Fourteen Day Dad.

I have now been a father for 14 days. Something that originally seemed daunting to me is now..I guess. Second nature. She is just a part of my life now. Aoife Rose, my daughter. The girl that eventually changed my life. I have transformed from the most laid back person ever to someone who worries almost constantly.

"She's quiet, I better give her a little wiggle to check if she's still breathing", "Do you think she is eating enough?", "Does every baby poo this much", "Am I holding her right" and my favourite one "I have done everything I can, why are you still crying". All the above is probably said or thought by me multiple time a day.

Saying all that I think I have taken to it pretty naturally. I had never held a baby before holding my daughter, something I feel is really pure and wonderful. Everything I do with Aoife. I will be doing it for the very first time.

The plan in the future is to use Giantbomb's blog feature as a kind of stream of consciousness. Something to look back on in the future. I aim to steer the subjects towards gaming where I can.

I also wonder, fellow parents on these here forums. How did your gaming habits change post child? Hopefully your answers will be a small widow into my future.

Congrats! I'm a father of two, a daughter turning 13 next week and a 19 month old son. The process has been very different between the two. Gaming after my first child was pretty great, actually. She was a great sleeper and pretty content to explore and play on her own. I was (am) a stay at home dad, which was a new experience for me, so the combination of the two game me much more time to play games, and really got me back into the hobby after slacking off for a few years. The first major game I got into was Persona 3 FES. Was able to get a good couple hours a day in between naps and morning playtime. She maintained her strong two nap schedule well into her twos, and there were some fantastic games to play at that time, both new and some backlog PS2 games I hadn't gotten around to yet.

Child #2 has been a completely different story. He is not a good sleeper, I work from home part time, and my daughter has (had) ice hockey practice at least three nights a week plus weekends from Sept-March. I mentioned this in another thread, but the Switch has been a godsend for this. The first year was mostly catch it while I can gaming, which was mostly 20 minutes or so before bed. It has settled down some now, but it is still tougher to get time for longer games.

On a side note, your daughter's first name is unfamiliar to me. How do you pronounce it? The constant parenting worries should go away in a couple months, so long as she stays relatively healthy. Then it will slow down from "Hey, is she still alive? I haven't heard anything in 45 minutes," to things like "is she sitting up as soon as she should," "why isn't she eating more of this food? I gave her five different options.," and "shouldn't she be talking more at this point?"

Congrats to both of you! I'm not a parent but I just wanted to share this podcast: https://www.tested.com/bunch-of-dads/

It's a podcast about being a dad and it features lots of people you might know like Will Smith, Vinny Caravella and Dave Snider.

It updates very rarely but the first episode was recorded when Vinny was a very recent dad if I remember correctly so be sure to listen from the start. They talk a bit about gaming and that stuff and it's a very entertaining podcast.

@redwing42:Aoife, its Irish m girlfriends grandad is half Irish, half Canadian yet weirdly fought for the British Army during World War 2. I guess that makes my girlfriend 1/4 Irish. We both heard the name and instantly liked it. It's pronounced Eefa.

@forcen: I listened to all those at the time and coincidentally have started to make my way through them again. Dave's daughter was newborn and Vinny's son I think was a few months old in the first couple. They have been an interesting listen.

Oh and thanks guys. x