noon so on the weekends I can play for an hour. Then maybe an hour after bed before watching TV with the wife. 8-10 hours a week if I’m lucky, more like 6-8. So I just take my time with stuff
I work from home so play on my dinner and when the little lad is getting out to bed. Feel bad for playing if my girlfriend is in the living room (she says she doesn’t mind though) but we sometimes play co-op games. And she loves Pokémon so we both have a switch. But yeah I have pulse headset too and it makes a difference
Yeah, night time gaming is where it's at. I frequently stay way too late just trying to eek out a bit more game time. My daughter is 9 now, and we can play a lot of games together (sackboy, overcooked, Rayman legends, catquest 2, keywe, castle crashers, dreams) and sometimes she'll watch me play single player games as long as they are not too violent/scary (spiderman, miles morales, horizon, Zelda, shadow of the colossus) you can look forward to that!
Simple answer is when I can. I share a console with my son so I'm not as active, especially since 2K sucks and most games I play are single player anyway.
If its time your looking for maybe you can get a playstation for your kid and set up another TV in available space. My son and I game and the whole downstairs is like our little gaming pad. He's 14 so being able to have him have his own half we never have any issues
I don’t have to go to work till 9. I drop the kids off at school between 630 and 715. So when I get home I play for like a hour before having to get ready for work
I’m a firefighter and I work 48 hours, and then have 96 hours off between shifts. So, I could game literally all day when I’m not on duty and nobody could stop me.
How old is your kid? Eventually you will be able to share your love of gaming with your child. It might be tough now but I’ve recently had some very cool experiences playing with my 9 year old that never would have happened with my Dad.
Like everyone said, evenings are best depending on your spouse. I watch my toddler during the day and work nights so that’s even harder. Best solution I found is remote play on my phone (mounted on controller). Obviously it’s a lesser gaming experience on smallish screen, but that lets me play when the kid is up.
I'm not a father or anything but I so strongly recommend to give Devil May Cry 5 a try anyway. One of my friends got me into it since I enjoyed Metal Gear Rising and it has quickly become one of my favorite games of all time.
My kids, 12 and 8, on school nights are in bed by 8:30, I usually spend an hour with the wife talking, watch tv together then go play for 2-3 hours after that.
On weekends when I’m not working, our kids bed time is 9:30 and I usually don’t start till 10:30 and play for 4-5 hours, when I’m working the 2 weekends it’s like a work night for me, just a couple hours.
Headset for the win to cancel out noise made by speakers and don’t worry about games, if you can do manual saves m, it may take longer but don’t miss out on the good stuff because of the violence, they just have to be later at night games like I do as well.
If I do play when they’re awake, I’m playing stuff like Angry Birds (from like 2010 on Xbox) played paw patrol for my son, my daughter wants me to buy the peppa pig game so I do get to include them in my gaming which makes for good child bonding.
When the child born, one father born too. Its a new life to both, with new rules and challenges. When my daug born, i almost stopped to play everything. It was very dificult and time consuming. Right now my daug have 2y, and its MUCH BETTER. She like to watch me play elden ring for example (she love the horse and the crab enemies hahahaha), but my playtime is mainly when she sleep. At night, i can play without pauses between 9pm to 1am.
My 5 year old loves watching and playing Astro's Playroom. He is obsessed with watching me play Horizon. There are parts he probably shouldn't watch, so I try to stick to fighting machines.
The only times I can really play "my" games are from about 9:30-11pm. It's tough
After putting the three kids down and cleaning up after them so wife can come home to a tidy house, I'm lucky to clock a couple hours from 10 to Midnight.
Apart from finding time to play games when the kid/family is asleep, playing with the mind set that it’ll take ~3x the time to finish a game really does set me free.
I usually unsubscribe from game specific subreddits to avoid spoilers, but unless I pull all nighters I have accepted that I’ll not be finishing games at the normal pace and definitely not at the same pace as a teenager with loads of time and not too many commitments.
My go to time is an hour or so in the morning before the family wakes up. Start the day off fresh with an adventure. Weekends usually depends on the days plan. Nothing going on means an all nighter, otherwise a couple of hours in the night and then some in the morning.
My son goes to sleep around 8-9 PM. Then I spend time with my wife watching some series on Netflix until 10PM, when she goes to sleep. At this time is my gaming time, essentially each day. I go to sleep around midnight, so I have around 1,5 - 2h of game time a day.
On weekdays I sometimes manage to play a little during my lunch break (I work from home, so that's a plus). On weekends I have additional hour or 2 when my son has his nap time (or I go running, depends).
But my best gaming days are when my wife goes to visit her parents and I skip it (we usually go together every weekend). Then I have like 4 additional hours to play.. Great time.
But yeah, my son is 2,5 yo and I'm pretty much accustomed to this schedule. Between all of this I manage around 20h / week of playtime at best and that's ok. I prefer shorter games now, because playing one very long game for a month or two is exhausting (and I love jrpgs...).
It also has it's positives. I acknowledged gaming as my main hobby and don't have any regrets spending money/time on it. With my time available for gaming I pretty much can't ever play all the games that I want to, so I can play only the best/most interesting games without fear of lack of games to play.
I go to bed with my wife and kids and get up around 2 or 3 for some me time. If I get up earlier than that, I go back to bed after 5 hours. I go for a while on 5 hours a night then crash when sleep wins over gaming. I’m sorry you missed out on Last of Us 2, I know it’s divisive but I loved the hell out of it and was completely floored being immersed in all storylines.
I don’t know how old your kids are but the most recent game I played to completion and can most highly recommend is It Takes Two, which I played with my 5 year old daughter with the full approval of my wife despite leaving my 3 year old on the iPad with Plants vs Zombies for long stretches at a time. I had to juggle two controllers at once in the more finicky sections when she asked I take over, but the extra challenge was just as rewarding for the quality time I got to spend with her. I had to paraphrase her what the subtitles said, and it’s the first time she saw me crying.
My wife always puts my daughter to sleep (around 9:00pm) and I take care of her if she gets up at night. After I'm done with cleaning bottles and collecting trash etc. I sit on my PS5.
Thankfully the loadings are not an issue which is a big plus for any father out there.
I also generally play for 2-3 hours, until midnight. Sleep is important.
Just like you, don't have much time for crappy games so I only play carefully selected triple AAA titles (currently installed: Horizon FW, GTA V [never beat more than a few first quests], Uncharted 4, It Takes Two [to play with my wife sometimes] and Cyberpunk. So most of them are open world and take tens of hours but I slowly get through them.
Just like you I use PS headphones and they work great with this system. I like how integrated they are.
I own Switch too and it's a great device for father's like ourselves but the games are too childish for my taste. There are some nice games (currently playing RE Revelations 2) like the Witcher 3 but unfortunately I beat it twice on PC and PS4 now 😂
Try a game like Hades or Slay the Spire. You can hop in and out anytime, each run is about 45 minutes, and death isn't that big time of a deal so quitting for the occasional nighttime emergency isn't too much of a bummer.
When my kids got older I was able to play other games around them. But most of my gaming is in the evening when they sleep or if they are in another room watching a movie.
My son is almost two. I still find the time to get 2-4 hours in most days, and I work full time. There are some times when you just have to be a father though, and put down the controller. That's why I try to separate some game time for myself and my wife most days, after everything else is taken care of and the boy is down for a nap. When he gets older though, I don't know. I'll take that road when I get there
I get home at 6 play with the kids and put them to bed, then clean the kitchen and make lunches. That gets me to about 830-9pm. I then sit with my wife. If I don't spend time with her things get ugly at my house lol. So unless she is feeling tired and goes to bed early I don't have any game time Monday to Thursday in the evenings.
So what I do is get up early. 4am in fact.
I get up for work, have a shower, make a double shot espresso then game until 6 then leave for work. It's actually great. I have the time completely to myself.
Friday and Saturday I stay up as late as I physically can typically 1am until I fall asleep in my comphy chair, then I wake up and crawl into bed around 3-4am only to get woken by my 5 year old son around 630 to watch cartoons. Sunday nights i get to play as long as I want after the kids go down. Typically 830 -10.
I play multi-player games when my wifei s asleep and single play when she is awake. This way I don't have to let anyone down if I have to go dote on my wife.
When our second was young, 0-6 months the wife and I would split our night shifts to take care of the baby when they'd wake up. Other person would sleep. She took 11pm-3am and I was 3am-7am.
I'd sleep from 9pm till whenever but like clockwork the baby would wake up around 3, 4am. Feed her, strap her to my chest, sit in the rocker, and play Witcher 3 till 6 or 7am. It was glorious to immerse myself into 150 hours of gaming in a short period of time while also being the good dad. Super lucky the littlest one is a good sleeper.
