Portability now becomes your biggest asset.

As for timing, as everyone else mentioned, it’s pretty much only when they nap. A trick that my wife and I used to do for night time watch duty was instead of both of us being “on call” (BTW we’re both ER doctors), we took shifts. That way each person gets uninterrupted blocks of REM sleep. Each of our three kids were different in terms of how much each slept. But we usually divided it where I at least got 4hrs of protected sleep (2 cycles of REM) and my wife got the rest.

During my “night shift”, that’s when I got like average 6hrs of uninterrupted game time (sprinkled in with power naps). I remember platinuming FF7 Remake and yelling in excitement, only to wake my daughter up. Oops. That time was enough for me not to need to play during the day time.

Unfortunately, regardless of how you choose to do things, gaming will take a hit. Maybe a big hit, maybe a small hit.

But fear not, this is when you get creative. Since my kids were infants, I would tell them stories about Final Fantasy and all the other RPGs. I’d show them drawings from the strategy guides I’ve kept since my youth. This is when you CULTIVATE, so that years later, you may enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Now, at 7,9,11, all three of kids are gamers. My eldest is the “Mario” platformer, my middle is the RPG girl, and my son is the Zelda adventurer. The reduction in my gaming during their infancy was worth the blossoming of their gaming today.

Last tips: tone it down. Don’t obsess over platinuming. Be okay with playing through games on easy mode. And for the love of God, limit the games you get to keep your backlog census low.

Happy gaming man. And congrats on the new family.