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Comment by dottjt | Hacker News Reader

This is actually something I've been concerned about as an introverted dad. I just had a child about a month and a half ago, and the one thing I've absolutely mourned is the loss of my personal time.

So much so that I think I might be one and done. The idea of losing more personal time makes me beyond depressed.

That's not to say that I don't love the child and that I haven't adjusted to looking after them, nor that I don't enjoy spending time with them, however it's affected my happiness in a way that doesn't add up.

For further context, it's not that I don't enjoy socialising. I think it's great, however I also absolutely must have my alone time as a no. 1 priority. While I have fun socialising, it's also something I could literally do without.

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I'm two months in to child number 3, and this has been me for the first few 6 months after each birth. It's important to take this seriously and not simply try to power through it: Paternal Perinatal Depression is real and it's dangerous [0]. Build in the time that you need, and seek medical attention if necessary.

In my experience each time it has gotten easier as the baby gets older. The first two months are the hardest, with the baby needing near-constant attention. As they get older the burden is lower and you get more time back, though it never goes back to pre-parenthood levels.

Strict bedtimes have been a key thing for my sanity: you can't pull this off now, obviously, but by the time our kids were about 6 months old we had them on a 7pm bedtime routine that we're only just now having to vary for our nearly-5-yo. That buys back most of the evening time for adult time, which has been absolutely essential.

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36180540/

If I may ask, what motivated you to have more children and at what point did you realise you wanted more than one child?

I'd always assumed that we would have at least two kids. The first few months were completely overwhelming, but as it got better it just felt like the right thing to go for.

Six months was the threshold for me with each child where I felt like we finally were stable again and it was worth even thinking about the future.

> Six months was the threshold for me with each child

My kid (the one and only, since he wasn't even supposed to be possible, and since we're not... doing the things that would result in more pregnancies) slept through the night after 4 months.

The really difficult part, subjectively, seemed to emerge after 20 months when he went from 3 naps a day to 1, and when he started being very mobile, putting random things in his mouth, jumping (and potentially falling), etc. etc. etc., all of which demanded 100% attention. He's now 28 months and even though he's in daycare and adjusted well to it, I'm exhausted every day after he is finally put to bed around 8. I am constantly stressed out because I haven't yet found a balance between work, him, and self-care things like an exercise/meditation/outdoor-walk schedule; structural things. Trying to set that up now actually. The lack of intimacy is a level of problem that I can't even figure out how to express though

> This is actually something I've been concerned about as an introverted dad.

As a fellow introverted Dad-to-be (any day now!), I'm not that concerned about the loss of personal time. I'm more worried about whether I make a good role model and whether I'm able to keep up enough social obligations with other parents to give my kid a community to source friends from.

I guess I'll have to buckle up :-)

I think what I would say in response is that having a child for the first time is a genuine existential crisis for the first few weeks. I don't think words could possibly extrapolate how much of a shock it is to your existence until it happens.

Of course, this also depends on your "village" and what kind of support you're getting from others.

But best of luck!

Thanks! Yeah, I'm trying to prepare for that - I'm keeping my expectations of getting any "hobby time" in to zero, and that I won't be able to do many things that usually offer me passive sense-of-progression rewards (books, etc.) at least for some time.

It might sound odd, but I'm trying to more or less think of it as making having a baby my new "hobby"/personal goal. I'm sure it's tiring, tedious and often uncomfortable, but it's also all novel and once-in-a-lifetime, is definitely purposeful, and a lot of other qualities I like to assign what I do in my private life anyway. Hopefully that way I won't feel like one comes at the expense of the other. What's raising a new human if not the ultimate DIY hack?

I've heard from other young parents around us that what makes the psychological difference is that having a baby is not something you can stop or return from, and that's what can make the low hours feel much harder. We'll see - others got through it!

I don't think your mental health would survive thinking that the baby itself is the hobby. The thing with babies is that they're draining. They scream for hours on end and there's literally nothing you can do about it, which makes you feel utterly hopeless. On top of that, they prevent you from doing even basic things, like eat and sleep. So you're sleep deprived and angry and hopeless, which is a miserable combination.

Which I know sounds like a fun challenge on paper, but there's a reason most people fail special forces tests. So ultimately it's about finding a counter-balance to that.

What I've found at least, is that the "hacky" side of raising a newborn is trying to find ways to optimise your life in order to reclaim your old life back. In particular, trying to figure out how to get enough sleep whilst still maintaining the house etc.

Of course, these are all just words at this point to you. When you're thrust into it, you'll quickly adapt and figure out a way-of-life that works for you. But yeah, would be interested to hear back from your experience, I too started out quite optimistic about the whole experience, which then all went out the window when actually faced with the challenge.

I appreciate your honest take. Let's see whether I can remember this conversation and report back in a few months, sleep deprivation permitting.

It starts to get better between 6-12 months. They will sleep ~12 hours at night (mostly solid), about 2 hours of naptime per day, and can start doing better playing by themselves for periods of time. Combined with having grandparents watch the baby several times a week, 20+ hours of free time a week is pretty much guaranteed.

> Combined with having grandparents watch the baby several times a week

yeah, not everyone has that. see: us. No free time. Weekends are more exhausting than weekdays.

Also, things got noticeably harder after the 18th-20th month or so, when he went from 3 naps a day to 1, and when he started being VERY mobile and thus FAR more dangerous to himself. It didn't help that I was sick the entire month of November last year (to the point of hospitalization for part of it). Her parents live 1.5 hours away and keep making excuses about visiting; my mom died in 2020 and my dad and sister moved to Floriduh just when he was born because that was already the plan before he showed up...

I have some bad news for you, it gets noticeably harder after 20 months or so and remains that way, because they start being very mobile and demanding even more attention

We are definitely a one and done, although the 2+ parents say that eventually they play with each other and free you up a bit (or fight... lol)

Honestly I have found that I have been able to complete more personal projects since I've had kids.

How?

I'm not sure. It's probably a mental switch? Something happened pretty early on after my first kid and I really buckled down and focused on my career and personal goals and I've made the time. I do play a lot less video games though, I'm sure that helps as well.

I've heard from other Dads that having a kid vastly improved their time management skills and they only realized after how much time they were leaving unused before. Even with kids, the over-under shakes out better for them.

May be a muscle you train, so to speak.

At what age were your children that you were able to regain a lot of that personal time?

The only thing that's really helped (at least in the early stages) is sleeping in shifts + biphasic sleeping. That provides me with ample time to do my own projects, assuming that the baby hasn't regressed for that day and doesn't consume all that time (which if I'm being very fair, has been a bit of an angel.)

It got worse after they started moving, walking, running, talking, demanding, arguing, fighting, yelling...

Yours is immobile for a while still, try to enjoy that while you can.

Probably gets easier when they are in school. But you'll be at work then.

As a counterpoint, with our two older kids (we have a baby too), I felt like my time was most drained during the 0-6 months stage. After that we got into good routines with them sleeping for 12 hours at night, and that brought back most of my most precious time.

My oldest is 5, and we're just now reaching the point where he's wanting to stay up later into our adult time, but in my experience there are a lot of comfortable years that were better than the immobile stage.

Wife and baby will always come first, projects after. And that is a good prioritisation.

But after the first 6 months or so there does gradually become those slots where you can pick up a project without neglecting the important people in your life.

And, if you’re lucky, one day your kids join in your projects and solder on next to you in companionable silence :)

It sounds like having kids forced you to better utilize what little free time you could find.

I have found that having too much free time as a result of having few if any social obligations lets you invest time in more frivolous things. Do that long enough and you begin to loose focus on important tasks or goals allowing you to leave things unfinished because "there's plenty of time in the future" but that future never comes.

That's probably exactly what happened. My time became more valuable and so I prioritized. I also got really good at getting things done in bursts.

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