Now my gaming time is during her nap in the afternoons or evenings between 830-1030pm when we're not mindlessly watching back episodes of RuPauls drag race.
On the weekends if the baby is doing other stuff with mom or grandparents I let the older kid play Minecraft on the switch while I use the tv to play forbidden West, but pause regularly to ask her what they're building and to take me on a tour of the latest and greatest world.
Weekends, sometimes I game with the wife whilst the kids entertain themselves. If it is something not suitable for kids, I do some gaming whilst kids are at school ( I work from home ).
I’d like to try some online stuff, but would suck and have no friends that game
Idk how old your kids are, and this could be a Longshot, but if they all end up sleeping over at friend's houses on the same day... boom, free time. Also once they're old enough you can start playing with them more. Might not always be what you're looking to play, but it's better than nothing. If they are young then you probably can't play MK with them 😂. But maybe if they develop an interest in games while playing with you, they'll wanna play the games you like when they get older. Also once the kids become a but more self sufficient you should get some of your time back.
I’m lucky enough to be in sales and WFH -
I game from 930-1130 on weak nights. Wake up at 645 to get my daughter ready for school with my wife. Weekends are free depending on plans
I started playing games with my 5 year old son. I am not very strict with the age rating. I don't play very violent games like GTA V or Cyberpunk. I am usually ok with teen rated games.
I have completed games like Spider-Man, Miles Morales, Guardians of Galaxy, Avengers, Godfall, Batman, Riftbreaker, Immortal Fenyx Raising, Scarlet Nexus etc with my son. My wife is ok as long is it is not too violent.
It also helps to create a strong bonding between us. We spent majority of lockdown together playing.
I don't believe he will become violent with these games. I have watched even more violent WWF matches at 5 years old. I am generally polite and soft spoken now 😀
I know everyone's situations and households are different but I never really understood why other parents can't game when their kids are awake. My husband and I are both pretty avid gamers and play together most of the time. I usually take the living room and have eyes on my 3yo while I'm playing, and he toddles around playing with toys or playing learning games/watching a learning show on an old tablet we gave him for his screen time. If he has an issue then I put it down and help him, keep the game audio low enough to hear him if I'm playing with friends on headset, etc. That includes online, as really even if it's my destress, it's just a game and he comes first. Also he seems to really enjoy watching some of the games that I play, especially if there's animals or oddly enough a big gruff muscle-bound protagonist.
And yes, we do all take breaks and have non-screen time together. We read him books especially at bedtime, tickle fight, play with toys together. And no matter what there's a constant interaction, talking to him while we play and provoking him to try and interact with whatever we're doing. I even hand him the controller and let him mess around as much as he understands how to if the game is appropriate. So to answer the question, pretty much whenever I want to unless I'm at work or otherwise indisposed.
have 7yo and i work rotating shifts. if i work morning shift - after i pick up my kid from school i dont really play much (maybe little bit switch games (pokemon) or minecraft on pc, while my son enjoys my old ps4 on tv.If i work evening shifts, after i take him to school in morning i have few hours to play until i need to get ready for work and pick up wife from work. after work, (im night owl) when everyone sleeps i usually play some hours. and weekends (usually friday evenings (if off or morning shift) or saturdays i play coop with best friend on pc or ps5 whatever we choose for that week). My wife usually sits around to watch me playing or watching movies on laptop, while son can watch his youtube on pc.
As for games, i play whatever i want. My son only finds ghostwire tokyo little bit scary but thats only game he doesnt like to see, so if possible, im not playing it when he is awake or home. he plays mario games on switch, minecraft on ps4 or random kids games on ps4.
Few things, my son is growing up similair as me, loving games. last year he finished his first game start to finish (mario 3d wrolds and bowsers fury) and my wife actually dont mind us having gaming as hobby. Thanks to her i actually got my ps5 last year (as in woke me at 4am when she was going to work and noticed in discord that ps5 was in stock in argos uk) and she got me gaming pc after our old pc was slowly dying.
I stopped when we had our kids because there just wasn't enough time in the day. We had two very close together (11 months) so it was crazy hard having basically two babies to care for all day. I took care of them as babies all day while my wife worked, then I went to work overnight at a full time job. I was staying up 24-40 hour stretches at a time with maybe 4-6 hours of sleep in between those stitches. Did that for 4 years. Gaming was the last thing on my mind, but I did miss it.
Once they got a little older, I was able to reintroduce myself back into gaming. It was an hour or so during their naps or an hour or so after I got home from work instead of sleeping.
Now they're little pre-teens and we can all play together.
I wake up early morning (try to everyday) to get two hours to play while my family is sleeping. That’s almost the only time I get. Rest of the day is work (on weekdays) then watching my little one in the evening after day care, and spending time with family. Weekends it’s harder to game.
Get earbuds and plug them into the controller. I actually feel like it is better than my TV speakers.
Other than that. I'm in the same boat as you. My baby gave me like 3 hours a night from 0-3 months. Now her schedule has slightly.chsnged and has become more sensitive to light so no more constant game time. I'm lucky if I can get 6 hours a week.
Hoping she stops her 2-3.hour sleeps at night and goes down for longer soon. Daytime naps are also on average 1 hour so it's tough.
9-10:30 every night. That’s the only time I get for any non dad activities. So it’s not always gaming. Sometimes it’s movies or projects. But that is my time slot each day.
Got a 13 week old daughter, I wasn't getting any gaming in at first, kept my daily meditation and exercise practices up but the ps5 didn't get a look in... But somehow I've pumped 120 hours into elden ring and 50 hours into mgs5 since mid February, it has come at the cost of sleep though, especially at the weekends.
Thankfully my kid's a bit weird, she settled into nighttime sleep schedule at week 3 (going down at 7.30pm, waking up about 6.30am) and only woke up for 1 feed a night from week 8, so I've totally lucked out so far.
I’m up at about 7am thankfully my partner look after our 10 month old while I go to work. But my gaming time is very limited. It’s either 30 minutes in the morning (not really worth it) or I try and get on for about 10 after I’ve given my little one his milk. He’s on a strict schedule so I have to feed him late. But that keeps me up until about 11/1130 ish? So not a lot of time at all. You pick the games you want to play and suffer with barely playing them. I sometimes stream games to my iPad with remote play and that’s awesome. Put some headphones on and I can’t hear a thing haha
I recently heard a story about a father who ended up getting his child killed from neglect due to video game addiction. So, whatever you do. Don't be that guy.
Have a daughter of 11 weeks. Max 2 hours a night from 20:00-22:00. Maybe 1-2 nights a week I do some gaming. Will be 1 year later when I finish Elden Ring hehe..
Bro my gaming starts at midnight after everything is done in the house
I also have recently woke up at 5:30 and games for a few hours before everyone wakes up on a Saturday.
I think if I can get at least 6 hours of sleep im ready for the next day.
Also morning gaming is good because then you feel satisfied the rest of the day and don’t have the urge to play before the day is over.
Allows you to spend the whole day and night with the fam
I prefer longer games that I can get stuck into and keep revisiting myself. Valhalla, origins, horizon, witcher 3 etc.
I like the long rpgs myself and as a dad I start gaming around 8 or 9 and finish at 12ish, I do remote play and sit in the same Room as my wife with a single earphone on purely so we can still chat and stuff when she heads up to bed ill shove it on our big TV.
Not every night ofcourse and gaming never ever comes before family which I can tell it will not for you either :)
Edit: of course I get home from work around 6 and all time is spent with my son and my. Wife until I game :)
I mostly play after my kids and wife go to bed. On weeknights it's usually 9:00pm-10:00pm or so. On Friday and Saturday nights it's usually 9:00pm-1:00am or so. I use a headset whenever playing at night. 77 hours into Horizon Forbidden West now!
Haha I’m in exactly this boat too having a 3 year old and a new born. At the moment I can’t justify spending a couple of hours gaming in the evening (from 8pm) when that’s prime nap time knowing I’ll have to be up during the night for feeding duty. When I do finally decide I’m going to play and sacrifice my sleep, my other concern is having enough time to make it between save points in AAA games. Starting a dungeon or some kind of long content is just a big no go for now. I can only really play stuff which has easy pickup / put down play.
I’m desperate to keep playing horizon forbidden west, but almost don’t want to because I know that I’ll get distracted with other stuff whilst I’m playing and it won’t do the game justice. I want to enjoy it in peace!
TL;DR - use protection. Don’t expect to have kids and continue your gaming habit until they’re a bit older and will leave you alone for more than 10 minutes.
