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>I’m a new parent and managed to build and release a side project in the first few weeks

Oh gee, no, no. If all you know is the first few months, you know not of parenting time requirements. You need to come back and talk about ruthless prioritizing and efficient coding when you parent a toddler, or two. Then we can all have a hearty laugh at this post together.

I have two young kids. While I can empathize with OP, I have found that if I discipline myself enough to get up at 5:00 I have enough time to work on side projects. Never as much time as I want, but some time. It is certainly not easy. And everything is in chaos when a newborn arrives.

I'm lucky enough to have 1 - 3 hours between their bed time and my bed time to work on something. At the end of the day its hard to do more work when you want to decompress / spend time with spouse, but some days I make it happen.

I think that's fair. And I can see how having 2+ will make a big difference.

I do find myself already thinking I'm too tired / busy to do something, but then actually I sit down and get started and find I can make progress. I feels to me like it's a mindset of prioritising the things that matter the most, and side projects should be high on the list in my opinion.

If you can find the time to read articles and articulate a response on HN you probably have time to spend on your side project.

I have absolutely no idea how you've managed that, and well done to you, but the judgement at the start is unnecessary.

For another perspective, I lose 11 hours of my day with my day job, including commute time. With the 13 hours remaining, I get maybe 45 mins a day to groom myself at start / end, usually interrupted multiple times. I don't tend to get more than 2 hours continuous sleep in any given night, so while I get to bed and sleep by 10pm, and usually woken up and forced out around 5am, I've probably been interrupted twice over night. Most of the rest of the time is tending to cooking, cleaning, feeding, laundry, homework, ferrying to and from various hobbies, and when there's moments to enjoy, stopping to enjoy those moments.

When I find that elusive 10-15min break, I don't have the mental power to think about side projects. I just want a nap.

> 2 hours continuous sleep

Awch. I've got a 2 month old who, for the moment, is a surprisingly good sleeper. It's still exhausting, getting in from work, trying to spend an hour of quality time with her while helping mum finish dinner before she goes into an over tired 'witching hour'.

I'm much more driven to try some side projects though. The sudden drop to a single salary and the vain hope that one day I could be finically sound enough to take an extended trip with the little one are big drivers.

Things change, my son was an angel for first 2 months so keep your fingers crossed.

Be careful with this. When the kids go to bed, then your spouse wants your mental attention. If you go into side project mode every evening, you spouse might not seem to mind, but gradually it can take its toll, and you might not be aware of it until it is too late.

> I’m a new parent

I found to have a good amount of free time during that first year or so. The weird sleep schedule provides it, I think. If you're like me, you'll find your schedule filling with more and more kid activities as they get older. Then it gets harder to fit all the things in, and you have to make some interesting choices.

This a million times over. In my first son's first few months I got loads of side stuff done. Now he's 7 and his brother is a toddler and every day is filled with one or other's requirements. from various sports activities (training and or competitions) to just getting regular day to day stuff done, the exhaustion factor is way above what it was when 1 was a baby and only sleeping in 2 hour chunks... I'm trying to get side projects done but opening a laptop at 11PM knowing it all starts again at 6AM is in itself sleep inducing. Though that doesn't stop the occasional sprint to 3AM... finding a physical departure from the house helps. once a week I go to a local hackerspace and rarely feel tired there.

A child really does not do much in the "first weeks". Most of the burden is figuring out all the APIs, but if the child and the mother are healthy, it does not really take much time and attention. This gets worse as the child grows up and gets more active. And there's the extra laundry, dishes and cooking that you need to take care of. And then the second one comes...

Parenting is really honestly taking a lot of time from me that I used to spend on hacks and projects.

+1 on the thinking ahead, that definitely helps. But that limits you to stuff that you already know and can model accurately in your mind, which BTW precludes any sort of debugging work, exploratory programming, etc.

(But as you witness, there's always time to shoot a random remark on HN ;) ).

> Most of the burden is figuring out all the APIs

I hope they’re Restful APIs.

The first few weeks you have to support your wife while her mind is at war with the post-pardum hormones.

> I feel like this is an excuse

Yes. It is an excuse. That's literally what it is. Its not an invalid excuse or a fake excuse just because it's an excuse. This person has real material daily struggles and constraints. They have logical reasons they can't do more. They are excused from judgement for not doing their side projects. That's how excuses work.

Well it depends on the context. I and my wife are expats and we cannot rely on any external form of help, except ourselves. Our parents live far away and cannot support us.

With a 8am-4pm job, plus commuting, plus cooking (you cook fresh for your kid and don't rely on delivery services, don't you?), playing with kid and buying groceries, well.. there's not so much free time.. my energy is over by 8pm

And even if you might feel free the first months, how are you helping your wife keeping up with the baby? Don't you change it? Don't you try to make contact with it? Don't you support your wife by giving her some hours of freedom between breastfeeding times?

You mean the first few months, before they learn to roll-over, are easy; you can just put them anywhere and they will stay there, mostly asleep?

When they get older and start rolling around and walking, then the amount of time you have to be watching them increases dramatically. Especially when they go from 3-4 naps a day to 1 or 0.

Let alone that sitting around programming all day is probably not what you should become a parent for. Note that I am not saying you do this at all, I just mean it from a hypothetical 'maximum-amount-of-time'.

Personally I couldn't care less about my side-projects in comparison to the joy I get from seeing my daughter explore the world, learn languages, etc.

0 naps when it should be 1 or more is always a fun stage for both parent and child. His comment isn’t going to age well.

Fun as in Dwarf Fortress "fun"?

Haven't played Dwarf Fortress, but if it's anything like having sharp needles pushed into your brain, then yep, that kind of fun.

Thanks for being blunt. I appreciate different perspectives and honest opinions. Don't mind the downvotes, which hardly means anything worthy of attention.

As someone with a five week old that refuses to be put down most of the time and even the short quiet spaces of time are spent having to do things around the house, how do you do it?

they may be lucky... my first was as you describe, but most of the other parents in our (ante natal) group spent their first few months relaxing (relatively) as their babies were a lot more compliant early on.

The adrenaline of being a new parent eventually wears off, just saying :) Gotta pace yourself, it’s definitely more a marathon than a sprint.