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I am the father of twin boys. I would argue that no only will you have time for your hobbies, both of you HAVE to make time for your hobbies. You'll need it to stay sane and get a little bit of alone time.

Now, this also means that you'll have to adjust how you paint. I broke my painting down into 15-30 minute chunks and made sure that if I needed to put something down, I could. You can certainly make it happen, you'll just have to fit it in a bit more creatively.

Early in the morning and late at night are certainly good times.

BTW, congrats.

Youll have time. Its all about budgeting it though. Come up with a battle rhythm. A schedule for you and the wife where each of you has uninterrupted time alone. For sanity youll both need it.

She will probably want to get back in shape so thats a good time for you to step up or both go as a couple. She might want a girls night or wives coffee just as youll want a game night etc.

Painting on the otherhand which is time consuming and frustrating might come a bit late at night. You might get to catch an hour of painting while the wife is asleep and the kiddo is in bed. Invest in an airbrush and get used to the idea of tabel top quality. Good luck.

First off FLashman, Congrats! And congrats to all the other fathers and fathers-to-be (and any mothers or mothers-to-be who may be reading this).

My wife and I had our first in August of 2009, so he is approaching 6 months now, and he is a blast. Its a wonderful experience, with new things every day.

That said, I have little to no time for hobbying. I get my 'fix' by logging on to Dakka when I can, perusing, maybe posting, and then its back to real life. I've seen some of the other suggestions (I admit I haven't read them all), but I agree that you have to make time for the hobby, or any hobby. The trick will be balancing that with the needs of your wife, your new child, and yours.

Our son only naps 30 minutes at a time every 2 or 3 hours. So, as you can imagine, that is not enough time to get everything out, paint/assemble, and put it all away. Plus, during the down time, we're cleaning, catching up on phone calls, paying bills, etc. He also only recently started going to bed and sleeping 9-10 hours straight (starting at 7pm). So, 7pm till bedtime - usually 9pm around here now due to 4-5 months of lack of sleep - means we just have enough time to catch up with each other, talk about non-baby stuff, house stuff, and family, etc.

Someone once told me one baby is a hobby, two is a job. Well, this 'hobby' takes a lot of time.

Now, all of it is not doom and gloom, of course. Every baby is different, apparently there are models who nap for 1.5-2 hours. If you have that model, then you're golden - more time to catch up on sleep, paint, whatever. You have to be adaptable to whatever comes along

Once the routine got set, then I was able to negotiate hobby stuff with my wife. I watched him for a couple days while she did other things (which is tougher with breastfeeding), and I got to go to a GT that was local (the Mechanicon), and came home each day after it was over. We support each other, and try to make sure neither of us totally burns out.

Of course, this is all one opinion and one experience, and I'm slowly getting more hobby time in (mostly by taking stuff to paint and working on it at lunch - having an office is nice ). It'll eventually open up again, and I'll have more time when he's a little more self-entertaining

Cruentus wrote:Someone once told me one baby is a hobby, two is a job. Well, this 'hobby' takes a lot of time.

Now, all of it is not doom and gloom, of course. Every baby is different, apparently there are models who nap for 1.5-2 hours. If you have that model, then you're golden - more time to catch up on sleep, paint, whatever.

The time is only half of it. Babies are also rather expensive.

At some point, you will start to prefer sleep over paint.

At first it will Kill all hope you have of gaming regularly. The first six or so years my gaming dropped way off to maybe one or twice a month. However it will not boher you as much as you might expect because you are doing a lot of other cool things with your kids that you would not have done otherwise.

I have two sons (Now eight and four).

However the oldest is now starting to play (Space marines go figure) and we are having a blast spending father son time together playing 40K in our basement game room, and are planning to play our first campaign this year, etc., etc.

the youngest is of course now highly interested and knows a scary amount of 40k fluff already. he has his eye on doing an IG army (he is in a major "I love tanks"phase right now).

The way I see it I have two live-in opponents for the next 14 years or so (not to mentio a couple of my oldest son's frends arealready very curious), and I could always breed another one or two if I want to enlarge our family gaming group...

I have a 2.5yo and another on the way (July).

Brother Chaplain Ginn wrote:You'll have time. Its all about budgeting it though.