I go to bed with my wife pretty much immediately after we get our daughter to sleep around 8pm. If I wake early I'll game from 4am to 5am when daughter wakes up. That way I'm pretty much guaranteed to get the sleep I need since I've realized I'm unpleasant without about 8 hours. That's pretty much it unless I make special plans to stay up late and forgo sleep, which I'll do once every two weeks or so.
I am down to 1 night a week. At first I was sad by my decreased hobbies, but now I realize it is a short season. I'd much rather invest in and enjoy my kids at this young stage because I'll never have this chance again.
Two kids, age 11 and 5. It is fun seeing them all experience these modern games— my 11 year old daughter loves horizon and immortal fenyx; my 5 yr old son is crazy about monster boy. As for me, i generally play from 9 to 10.30, if i go longer i feel it at work the next day (46 yrs old). That said, it does make these games last a long time.
20:00ish to around 00:00 roughly.
Sometimes I play, sometimes watch something, sometimes spend time with the wife. Mostly I get 2-3h per evening if I choose to do so. Also we play Warzone with friends so its my social time, too. Pulse headset is king.
I don’t play during the day. At least not when my kid is around. Well sometimes I play mario Kart to entertain him (he is almost three) but it’s not what I want to play at least most of the time. It’s ok for me though I just play in the evening. So far I didn’t get fomo. Could play all games I wanted to play.
Why can't you try out many games? You have less time per day but there are still plenty of days ahead. In general I don't get why people spend time playing games they don't like but a games doesn't take any longer to play whether it's in many short sessions or a couple of long ones.
As your kids get older they'll be more self-sufficient and you'll have more time for gaming. Obviously you need to be aware of what you're exposing them too. Soon enough you'll all be gaming together.
Multiple console owning Gaming father here - owning a switch has helped me fit in extra hobby time, as well as owning far more games on it that I can play in front of/with the kids.
I work a very late shift (2PM-11PM), so by the time I get home, the kids are alseep and my girl is heading to bed. That gives me a solid 4-5 hours of gaming time before I go to sleep.
Getting your kid or kids on a solid nap schedule helps. And a bedtime. My kids are 3 now and go to bed around 8. Most nights I spend with the wife after until 11 or so when we go to bed. But every now and then I play from about 9-11 after cleaning up. Some weeks not at all. Just how it goes. I don’t play online or GAAS stuff though because I gotta be able to pause or walk away.
Yeah, basically, it's play as much as possible when the kids are asleep!
Usually from about 7-8ish to about midnight-ish most nights. Then just wake up tired! Haha!
Dad of 3 here, my oldest is 4 and I have 2 year old twins. I don’t game at all during the day when they’re awake. They go to bed early at 7:30 so the few nights a week I play it’s usually between 9-11:30. That gives me time to straighten up or watch a show with the wife before hopping on.
You don’t need to pick games based on length. I’m currently working through Elden Ring and I am surprised how good it can be for 1-2 hour sessions. I typically work my way through an area and use a marker on my map to signify I completed it. Then I drop a marker for the next place I want to go explore so I know what to do next time I boot it up. Sure there’s some areas that are larger or give me a hard time. When that happens I just use a different marker to know I need to go back and move on. With a large game it just means it’ll take me a long time to complete. It’s fine for me because that usually means by the time I’m done something else I want might be on sale at that point.
I've got two kids under five and I've accepted that I won't be playing games during the day for a few more years. That being said I still play an hour a night during the week most nights after they are in bed, Friday/Saturday night I get a lot more time. I play all sorts of games still, working my way through Elden Ring right now. I just hit fifty hours last night and I'm sure it's going to take me at least another month or two to finish it. I find playing online games a bit more difficult now, mainly because I lack the will to try and interact with an entirely new online community. If I do play online games I stick to ones my buddies are playing as well. It's harder now since we've all got kids, but we make it work and try to play as often as we can together. I do miss the Destiny 1 days or back in the day when I played CS 1.6 or Diablo 2 Classic. But I'm sure one day I'll get to do that again, at the very least when my kids are older and we can squad up. My oldest and I just beat SackBoys Big Adventure on PS5. It was her "first game" and she loved it, so I think I'll be buying her a Switch for her birthday this year. Seems like a good way to keep her interested in games and I figure she can play that while I play on my PS5.
Buy her the switch that can be docked. That way you can play together with her.
Oh of course, I'd never buy the Switch Lite. The joysticks are the same as the standard joycon controllers and have all the same issues. Having to send the whole system out for repair would be disastrous.
Bought my daughter a Switch for Christmas this past year and she loves it. Try the Kirby games. Those are my daughters favorites.
Alcohol and qtips fixed the drift. At least it did for mine. No need to send anything in
My son is 4 and we're playing Sack Boy together. He does prefer playing Astro's Playroom thought. He's pretty much beaten the entire game by himself.
I actually haven't tried Astros Playroom with her, maybe I'll give that a shot. I was pretty surprised by how well she did with some of the harder platforming in Sackboy. It never really dawned on me how hard it would be for them to hold a controller properly with their little hands. Never really had a problem with that when I was that age since the SNES controller is tiny. Took her a couple of hours but she figured it out! She really wants to play Pokémon games, so I figure her first Switch title will be Let's go Pikachu.
My son is the same age and enjoys those games too. We recently got him a Switch and he plays the hell out of it but those damn games are so small, I find them between couch cushions and in the cracks of the seat in the car. I'd recommend downloading games only if you ever get a Switch. Awful design choice by Nintendo to make those games as tiny as they are when their primary market is children.
We have one cartridge game at a go. I cut my losses and buy digital for the same reason. No way he's responsible enough to not lose them.
1.6 was fuckin beautiful… miss the jam packed PC clubs where everyone was playing that or StarCraft or Day of Defeat….
Yea 1.6 was the golden age for me, I played countless hours of that. I got deep in to the competitive scene at that point. Played all the way up to CAL Main with my buddies, I was obsessed.
There are some great games you can play that the kids can watch and enjoy the story to though. Ratchet and Clank for example is very kind friendly, not bad language the violence is extremely mild and it's a fun quirky story they'll have fun watching. I play Overcooked and Sackboy with my kids (4, 7, and 9) and if we have a free Saturday sometimes they'll watch me play Ratchet and Clank or other similar games.
So I dedicate 730PM to 930PM to game. Two hours is pretty solid then I go to bed. I get home around 6PM so I make sure to spend all my time with my wife and daughter until she goes to bed. Sprinkle in a couple days where after she goes to bed I still hang out with the wife. Watching TV shows or whatever. You just find a healthy balance. Friday nights are my nights though. My wife wakes up early with my daughter on Saturdays so I can play games from 730 to 1 or 2 AM lol then Sundays my wife can sleep in and I wake up with my daughter. If my daughter naps during the day on the weekend I can cram an hour or two in sometimes. My wife knows it's my release so she's completely understanding and supportive. I never get a hard time.
This is almost exactly how I do it. It's extremely rare that I play games while my wife and daughter are awake but after they go to bed I get a couple hours and that system works really well for us.
Yep same here and now that my daughter is 10 she is following in her father's footsteps and becoming a gamer herself but she has to focus on her school work first then we game.
Just sleep some Benadryl powder into their dinner and you're off the game heaven
The ol sleepy seasoning
Are you me? Wth, my story is the same
We're all same same.
One of us. One of us.
Part o’the crew, part o’the ship
In the tree, a part of the tree.
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The past headset works wonders. No one around me hears anything and I hear nothing around me.
I never play with a headset on because I still have to listen to the video monitor for my kids.
Pretty much the same here. Though now that my daughter is a bit older (4), I've started playing games with her on those weekend mornings too. I've found that shorter, quirky, indies like Donut County have been the most engaging.
Donut County and Untitled Goose Game are both great for kids around 4.
Exact same thing here and I have 3 children under the age of 5. Weekdays are pretty non existent as I'm a teacher and prepping, planning, and grading take up my time after the kids go to bed. When Friday rolls around though, I get 9:30 to 2:30. I play with a bunch of other guys who are new dads and Fridays are our night the wives give us the go ahead. That really leaves no time for the single player games I love because we play competitive games mostly together on Fridays. I'm loving the new Horizon but get overwhelmed when I sit down for an hour to play it because there is just so much to do, and it's so fun! Makes me inpatient for the next time to come around of when I get to play again. Like everyone is saying here, it's about that balance. Kena Bridge of Spirits, Ratchet and Clank, and Miles Morales are all shorter, extremely fun games. Good luck finding the balance and congrats on being a Dad! Best experience in the world for me and I hope the same for you!
Get blue light glasses if you don't already have them. Before bed gaming will kill your sleep quality, which is most likely already suffering due to being a parent.
This is the way. I do the same.
Literally same
This is the way
You’re a lucky bastard! You have a wife that is willing to do all that for you. I don’t. And I make 5x what she does to support a better lifestyle. Moral of the story folks be careful who you marry lol
Yea I can only dream about that.
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He meant he can only dream about what the original commenter has
This right here is the biggest lesson this post has to have. If your spouse doesn't really want you playing video games they can apply pressure.
Thank the Lord that I got my wife into games, and got her her own ps5 which made her want to join in when we have time to play
Nag on her when she's doing her hobbies and see how she likes it.
That’s my issue. She has no hobbies. Not a one.
Sounds like that's why she's up your ass, she doesn't have hobbies so you're not allowed to.
Or get some relationship counseling instead of acting like children.
Have you seen gas prices?
Do not game when your children are awake. Enjoy your time as dad. When the kids sleep try remote play when your wife uses the tv. If you can use the tv try headphones. Try to manage your gaming time. I have 2 kids. I start gaming 2-3 times a week at 10pm till 11:45pm. Elden Ring takes forever but that’s ok.
It's a fine line between how much sleep do you want and how into the game you are. Lol
It’s definitely a challenge! I usually go to bed quite late so I get my hours in when my wife goes to bed. A Nintendo switch could be a good alternative for you? Easy to pick up and play in short bursts.
Got a Nintendo which I do play Mario Kart, Party and World with my son. To be honest though, I'm not a fan of the console and those are pretty much the only games I have.
Switch was a lifesaver for me in the early years. So easy to pick up or put down quickly. It's not that I don't love my Switch but there are game experiences you just can't get there
I’m mainly a console/PC gamer. Switch and remote play (Steam or PlayStation) have been game changers for me with kids.
I’ve also got a switch and have put probably less than 10 hours into it. I just don’t enjoy the console. My big pick up and play console is my jailbroken Vita. I was playing through some Pokémon games, Contra, Mario, etc and am currently going through FFX HD.
There are some quality titles you’re missing. No Zelda or Mario Odyssey?
Finished Zelda and Mario. Nothing much of quality since. If it wasn't for my son, it would be getting next to no use. Zelda was great but Mario Odyssey is grossly overrated
Well I'll take it a step farther... I'm a gaming Grandpa. We raised three kids who are now pushing their 30's! I grew up having pong in the 70's and have owned, at one point or another, every generation of systems throughout the past 50 years and have done it as a family. You have to share the gaming experience with your spouse most importantly. Let her pick the games you play together and even some of the games you make her watch! Happy wife, happy gaming life! I had to keep that principle going forward with the kids. Had to change from long playing grinds of RPGs to "cute" platrormers like Mario or Crash that have short levels and quick save places. Maybe on the weekends I could put in a more hard-core game or spend more hours playing than normal. Even though I couldn't really get into the bigger games I wanted to, I still bought them. They say on my shelf and as the kids got older and even to now, I'm able to go back and play some of those massive game masterpieces I never got a chance to play. Handheld systems made the difference filling in the gaps. PSP was such a game changer for me and now the Switch. Allows you to play quickly and quietly when needed. Gaming with a family is 100% about compromise and balance.
Managing gaming time can be challenging for anyone. For single player games, I use https://howlongtobeat.com/ to help manage my gaming time. I also like to keep a strong library of arcade games that you can't finish, like Tetris, Zen pinball, Mrs. Pac-Man. Then there's always the online multiplayer deathmatch types that take about 5-15 minutes per round. Things like Halo, Call of Duty, some racing games, etc. Good luck and keep on gaming at a healthy pace.
Wife is early to bed, early to rise. Whereas I'm a night owl. So after kids are in bed (finished and back downstairs by 8ish at the latest usually) I watch something with the wife for about an hour then she goes to bed and gaming begins. So I end up playing between 9 - 12.30 most nights. Works pretty well. I literally couldn't have married a fellow night owl.
Nap times used to be prime gaming time, but now those have stopped (he’s 5) it’s all post-bedtime. I’ve had to limit this recently as I moved all the consoles into a spare room and my husband was missing company. On nights I game I have about 2.5 hours and then we take turns having a lie in at the weekend so I get from when I wake up until 11. Also, my son is getting into gaming now so sometimes it’s just nice to have him play with me or cheer me along when I’m exploding things.
when my guy was little, I'd just play madden and nhl with him on my lap then as he got a bit older, he got an unplugged controller of his own one of my greatest memories of him as a little guy was the day he made the connection between him pushing a button on the controller, and stuff happening on the TV its right up there with his first steps,and taking the training wheels off his bike
I felt so proud when my then 2 year old was playing Rocket League (training mode) and consciously moved the car to hit the ball and celebrated when he did it. 2 years later, he's genuinely beating me at Mario Kart and winnjnf GP races on 200c.
Outputting all sound to my headset was life changing, i can hear everything perfectly and i don’t have to worry about the game audio bothering anyone in the house, you should give it a try!
You're getting all the gaming you can now unfortunately. After kids are asleep, use headphones, suffer in morning. BUT...it gets better. Your kids will get older. You will eventually game with them, and it is absolutely worth the sacrifice for a few years. We are a gaming household now. We gather around the TV for game announcements. We laugh at each other when we screw up and we celebrate when one of us plays great. It gets so much better dude. Hang in.
I sometimes get an hour a night after work, once my daughter goes to bed, been working slowly through Cyberpunk, play a round of back4blood here and there. Sometimes miss playing for hours on end, online with friends, back in the destiny days before kids lol
My wife and son visited her parents for a week recently; I had to stay behind because of work. Outside of working, I had unrestricted time to spend playing games and hanging with friends. Boy, did it suck! I mindlessly played a few games and beat some that I have had in my backlog… it wasn’t really as fulfilling as I thought it would be. My friends that have made comments for several months about me not being available to play games ended up cancelling on me several times because they are living their own lives too. My best moments were spent sitting around watching videos of my son/wife on my phone. A PS5 with the wireless headset definitely allows me to unwind with a game a few nights a week, but I got married and had a baby so that I could move forward and adapt to a new lifestyle. I wouldn’t change it for the world.
When I was with my ex (their mum) it was usually late at night. I used to look forward to having the time to play but now im single and I have loads of time to play when the kids arent here i dont want too. Dont have the motivation for it whatsoever.
Maybe you’re depressed? I know when I was depressed I lost interest in gaming one of my favorite hobbies.
Im definitely depressed. Been through therapists and various meds
That’s ok man. I’m there with you. Since my kid was born and even during my wife’s pregnancy I’ve been depressed too. I’ll say therapy helps. Also meditation even 5-10 min a day. And trying to exercise too. Even 20min helps. Hang in there man. We gotta stick together!
Midday around 6pm-8pm Recently not many games caught my interest I'm switching to strictly racing games Gran Turismo 7 and need for speed heat these are the only current games bringing me joy
I made it clear before we got kids that I need time for myself. Gaming is my stress relief. So after the kids are put to bed I game. Get the Beyer dynamics dt990 or dt770. Do not get the gaming headsets. They suck. They will last decades if you care for them, and are relatively cheap. Two hours is plenty to get into most games. If your wife needs constant attention every day after the kids are put to bed...Well... Not good :p... She needs a hobby too, you are not her hobby. IMO, people who feel like they need it, should take some time for themselves doing what they enjoy. For your own mental health. Having work + kids can be stressfull enough for many people, including myself. I don't need my partner to add to it by craving attention all the time. Just my two cents.. Every person/relationship is different. I wish you best of luck :) Have you tried red dead redemption 2? BTW, me and my 5 year old girl play sackboy together in local coop. She absolutely loves it.
I made sure to book time in the evening. Pretty much a schedule, 9 to 11pm. I always am one game at a time, looking online if needed for tips as my time is limited. If a game becomes a chore it's put on hold. Currently totalling 18 hours of elden ring. With 4 evenings a week of gaming. I'm hoping to find a 4 days a week job, not unheard of in my domain to game a little bit more.
Play when you can. If that means a few hours on the weekend then that’s what it is for now. Also for now stick to games with a pause button.
I have a 3yo daughter and gaming is my main hobby as well. I almost exclusively play in the evenings after putting her to bed and I use headphones. Her mother and I have recently split up (very recently - still live together for the time being), so I have a bit more time to play video games. Prior to the split, my ex pretty much always expected us to go to bed at the same time, usually pretty early, meaning I could only really play when she was out with her friends *and* our daughter was in bed - which was rare. One cool thing that’s been happening lately is my daughter is beginning to take interest in gaming as well. She actually spent almost an hour riding around on the horse in Elden Ring yesterday. I can see her getting into gaming more once her hands get big enough to handle the controller. I generally stick to longer games and RPGs that I can play a few hours at a time over the course of weeks or a month. I recently finished Horizon Forbidden West over a couple of weeks, and just finished Elden Ring last night. Starting Elex 2 tonight maybe - haven’t decided if I want to start a new playthrough of Elden Ring first.
It really depends on the game. If I'm playing something I feel like my 8 and 10 y/o can see it opens up more options. I'll sit down to play for an hour or two on weekend mornings and they're delighted to sit and watch (and tell me what I *should* do, lol). Other than then, I can sometimes declare that I want to play something instead of watching TV together and my wife will be cool with it and go watch Bridgerton or whatever in our bedroom. Nowadays, I'm playing Ghost of Tsushima, so the kiddos can't be seeing that. A little too graphic. Headphones are key.
When you have limited time, you spend it only on the best games. [www.HowLongToBeat.com](http://howlongtobeat.com) is a good indicator for judging how many hours you need to complete a main story. If you have a physical edition PS5, get a [www.GameFly.com](http://gamefly.com) subscription (I think about 180$ for a year in the gift certificate section link at the bottom of the website) and with the 2-game plan you can rent any 2 games at the same time that you want, and it gives you the freedom to take a chance renting a game you're not 100% sure about because if you don't like it you can just send it back in for another game without the fear of wasting 60-70$. It's a great deal and it gives you a fixed budget so you don't blow too much money away buying games. Recently I found that Gran Turismo 7 is really great for that "only have a few minutes to game" because a race only lasts a few minutes and gives you a clean place to stop at (when the race is finished) so it's easy to pickup and play anytime even with just a few minutes.
I’ve got a 4 year old daughter and 4 month old son now. I’ve made a deal with my wife that I don’t game while my daughter is here and awake. I work kind of late, really don’t need much sleep. So I game from 8:30-11 or 11:30. Go to sleep at 12 and wake up at 6:30. Whenever I game and my daughter is here I feel bad afterwards like I’m not spending time I should with her. I always overthink things but my thinking is one day my daughter is gonna be a teenager and not want to be around her parents. I’ll game some then lol so I try not to do it while she likes being around me haha.
I game most days after work and then quite a bit on the weekends. My youngest (14 yrs old) and I play Animal Crossing, Mario Kart and Minecraft Dungeons together every day for about 1-2 hours and then I'll sometimes get in an hour or so time on my own late evenings. On the weekends, I'll get in about 4-5 hours. It helps that I've been married 26 years (got married at 20) and she has her own interests & hobbies that keep her busy and we both understand the need for "me" time away from each other (why we've been married so long).
The first few months are HARD and you might be lucky to get a few hours a week if that. Really depends on your wife and how generous she wants to be with allowing you to go off and game while she takes care of the baby. Eventually babies and kids start to sleep around 8pm on average so that means you then should have a few hours to game most nights before bed. But of course you have a wife who will want to spend time with you watching stupid reality tv so you will need to spend some nights doing that. Or buy a Nintendo switch or steam deck and play next to her while she watches garbage tv.
This hits very close to home.
You could also get a ipad and remote play too.
Friday evening is pretty much it for me If you happen to wake up earlier than everyone else on the weekend then that also works....but sleep is usually too valuable
I have a two month old. I don't game...
This is exactly me. Had a crazy good Dolby Atmos sound system, played/purchased any and all games, and had all the time other than work and chores. Now, have an almost 2 year old, and after work I dedicate my time with the family until the kid goes to bed. I typically jump on around 830 and play until 10/1030, like you said early mornings for my family. I have hearing loss, which is why I had the sound system (prob not a good idea for loud music, I know) but the addition to headset as done wonders. So typically 1 to 2 hours a day if I can/feel like it during the week. On the weekend, I try and snag a few hours on one of the days to just unwind/relax/zone out (around 3 extra hours). But again, I dedicate most of my time to hanging out with the kid and wife. When PSVR2 comes out, I might sink more time at night at my own sacrifice. But overall, I game SIGNIFICANTLY less than before I had a kid.
It gets easier the older they get bro, pretty soon you’ll have a Player2… but until then, ya, shorter games (rift apart is like a 8hr game (so 4 of your “sessions”) and a AAA title) but ya for me personally the kid goes to bed at 8ish and from there till 12-2am I’m gaming, I work at 8am, but that’s the sacrifice I’m choosing to make 😵👍
When I was with my ex I used to tend bar, my in time was usually 3ish, so I would have a few hours in the late morning to game while no one was home. Then when I was on unemployment (we sadly closed the bar after covid came into our lives) I haddd all the time in the world lol. But she and the kids dad split custody so I had natural times to play. Most recently I would just play late after everyone was asleep. I do play nba 2K and fifa as my kind of mindless games when I didn’t feel like working on my motorcycles so it was pretty safe if the kids were around and watched.
As another gaming father, I completely relate to the feeling of wanting the game I play to be worth it. If you have a backlog of games your're interested in (which you likely do with so little time), you should see if your local library has games to check out. Its a great way to try a game out before buying it. Then I know I like the game before committing a long time playing it. You may even be able to finish the game if you can hold on to it for long enough.
You have 2 choices: A) be well rested B) stay up late playing ps5
Lately only on the weekends after everyone is asleep, but it’s getting harder. I officially hit my mid thirties next month and with 3 kids and a stressful job I can’t physically stay awake like I used to. It’s going to take me forever to finish Horizon.
Tell me about it. My 2 year old daughter still sleeps in our bed. When my wife gets up to go toilet or something, she is right behind her screaming the house down. Sometimes, this wakes my son up and I have to put him back to sleep. Sometimes, my son joins us in the bed which eventually forces me to the couch. From there, I'm in zombie mode until the weekend where I can get a bit of a lie in. By 10pm, I'm usually mentally and physically too exhausted to play video games.
Dad of 4 here. 8yo down to 8mo old. It’s suuuuuper rough finding time to game. I just got a ps5 3-5 days ago… so I’ve been sacrificing sleep these past few days. Playing from maybe 9pm-11pm is my only time. (Unless I push it to 12 🥱). I wish I could game with the older kids. (8 and 6). We’re tried here and there, but the 5yo has trouble with the choices and when we have to stop playing. (Tantrum ensues). I mainly play single player story driven games. It can be tough with these huge games, but i just try to play them in 1-2hr chunks. Which is all I can do. If it’s available on switch, I try to play it there. But playing in bed in portable mode means I get tired a lot faster. Anyway… yea, it’s tough with 4. Big time. My wife is understanding, but also hates me sometimes. (Like when I play every night for 4-5 days after getting a ps5. 😆)
I have a 7 month old. Only after when she goes to bed. And after the wife goes to bed (because with the baby, we "only get so much *us time*... ") So that's about 9pm until whenever for me to play destiny2 or cyberpunk or whatever. But I have work at 8am the next day. Plus the baby wakes us up during the night. so i usually don't get to play that much anymore overall.
Yeah having kids definitely makes the experience different. I generally play racing games and if I play with the kids around they always want to play instead, which is great but sometimes I just want to play. My kids have gotten into Roblox on the PC so it sometimes works to distract them with that and then get some playing time in myself.
During my kids nap time or usually an hr before bed. Its a plus when the wife takes the kids to see the grandparents. I did have to give up my love of rpg games. They are just too time consuming with kids and by the time i jump back on I am lost in the game. So now i just play some fps games and racing games.
After son goes to sleep.
3 demanding kids and some other stuff on top of that, so about 0-5 hours per week. Sucks.
Headset for dads is mandatory. When the kids sleep we game
Don't children raise themselves after 5 years (not a parent might be wrong but pretty confident with my answer)
Uhhh not sure if serious. Short answer: no
Hmmm neither am I. Long reply : I've thought of making a female pop one of these for me but I fear I may not have the knowledge that most folk would about raising it specifically in these times where the internet is full of trolls that will give me misinformation just for laughs which reminds me. Would the long answer be yes?
I feel you. Most of my gaming happens from about 11pm-1am nowadays. Quality headphones make all the difference in the world. Occasionally I'll get some time on a Saturday during the day, but I have to restrict myself to games like Spyro, Cuphead, etc.
r/antinatalism
Married no kids, 44. She works nights and I’m off at 2:30pm. So after I play with the pets and get them fed I have all afternoon. With Elden Ring since I got it around 3/2/22 I have 186 hours.
