gaming after the arrival of your first child

sweetie

we are due our first progeny in december and as a lover of my wii, 360 and ps3 I have been told by many that this will be the end of my 'childhood' (tskk :mad:)
anyways, have any of ye in the same boat managed to keep up with your hobby?

cheers

Tallon

Think about growing up with your parents into games!

Keep playing them if you can

Rev Hellfire

Like everything else in life your gaming has to simply adjust itself to your new found responsibilities. But you have the added bonus that in a few years you'll be able to write off games bought as 'presents' for the nipper

Agricola

Well Id imagine the common story for gamer parents is that you can keep it up, but the amount of time you can devote to it will be severely affected. Not because you feel you have to slacken off on it, but because there simply wont be much time for anything else!

Speaking as someone with no commitments of any kind in this department, all i can say is ................Ha Ha!

I friend of mine who is a big gamer knows all about it though. Now whenever I meet him and tell him about the latest and greatest games Im playing, he looks at me with a mixture of sadness and jealously!

thebull09

Ah the baby will love to watch all the weird and wonderful graphic on the telly it will kep him/her quite so its a win win you get to play your games and the child is quite lol

BTW congrats

Hellrazer

I think I actually gamed a bit more when our lot were born.

I used to play 1942/Desert combat/BF2 online and used to wait up until the 2.00 am / 3.00am feed and just keep playing till that was due.


So do yourself a favour and "volunteer" to do that feed and you wont miss out too much ;)

ElBarco

In my experience (10 month old wrecking the house now) you get less time but you enjoy what you get even more.

The first couple of months I didn't touch a game but once the sleeping pattern settles down you'll be flying. The house is our own again after 7.30 so that's when you can fire ahead.

Canis Lupus

Keep gaming and let the girlfriend/wife take care of the baby. That's what they're there for silly.

Grumpypants

You may find time to game when your getting up for the late night feeds when you cant get back to sleep, but you will then find jam on your controller and a slice of toast in the disk drive.

Cuddlesworth

Don't expect to be good at them after a while.

Jet Black

When we had our first child I barely had time to play any more. I was wrecked tired from working 12 hours shifts and night feeding. It was only after about 4 years I got back into gaming. With her starting school I could put her to bed at 8 and have the rest of the night to play. One good thing was after 4 years I picked up a lot of good games cheap. Try and keep your consoles, I just sold mine as I was told the same thing by my gf, that games are for children and foolishly listened:-(

senordingdong

Parenting is like a game.

Or just get the kid into it.
This way you will always win at Street Fighter

DARK-KNIGHT

we had our baby last november our first....

i play daddy during the day and evening and i OWN THE SITTING ROOM BETWEEN 10 AND 1 AT NIGHT LOL..


i dont game less in fact i game more as dont go to the pub at all now so say goodbye to drink and hello to gaming my friend....

Tallon

DARK-KNIGHT wrote: »

we had our baby last november our first....

i play daddy during the day and fight crime in the evening .

fyp

Branoic

My father didn't give up watching Telly when I was born, and his father didn't stop listening to the wireless when he was born. I doubt my child will stop using the VR Simulator whenever his / her child is born in a few decades.

Anybody who says in this day and age that gaming is for children needs to stfu and be reminded that the average age of gamers today is 30-something. It's a perfectly legitimate past time and should not be affected by the arrival of a child more than any other past time. That's obviously not to say that it won't be affected - because everything will, but it shouldn't be singled out as "childish" because thats simply not true.

ntlbell

Don't worry, you won't have the energy to lift the controller :pac:

DARK-KNIGHT

Tallon wrote: »

fyp

LOL;)

Stylesclash07

I have two kids and i still play a bit not as much as i used to. Sometimes i play with them up and they love to join in they love the wii and my youngest loves to play sonic its hard to believe hes playing what i played as a kid

senordingdong

Co-op campaigns ftw!

Lucious Sweet

Didn't play at all for the first couple of months after the nipper was born but now he is 10 months old and by the time he is in bed and I've cleaned up after dinner it's 20:30, so from then to 23:30 is gaming heaven.
Gone are the marathon game sessions until the wee hours or even day break, but that's probably a good thing

Varik

Geek it up and buy a PS3 Move controller for a rattle(minus the noise)

Duggy747

Buy a console as a christening gift for it and just say you need to make sure it works until it's old enough to play it. :pac:

jaykhunter

You won't get sleep during the 1st year let alone time to game!

But maybe when your son/daughter is 4-5 you should get them into gaming! So you can spend time with them AND play video games! Thinking games like Kirby's Epic Yarn would be ideal.

I imagine you'd have to calm down on time to game but you can find/make time to keep it up. Just not on the same amount. i do know of a guy who spends no time with his kids (plural) and just games all day. It's really sad.

Overheal

Wii Burping comes out in February

clawless

You might even find that your desire to game deminishes as you enjoy the new addition to your family!

Just sayin'.

Raze_them_all

clawless wrote: »

You might even find that your desire to game deminishes as you enjoy the new addition to your family!

Just sayin'.

Blasphamy!! Begone!!

Darksaga87

My first is due in april.

Kid can sit there and watch me game. pfft. feeding. "after this level."

"after this boss".

What was it i had to do again??

Oh yeah, order pizza and get some beer. Whats that noise??

Monotype

Of course you have to keep gaming to keep up the practice. Otherwise they'll beat you in all the games by the time they're age 6... as opposed to 9.