This is the Truth. 'Free time' no longer exists. There is always something to do. What you need to learn (at least, what I needed to learn) is how to manage the time that is available. If the hobby is a priority you need to budget the time for it (I stopped World of Warcraft since, well, it's too much time).

What I find interesting now is how much I get done in the little time that I seem to have. Since daughter showed up 2.5 years ago I've painted 3k of O&G and 2k of Orks, which isn't bad compared to my historic painting rate.

I have to say, this is an extremely amusing thread.

Many thanks for all the responses and congratulations also to the other expectant Dads (and Mums?).

Have enjoyed reading your comments & suggestions, but particular respect to Bash the Bosh. Serving in Afghanistan whilst your wife was expecting puts my own worries into perspective.

Anyway, by the sounds of it, I'd best start planning a routine...

Thanks Flashman.Appreciated.

Flashman wrote:
Have enjoyed reading your comments & suggestions, but particular respect to Bash the Bosh. Serving in Afghanistan whilst your wife was expecting puts my own worries into perspective.

+1 to Bash the Bosh

Flashman wrote:
Anyway, by the sounds of it, I'd best start planning a routine...

don't "plan" call it an "outline" it's better for your state of mind, breaking "plans" always seems more stressful than "adjusting and outline", seems kinda silly, but you have to do silly things sometimes, Kids will ruin "plans" i mean that in a good way, i love my kids very very much, the reality is its hard to plan a whole lot lol.

my son is 10 now, and it started rough the first two years, I think I painted maybe 3-4 units. Like others have said around three you can try putting them to work base coating terrian and mini's but you will have to go over it afterwards. Sadly(in some ways) he's not interested in the game, because all of his friends play yu-ghi-oh! However he ran out of books to read a few months ago, and started reading some Gotrek and Felix I had lying around, and he has been hooked on all the BL stuff. And he got all googlie eyed upon seening the Trygon Prime I had basecoated the other week.

My daughter started painting those old Nid models from "Maccrage" box set, she started calling them bugs, without any prompt from me... and they are just bugs, i look at minis online and she goes "look at the bugs!" whenever she sees a Nid figure lol.

Well, congrats, first of all! My #2 is due in May; I'm not building a football team, I'm building an army...

I found that for the first couple of months, I did nothing but watch documentaries about the GDP of China at 4am. There was a spell between 3-9months when I'd get some in between 0630 and 0730, then a bit of a lull when herself went back to work. Being a teacher, I get better time off than most folks, which helps. Nowadays the boy (who's 2) likes to sit on my knee and poke green stuff while I paint. I'm trying to convince him to paint a model for wamp-forum's charity auction for Tommy's (baby charity), but he's not so keen, oddly.

As for gaming, I get a night a week, which works well; Tuesdays are sacrosanct, as are the wife's Thursdays. I went back to that after only a two-month break.

And as for indoctrinating offspring: my nephews are 12&8 and have already started down the path; next stop, Games Day in September.

BTW, wife thinks this thread is hilarious - don't know what that says about us?!

This has been one of the best threads I have seen and been involved in.

@ inmygravenimage. My missus thought this tread was highly amusing also.

@ Flashman. Thanks for bringing together loads of good blokes (and ladies??) with awesome ideas. The joy with fatherhood is that there is always someone you can learn from. This thread has given me loads of advice despite me thinking I know plenty already. So I thank everyone who has posted on here. You guys rock.

Cheers, Bash

@ inmygravenimage - My wife also found it hilarious, but in an "aah, bless" kind of way.

Yes, we are cute, aren't we?

The obvious answer is to give your baby a rat-ogre costume so theyre part of the hobby. Get them started young, just remember, babies are an indescriminate template weapon that can break models on a 2+

I always thought ratlings were cuter than babies, and I dont own any ratlings. So that might tell ya where I stand on the whole parenting thing.

So, my advice my not be useful at all- but in the spirit of being helpful, a good freind of mine got more gamer time after his baby got into the 1-2 year old realm and has balanced in a bit more as she gets into being a toddler. So it can be done- just keep in mind your skaven are gonna be a low priority for a while.

On a not unrelated note: Tommy's, the baby charity, are organising an event in conjunction with wamp-forum - painted model auction / competition. There's still time to enter and if you fancy bidding on anything of mine (shameless plug, sorry mods!) it's seller count_moriarty. It's a great cause, as I'm sure many of you will know.
Cheers, graven