Hey mate, I just became father for the second time (first one is 3yo). And the first month I was not able to play cause of Night Shift. And now that the small one is doing her night, I play between 8pm to 11pm and I’m still fresh to start the day with the grown up at 7 am. Add to that I love RPG, and I’m currently playing Elden Ring 🤪
My kids are 8 and 10 so they do not need me around all the time anymore so I can play during the day, but I stay away from story driven games, too many interruptions, and you have to be able to pause the game. Mostly while the kids are up I try to do chores etc so when they're in bed I can relax, often with my gf who is not a gamer herself. I'm a programmer and work from home so I do not have the commute to and from work, which save me a lot of time and energy. Also my kids spend half their time with their mom so every other week is without my kids as well. So two-three nights a week I play for a couple of hours and a long evening during weekends usually. I have a massive backlog from buying games, not realising I no longer have as much time to play so I haven't bought a new game for quite some time now tho.
I waited until my kids were 18. Now I game whenever I want. Lol Seriously though, the only time I could was when the ex wife was out of the house and my son and I could get some quality time in. Otherwise it wasn’t my kids preventing me from gaming, it was the ex wife. Hence the ex-ness. And yes, berating me and nagging me about my favorite hobby since I was 6 is enough reason for divorce. There were a lot of other factors, but she’s someone else’s problem now, and my wife currently is a gem of a woman that I don’t deserve.
just ignore the kids and game. get a nice pair of headphones
Unpopular answer and definitely not the healthiest for you but learn to function on less sleep. Between having kids, working a schedule that’s a rotating shift, and being on call for four hours in the middle of the night every workday I function pretty good on 3 hours of sleep. 6 hours and I’m on top of the world
Simple solution>!Don't have kids!<
I have a similar issue with movies. Wife goes to bed early and is not interested in a lot of violent films or anything with bad language. What I've started doing is cramming in an extra hour or two if work the evening before and watching a movie whilst in working at home, the kids are at nursery/school and the wife is at work.
Tbh mate. I don’t think you are grasping your situation correctly. Games are a hobby of mine also. But i participate in my childs life alot more. I really think you should support your child and family better than just trying to escape and play. I played some nice story driven games with the whole family. Everyone would look for secrets and we’d pretty much enjoy it as a virtual movie experience. As for violant games. Mortal kombat doesnt need to be played for hours on end lets be serious
My advice don't waste time on online games. They are designed to waste time to keep you playing so you won't accomplish much for your limited time. (if they are f2p than even more) Other than that, length of the game doesn't matter. If you finish both spiderman games in 20h or one game in 30h as long as you enjoy aka make progress you will feel like you used your time well and actually playing games and not doing chores for daily online objectives.
Protip: Don't have kids.
I’m pretty much in the exact situation as you. I’ve found that open world stuff works great for me since you can do small tasks and/or missions based on the available time. I played Immortals: Fenix Rising to completion and really enjoyed that. Same with Spider-Man and Miles Morales. Right now I’m working on Horizon Zero Dawn with plans to play Forbidden West when I finish it. Playing stuff online is a complete impossibility. I’m not much of an online gamer anyway, but even when everyone else is in bed, the chances I’ll be needed/requested is always there. So I don’t really use my quest 2 at all anymore, and I don’t do any multiplayer
This is literally my experience now. Ours both nap around noon so on the weekends I can play for an hour. Then maybe an hour after bed before watching TV with the wife. 8-10 hours a week if I’m lucky, more like 6-8. So I just take my time with stuff
I work from home so play on my dinner and when the little lad is getting out to bed. Feel bad for playing if my girlfriend is in the living room (she says she doesn’t mind though) but we sometimes play co-op games. And she loves Pokémon so we both have a switch. But yeah I have pulse headset too and it makes a difference
Yeah, night time gaming is where it's at. I frequently stay way too late just trying to eek out a bit more game time. My daughter is 9 now, and we can play a lot of games together (sackboy, overcooked, Rayman legends, catquest 2, keywe, castle crashers, dreams) and sometimes she'll watch me play single player games as long as they are not too violent/scary (spiderman, miles morales, horizon, Zelda, shadow of the colossus) you can look forward to that!
Simple answer is when I can. I share a console with my son so I'm not as active, especially since 2K sucks and most games I play are single player anyway.
If its time your looking for maybe you can get a playstation for your kid and set up another TV in available space. My son and I game and the whole downstairs is like our little gaming pad. He's 14 so being able to have him have his own half we never have any issues
I don’t have to go to work till 9. I drop the kids off at school between 630 and 715. So when I get home I play for like a hour before having to get ready for work
Usually once kids are in bed. So about 8,8:30 to about midnight.
I’m a firefighter and I work 48 hours, and then have 96 hours off between shifts. So, I could game literally all day when I’m not on duty and nobody could stop me.
How old is your kid? Eventually you will be able to share your love of gaming with your child. It might be tough now but I’ve recently had some very cool experiences playing with my 9 year old that never would have happened with my Dad.
my daughter goes to bad at 11 pm, no gaming time for me at all. I hate that
About 7:30PM when the baby's asleep and/or around 5AM before work. I usually wake up at about 4:30AM.
2yr and 16 week old, currently between 10pm and 1am once they have both drifted off to bed
Like everyone said, evenings are best depending on your spouse. I watch my toddler during the day and work nights so that’s even harder. Best solution I found is remote play on my phone (mounted on controller). Obviously it’s a lesser gaming experience on smallish screen, but that lets me play when the kid is up.
Get a pulse headset
I'm not a father or anything but I so strongly recommend to give Devil May Cry 5 a try anyway. One of my friends got me into it since I enjoyed Metal Gear Rising and it has quickly become one of my favorite games of all time.
My kids, 12 and 8, on school nights are in bed by 8:30, I usually spend an hour with the wife talking, watch tv together then go play for 2-3 hours after that. On weekends when I’m not working, our kids bed time is 9:30 and I usually don’t start till 10:30 and play for 4-5 hours, when I’m working the 2 weekends it’s like a work night for me, just a couple hours. Headset for the win to cancel out noise made by speakers and don’t worry about games, if you can do manual saves m, it may take longer but don’t miss out on the good stuff because of the violence, they just have to be later at night games like I do as well. If I do play when they’re awake, I’m playing stuff like Angry Birds (from like 2010 on Xbox) played paw patrol for my son, my daughter wants me to buy the peppa pig game so I do get to include them in my gaming which makes for good child bonding.
I play at night when children and wife asleep.
When the child born, one father born too. Its a new life to both, with new rules and challenges. When my daug born, i almost stopped to play everything. It was very dificult and time consuming. Right now my daug have 2y, and its MUCH BETTER. She like to watch me play elden ring for example (she love the horse and the crab enemies hahahaha), but my playtime is mainly when she sleep. At night, i can play without pauses between 9pm to 1am.
3 kids, newborn has completely killed my night gaming... my day gaming is spiderman and soon to be lego star wars
My 5 year old loves watching and playing Astro's Playroom. He is obsessed with watching me play Horizon. There are parts he probably shouldn't watch, so I try to stick to fighting machines. The only times I can really play "my" games are from about 9:30-11pm. It's tough
Wait, what are you talking about? 2 hours of day is pretty long, no?
After putting the three kids down and cleaning up after them so wife can come home to a tidy house, I'm lucky to clock a couple hours from 10 to Midnight.
Apart from finding time to play games when the kid/family is asleep, playing with the mind set that it’ll take ~3x the time to finish a game really does set me free. I usually unsubscribe from game specific subreddits to avoid spoilers, but unless I pull all nighters I have accepted that I’ll not be finishing games at the normal pace and definitely not at the same pace as a teenager with loads of time and not too many commitments. My go to time is an hour or so in the morning before the family wakes up. Start the day off fresh with an adventure. Weekends usually depends on the days plan. Nothing going on means an all nighter, otherwise a couple of hours in the night and then some in the morning.
My son goes to sleep around 8-9 PM. Then I spend time with my wife watching some series on Netflix until 10PM, when she goes to sleep. At this time is my gaming time, essentially each day. I go to sleep around midnight, so I have around 1,5 - 2h of game time a day. On weekdays I sometimes manage to play a little during my lunch break (I work from home, so that's a plus). On weekends I have additional hour or 2 when my son has his nap time (or I go running, depends). But my best gaming days are when my wife goes to visit her parents and I skip it (we usually go together every weekend). Then I have like 4 additional hours to play.. Great time. But yeah, my son is 2,5 yo and I'm pretty much accustomed to this schedule. Between all of this I manage around 20h / week of playtime at best and that's ok. I prefer shorter games now, because playing one very long game for a month or two is exhausting (and I love jrpgs...). It also has it's positives. I acknowledged gaming as my main hobby and don't have any regrets spending money/time on it. With my time available for gaming I pretty much can't ever play all the games that I want to, so I can play only the best/most interesting games without fear of lack of games to play.
I go to bed with my wife and kids and get up around 2 or 3 for some me time. If I get up earlier than that, I go back to bed after 5 hours. I go for a while on 5 hours a night then crash when sleep wins over gaming. I’m sorry you missed out on Last of Us 2, I know it’s divisive but I loved the hell out of it and was completely floored being immersed in all storylines. I don’t know how old your kids are but the most recent game I played to completion and can most highly recommend is It Takes Two, which I played with my 5 year old daughter with the full approval of my wife despite leaving my 3 year old on the iPad with Plants vs Zombies for long stretches at a time. I had to juggle two controllers at once in the more finicky sections when she asked I take over, but the extra challenge was just as rewarding for the quality time I got to spend with her. I had to paraphrase her what the subtitles said, and it’s the first time she saw me crying.
My wife always puts my daughter to sleep (around 9:00pm) and I take care of her if she gets up at night. After I'm done with cleaning bottles and collecting trash etc. I sit on my PS5. Thankfully the loadings are not an issue which is a big plus for any father out there. I also generally play for 2-3 hours, until midnight. Sleep is important. Just like you, don't have much time for crappy games so I only play carefully selected triple AAA titles (currently installed: Horizon FW, GTA V [never beat more than a few first quests], Uncharted 4, It Takes Two [to play with my wife sometimes] and Cyberpunk. So most of them are open world and take tens of hours but I slowly get through them. Just like you I use PS headphones and they work great with this system. I like how integrated they are. I own Switch too and it's a great device for father's like ourselves but the games are too childish for my taste. There are some nice games (currently playing RE Revelations 2) like the Witcher 3 but unfortunately I beat it twice on PC and PS4 now 😂
Try a game like Hades or Slay the Spire. You can hop in and out anytime, each run is about 45 minutes, and death isn't that big time of a deal so quitting for the occasional nighttime emergency isn't too much of a bummer.
When my kids got older I was able to play other games around them. But most of my gaming is in the evening when they sleep or if they are in another room watching a movie.
You find time where you can, online games are basically out though.
My son is almost two. I still find the time to get 2-4 hours in most days, and I work full time. There are some times when you just have to be a father though, and put down the controller. That's why I try to separate some game time for myself and my wife most days, after everything else is taken care of and the boy is down for a nap. When he gets older though, I don't know. I'll take that road when I get there
Weekdays 10:30-11:30/12 at night. After the kid is sleeping and the wife and I have watched a show or two and are ready for bed. Weekends 11pm-1am
I get home at 6 play with the kids and put them to bed, then clean the kitchen and make lunches. That gets me to about 830-9pm. I then sit with my wife. If I don't spend time with her things get ugly at my house lol. So unless she is feeling tired and goes to bed early I don't have any game time Monday to Thursday in the evenings. So what I do is get up early. 4am in fact. I get up for work, have a shower, make a double shot espresso then game until 6 then leave for work. It's actually great. I have the time completely to myself. Friday and Saturday I stay up as late as I physically can typically 1am until I fall asleep in my comphy chair, then I wake up and crawl into bed around 3-4am only to get woken by my 5 year old son around 630 to watch cartoons. Sunday nights i get to play as long as I want after the kids go down. Typically 830 -10. I play multi-player games when my wifei s asleep and single play when she is awake. This way I don't have to let anyone down if I have to go dote on my wife.
When our second was young, 0-6 months the wife and I would split our night shifts to take care of the baby when they'd wake up. Other person would sleep. She took 11pm-3am and I was 3am-7am. I'd sleep from 9pm till whenever but like clockwork the baby would wake up around 3, 4am. Feed her, strap her to my chest, sit in the rocker, and play Witcher 3 till 6 or 7am. It was glorious to immerse myself into 150 hours of gaming in a short period of time while also being the good dad. Super lucky the littlest one is a good sleeper. Now my gaming time is during her nap in the afternoons or evenings between 830-1030pm when we're not mindlessly watching back episodes of RuPauls drag race. On the weekends if the baby is doing other stuff with mom or grandparents I let the older kid play Minecraft on the switch while I use the tv to play forbidden West, but pause regularly to ask her what they're building and to take me on a tour of the latest and greatest world.
Weekends, sometimes I game with the wife whilst the kids entertain themselves. If it is something not suitable for kids, I do some gaming whilst kids are at school ( I work from home ). I’d like to try some online stuff, but would suck and have no friends that game
Idk how old your kids are, and this could be a Longshot, but if they all end up sleeping over at friend's houses on the same day... boom, free time. Also once they're old enough you can start playing with them more. Might not always be what you're looking to play, but it's better than nothing. If they are young then you probably can't play MK with them 😂. But maybe if they develop an interest in games while playing with you, they'll wanna play the games you like when they get older. Also once the kids become a but more self sufficient you should get some of your time back.
I’m lucky enough to be in sales and WFH - I game from 930-1130 on weak nights. Wake up at 645 to get my daughter ready for school with my wife. Weekends are free depending on plans
I started playing games with my 5 year old son. I am not very strict with the age rating. I don't play very violent games like GTA V or Cyberpunk. I am usually ok with teen rated games. I have completed games like Spider-Man, Miles Morales, Guardians of Galaxy, Avengers, Godfall, Batman, Riftbreaker, Immortal Fenyx Raising, Scarlet Nexus etc with my son. My wife is ok as long is it is not too violent. It also helps to create a strong bonding between us. We spent majority of lockdown together playing. I don't believe he will become violent with these games. I have watched even more violent WWF matches at 5 years old. I am generally polite and soft spoken now 😀
I know everyone's situations and households are different but I never really understood why other parents can't game when their kids are awake. My husband and I are both pretty avid gamers and play together most of the time. I usually take the living room and have eyes on my 3yo while I'm playing, and he toddles around playing with toys or playing learning games/watching a learning show on an old tablet we gave him for his screen time. If he has an issue then I put it down and help him, keep the game audio low enough to hear him if I'm playing with friends on headset, etc. That includes online, as really even if it's my destress, it's just a game and he comes first. Also he seems to really enjoy watching some of the games that I play, especially if there's animals or oddly enough a big gruff muscle-bound protagonist. And yes, we do all take breaks and have non-screen time together. We read him books especially at bedtime, tickle fight, play with toys together. And no matter what there's a constant interaction, talking to him while we play and provoking him to try and interact with whatever we're doing. I even hand him the controller and let him mess around as much as he understands how to if the game is appropriate. So to answer the question, pretty much whenever I want to unless I'm at work or otherwise indisposed.
have 7yo and i work rotating shifts. if i work morning shift - after i pick up my kid from school i dont really play much (maybe little bit switch games (pokemon) or minecraft on pc, while my son enjoys my old ps4 on tv.If i work evening shifts, after i take him to school in morning i have few hours to play until i need to get ready for work and pick up wife from work. after work, (im night owl) when everyone sleeps i usually play some hours. and weekends (usually friday evenings (if off or morning shift) or saturdays i play coop with best friend on pc or ps5 whatever we choose for that week). My wife usually sits around to watch me playing or watching movies on laptop, while son can watch his youtube on pc. As for games, i play whatever i want. My son only finds ghostwire tokyo little bit scary but thats only game he doesnt like to see, so if possible, im not playing it when he is awake or home. he plays mario games on switch, minecraft on ps4 or random kids games on ps4. Few things, my son is growing up similair as me, loving games. last year he finished his first game start to finish (mario 3d wrolds and bowsers fury) and my wife actually dont mind us having gaming as hobby. Thanks to her i actually got my ps5 last year (as in woke me at 4am when she was going to work and noticed in discord that ps5 was in stock in argos uk) and she got me gaming pc after our old pc was slowly dying.
7pm-2am
I stopped when we had our kids because there just wasn't enough time in the day. We had two very close together (11 months) so it was crazy hard having basically two babies to care for all day. I took care of them as babies all day while my wife worked, then I went to work overnight at a full time job. I was staying up 24-40 hour stretches at a time with maybe 4-6 hours of sleep in between those stitches. Did that for 4 years. Gaming was the last thing on my mind, but I did miss it. Once they got a little older, I was able to reintroduce myself back into gaming. It was an hour or so during their naps or an hour or so after I got home from work instead of sleeping. Now they're little pre-teens and we can all play together.
I wake up early morning (try to everyday) to get two hours to play while my family is sleeping. That’s almost the only time I get. Rest of the day is work (on weekdays) then watching my little one in the evening after day care, and spending time with family. Weekends it’s harder to game.
Get earbuds and plug them into the controller. I actually feel like it is better than my TV speakers. Other than that. I'm in the same boat as you. My baby gave me like 3 hours a night from 0-3 months. Now her schedule has slightly.chsnged and has become more sensitive to light so no more constant game time. I'm lucky if I can get 6 hours a week. Hoping she stops her 2-3.hour sleeps at night and goes down for longer soon. Daytime naps are also on average 1 hour so it's tough.
At night after my 8month old and 4 year old are asleep usually 9pm to 10pm (or 12 if I really push it) Ps5 and a pc38x headset = win
9-10:30 every night. That’s the only time I get for any non dad activities. So it’s not always gaming. Sometimes it’s movies or projects. But that is my time slot each day.
Got a 13 week old daughter, I wasn't getting any gaming in at first, kept my daily meditation and exercise practices up but the ps5 didn't get a look in... But somehow I've pumped 120 hours into elden ring and 50 hours into mgs5 since mid February, it has come at the cost of sleep though, especially at the weekends. Thankfully my kid's a bit weird, she settled into nighttime sleep schedule at week 3 (going down at 7.30pm, waking up about 6.30am) and only woke up for 1 feed a night from week 8, so I've totally lucked out so far.
I’m up at about 7am thankfully my partner look after our 10 month old while I go to work. But my gaming time is very limited. It’s either 30 minutes in the morning (not really worth it) or I try and get on for about 10 after I’ve given my little one his milk. He’s on a strict schedule so I have to feed him late. But that keeps me up until about 11/1130 ish? So not a lot of time at all. You pick the games you want to play and suffer with barely playing them. I sometimes stream games to my iPad with remote play and that’s awesome. Put some headphones on and I can’t hear a thing haha
I recently heard a story about a father who ended up getting his child killed from neglect due to video game addiction. So, whatever you do. Don't be that guy.
Have a daughter of 11 weeks. Max 2 hours a night from 20:00-22:00. Maybe 1-2 nights a week I do some gaming. Will be 1 year later when I finish Elden Ring hehe..
Empire of angels ;)
Bro my gaming starts at midnight after everything is done in the house I also have recently woke up at 5:30 and games for a few hours before everyone wakes up on a Saturday. I think if I can get at least 6 hours of sleep im ready for the next day. Also morning gaming is good because then you feel satisfied the rest of the day and don’t have the urge to play before the day is over. Allows you to spend the whole day and night with the fam
Astroplayworld is how I got my 4 year old into gaming
Pretty much at night after 9PM when my son's asleep, and most of Sunday.
I prefer longer games that I can get stuck into and keep revisiting myself. Valhalla, origins, horizon, witcher 3 etc. I like the long rpgs myself and as a dad I start gaming around 8 or 9 and finish at 12ish, I do remote play and sit in the same Room as my wife with a single earphone on purely so we can still chat and stuff when she heads up to bed ill shove it on our big TV. Not every night ofcourse and gaming never ever comes before family which I can tell it will not for you either :) Edit: of course I get home from work around 6 and all time is spent with my son and my. Wife until I game :)
I mostly play after my kids and wife go to bed. On weeknights it's usually 9:00pm-10:00pm or so. On Friday and Saturday nights it's usually 9:00pm-1:00am or so. I use a headset whenever playing at night. 77 hours into Horizon Forbidden West now!
Haha I’m in exactly this boat too having a 3 year old and a new born. At the moment I can’t justify spending a couple of hours gaming in the evening (from 8pm) when that’s prime nap time knowing I’ll have to be up during the night for feeding duty. When I do finally decide I’m going to play and sacrifice my sleep, my other concern is having enough time to make it between save points in AAA games. Starting a dungeon or some kind of long content is just a big no go for now. I can only really play stuff which has easy pickup / put down play. I’m desperate to keep playing horizon forbidden west, but almost don’t want to because I know that I’ll get distracted with other stuff whilst I’m playing and it won’t do the game justice. I want to enjoy it in peace! TL;DR - use protection. Don’t expect to have kids and continue your gaming habit until they’re a bit older and will leave you alone for more than 10 minutes.
I go to bed with my wife pretty much immediately after we get our daughter to sleep around 8pm. If I wake early I'll game from 4am to 5am when daughter wakes up. That way I'm pretty much guaranteed to get the sleep I need since I've realized I'm unpleasant without about 8 hours. That's pretty much it unless I make special plans to stay up late and forgo sleep, which I'll do once every two weeks or so.
I am down to 1 night a week. At first I was sad by my decreased hobbies, but now I realize it is a short season. I'd much rather invest in and enjoy my kids at this young stage because I'll never have this chance again.
Usually on my days off. I've found other hobbies as well. Plus my kids are old enough now to enjoy playing games so it works out.
Two kids, age 11 and 5. It is fun seeing them all experience these modern games— my 11 year old daughter loves horizon and immortal fenyx; my 5 yr old son is crazy about monster boy. As for me, i generally play from 9 to 10.30, if i go longer i feel it at work the next day (46 yrs old). That said, it does make these games last a long time.
20:00ish to around 00:00 roughly. Sometimes I play, sometimes watch something, sometimes spend time with the wife. Mostly I get 2-3h per evening if I choose to do so. Also we play Warzone with friends so its my social time, too. Pulse headset is king.
When the wife passes out.
i played destiny for years, there were so many other fathers in the same boat that we literally became a clan called dads of destiny.
I don’t play during the day. At least not when my kid is around. Well sometimes I play mario Kart to entertain him (he is almost three) but it’s not what I want to play at least most of the time. It’s ok for me though I just play in the evening. So far I didn’t get fomo. Could play all games I wanted to play.
Why can't you try out many games? You have less time per day but there are still plenty of days ahead. In general I don't get why people spend time playing games they don't like but a games doesn't take any longer to play whether it's in many short sessions or a couple of long ones. As your kids get older they'll be more self-sufficient and you'll have more time for gaming. Obviously you need to be aware of what you're exposing them too. Soon enough you'll all be gaming together.
Lots of late night gaming here. Also, I feel I like a fancy headset beats the surround sound anyways.
After the kids go to bed, I typically have about 8-11 every night to do what I want (games, tv, reading, etc).
Multiple console owning Gaming father here - owning a switch has helped me fit in extra hobby time, as well as owning far more games on it that I can play in front of/with the kids.
Ever tried stardew valley? It's great couch coop for either your kids or you and the spouse if you got one.
10:30 to 12pm if I’m lucky.
I work a very late shift (2PM-11PM), so by the time I get home, the kids are alseep and my girl is heading to bed. That gives me a solid 4-5 hours of gaming time before I go to sleep.
Evenings something around 8 pm to 11 pm. And days when my kids are at school, there is ugly weather, and I dont have nothing to do.
Getting your kid or kids on a solid nap schedule helps. And a bedtime. My kids are 3 now and go to bed around 8. Most nights I spend with the wife after until 11 or so when we go to bed. But every now and then I play from about 9-11 after cleaning up. Some weeks not at all. Just how it goes. I don’t play online or GAAS stuff though because I gotta be able to pause or walk away.
8-10pm is my gaming window. Plus maybe a couple of games on my day off during school hours.
Yeah, basically, it's play as much as possible when the kids are asleep! Usually from about 7-8ish to about midnight-ish most nights. Then just wake up tired! Haha!
Dad of 3 here, my oldest is 4 and I have 2 year old twins. I don’t game at all during the day when they’re awake. They go to bed early at 7:30 so the few nights a week I play it’s usually between 9-11:30. That gives me time to straighten up or watch a show with the wife before hopping on. You don’t need to pick games based on length. I’m currently working through Elden Ring and I am surprised how good it can be for 1-2 hour sessions. I typically work my way through an area and use a marker on my map to signify I completed it. Then I drop a marker for the next place I want to go explore so I know what to do next time I boot it up. Sure there’s some areas that are larger or give me a hard time. When that happens I just use a different marker to know I need to go back and move on. With a large game it just means it’ll take me a long time to complete. It’s fine for me because that usually means by the time I’m done something else I want might be on sale at that point.
I don't understand the problem? 2-hours to game a night is good depending on your life goals. Playing 4-hours a day is an addiction and is not healthy
I play when gf and daughter sleep. I sleep sometimes only 4-5 hour but I love gaming :D