New Baby & Gaming

[Rabelais]

Naturally little Eleanor rolled an 18 for her Charisma...

I'm kinda curious though, for all of you parents out there... How long was it before you were able to sit down at the gaming table? One of the players in my game joked that it would be the last time they would see me behind the screen.

I figured it would be a couple of months... How long was it for those of you out there in our community?

 

[Piratecat]

Congratulations! New babies barely cut into gaming time at all; think of all the plotting opportunities that you'll have during 3am wake ups. While kids are in the squalling tube stage, gaming is still pretty easy. It's only when they top 2 years old that things become trickier.

 

[EyeontheMountain]

Naturally little Eleanor rolled an 18 for her Charisma...

I'm kinda curious though, for all of you parents out there... How long was it before you were able to sit down at the gaming table? One of the players in my game joked that it would be the last time they would see me behind the screen.

I figured it would be a couple of months... How long was it for those of you out there in our community?

Well, I have a daugher 15 and a son 10 right now. In my experience, write off the first three months, unless you like online gaming like yahoogroups where you can post any time of the day and night. (And believe me, you will be up at any time of the day and night.)

The first three months ar the hardest till the little one learns to sleep through the night reliably. Hey, she's been living on her own time for 9 months, takes time to find a new groove.

After that, it should be easier, but expect emergencies to interrupt frequently. But i would write off three months at least, if you are lucky, and perhaps more if your baby is a difficult one.

 

[Master of the Game]

I took off about six weeks when each of my kids were born, but I have a lot of time to work on game stuff at the office, so the lack of time at home hardly hurt at all.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Much depends on your spouse. I only took off four weeks from gaming when my daughter was born last year, thanks to my extremely understanding wife.

 

[Blackwind]

Well, my daughter is almost a year old now. Basically, as others have said above, it depends on your schedule and your partner's schedule and the agreement you two have with regards to childcare. If you're partner is willing to let you go play D&D for a few hours once a week, I don't think you have anything to worry about. For us it was a little tricky because I am the DM and my girlfriend plays in our group. Now, our little girl is old enough to stay with a sitter for a few hours at a time, but we never get a sitter for D&D since the group meets at our house anyway. Do you have a baby swing? If not, you should run out and get one right now... even when our daughter was just a month or two, she would sleep in her swing for hours at a time while we fought orcs and dragons. Occasionally we were interrupted by crying, and then my partner would just pick up the baby and breastfeed her while we continued to play.

In other words, don't freak out, man. You'll be fine.

 

[Firedancer]

Congatulations!
Me too!
6 weeks and 3 days old now.

I'm looking at having a bumper gaming session early March when the old group get together for old times sakes.

Be a week or 2 more after that before I return to the regular gaming. That's the plan anyway, we'll see how our bundle goes.

 

[BOZ]

i haven't lost a whole lot of gaming time since having a baby, except a few months ago when she got pnuemonia and we had to take her to the hospital.

now of course, if we wind up having another one, who knows...

 

[Drowbane]

Naturally little Eleanor rolled an 18 for her Charisma...

I'm kinda curious though, for all of you parents out there... How long was it before you were able to sit down at the gaming table? One of the players in my game joked that it would be the last time they would see me behind the screen.

I figured it would be a couple of months... How long was it for those of you out there in our community?

Hey man, congrats!

Natural 18 in Cha eh? Looks like a social Rogue people! (already stole Rabelais' heart!)

 

[meomwt]

I have a feeling that my wife and I were back at the gaming table in fairly short order after #2 son was born - we had him sleep in the crib in the room where we game and made sure that the rowdy element didn't make too much noise. I'm fairly sure that there were times I was feeding him and rolling to-hits at the same time.

I had to take a 6-month sabbatical from DM-ing and it killed me because I was enjoying DM-ing so much. I'm back behind the screen now.

With a 28-month old and a 13-month old in the house, arranging their evening so that we can slay vampires can be a chore, but it generally works out (except a couple of weeks ago when they both had colds).