Overheal

Oh by the way:

http://gizmodo.com/5675347/woman-kills-baby-for-interrupting-farmville-session

A 22 year-old woman from Jacksonsville, Florida has pleaded guilty to killing her baby son over a game of...Farmville.

Alexandra V. Tobias says her three-month old child, Dylan Lee Edmondson, had been crying while she was trying to play the popular Facebook casual game. This angered Tobias, who told authorities that she shook the baby, had a cigarette to calm herself down, then shook him again. It's believed he "may have hit his head during the shaking".

Dylan's death was classified as second-degree murder, a charge that carries the possibility of a life sentence in prison.

Jacksonville mom who shook baby for interrupting computer game pleads to murder [Florida Times-Union]

Send an email to the author of this post at plunkett@kotaku.com.
Republished from http://kotaku.com

Do not play farmville

ElBarco

Overheal wrote: »

Oh by the way:

http://gizmodo.com/5675347/woman-kills-baby-for-interrupting-farmville-session

Do not play farmville

Just to be clear - don't do this.

Unless it's a really, really, really important bit you can't pause.

fenris

Co-op games are not an option as you will be constantly interupted by your other half and it will always be urgent, so casual shooters like MW2 are okay (its not like anybody plays as a team anyway!) as you are just dead for a while as opposed to leaving your clan in the lurch if you play WoW or BF2 type games.

you can get a good burping type activity going if you prop the sprog across your knee and use their back as a mouse mat.

Sisko

sweetie wrote: »

we are due our first progeny in december and as a lover of my wii, 360 and ps3 I have been told by many that this will be the end of my 'childhood' (tskk :mad:)
anyways, have any of ye in the same boat managed to keep up with your hobby?

cheers

Really can't stand that ignorant attitude. Its just as stupid as saying "Oh your having a baby? Guess you can't watch tv, read a book or go to see films anymore, after all you have to grow up now."

Feckin eejits.

R.F.

I see no reason why it should end your gaming career. I have a 3 year old and apart from the initial couple of months (were obviously you will be hindered a bit), once they settle down what is stopping you playing in the evening and night time?

If you play games 24/7 yes, you will have a problem. But if its for a couple of hours a night you will have no problems at all. In fact I would encourage it as as we all know it is a great way to unwind.

Snakeblood

sweetie wrote: »

we are due our first progeny in december and as a lover of my wii, 360 and ps3 I have been told by many that this will be the end of my 'childhood' (tskk :mad:)
anyways, have any of ye in the same boat managed to keep up with your hobby?

cheers

Sort of. get bite sized games. Buy a decent headphone set too, so you don't wake the baby. Actually, if the baby is awake at night, you can play. I'lve had a few 4 o'clock in the morning sessions with the baby perched on my shoulder.

R.F.

Snakeblood wrote: »

Sort of. get bite sized games. Buy a decent headphone set too, so you don't wake the baby. Actually, if the baby is awake at night, you can play. I'lve had a few 4 o'clock in the morning sessions with the baby perched on my shoulder.

Erm, not a good idea if you want to hear the baby. Just turn your sound down a bit

Varik

If the baby is with you at least all the crying and screaming you'll hear when you play cod/halo/fps in general will be justifies and not because someone is not doing as well as they'd liked.

jaykhunter

*starts to read article*

*sees it's someone from America*

*shrugs shoulders*

:pac:

senordingdong

jaykhunter wrote: »

*starts to read article*

*sees it's someone from America*

*shrugs shoulders*

:pac:

yeah, and it was only Farmville.

Imagine if she had been playing WoW.

deathrider

Create a gamertag for the wee one as soon as he/she is born. Problem solved

RedXIV

Have a 3 month old in the house and have had to allocate a Gaming night (tonight! Whoo!) once a week to ensure I don't miss anything. have had a chronic build up though. i've SEVEN games that haven't even been taken out of the wrapper yet. It disgusts me....

fifth

Say goodbye.. The only way I get to game now is if I get the OH interested in the game I'm playing. Then she'll feed while I play. Bought fable 3 on release, barely touched it.

*SIGH*

Nevyn

I only got really into playing console games after I had my kids as it was possible to breastfeed and play with a controller but not use a mouse and keyboard.

senordingdong

Thaedydal wrote: »

I only got really into playing console games after I had my kids as it was possible to breastfeed and play with a controller but not use a mouse and keyboard.

Brilliant image.
Someone should release a simulator.

Jenroche

GAME OVER

ThisRegard

From my experience, neither my 360, Wii or even my DS have been switched on since the arrival of my little girl 6 months ago. I simply don't have the time apart from when I'm down in the brother in laws and can steal an hour or two. My Xbox Live membership expired months before that and the new Mario Galaxy has had only one play. I don't even bother checking what new games are out as I know there's no point in buying them as I don't have time to invest in them.

You come home from work, feed the baby which is more fun than games anyway, get her to bed and then feed yourself before you and your wife can relax for the evening catching up on t.v. and stuff. Then when it's bedtime you're glad of it, you don't stay up to sneak a few games in as you know you have an early start in the morning, or if you're unlucky will have to get up in only a couple of hours.

blaze1

sweetie wrote: »

we are due our first progeny in december and as a lover of my wii, 360 and ps3 I have been told by many that this will be the end of my 'childhood' (tskk :mad:)
anyways, have any of ye in the same boat managed to keep up with your hobby?

cheers

it does change things slightly, but you should be good for the first couple of months at least.. after feeds and nappy changes all they really do is sleep...
mines 3 now, so most of my sessions are late night now..
just remember if your mates hound you constantly like mine did, they'll have kids one day and return the favour :pac: