[davestephens]

Great question, and a situation I've been through/still going through myself. I have a 2.5 year old son, and another due at the end of this year. We're not fortunate enough to have parents nearby, so all care is 100% on us or nursery.

When they're really young it is tough to have time for anything, especially when there's no nap regime instilled into them. I was in such a daze from learning so many new things about being a parent, that projects/hacking/downtime in general seem to take a back seat for a while.

In writing (and rewriting) this reply I've realised that in the past few years things have changed a lot for me, and when I can squeeze in "my" time has changed too. I don't think there's any right or wrong answer of "when", but my number one piece of advice would be to not be selfish. You'll kick yourself later if you miss time with your children because you wanted to learn a programming language, or that you're so tired from killing yourself with long hours or sleep deprivation that you're rubbish to be around.

Communicate with your partner too - agree when they're ok with you taking your time, and vice versa - insist that they time their own time too.

I have no idea what'll happen for me when number two comes along...but I'm looking forward to it :-)

[mac_was]

Exactly I don't want to in couple years time regret that I've missed time with my kids!

Looks like I need to wait a bit and in the meantime focus on my kids :-)

[davestephens]

Yep, it took me a little while to realise and appreciate it, but you're right. Now my son is a little older he wants to do things with me too, and that would be horrible to miss because I'm stuck in front of a computer instead.

I don't know where you work but as others have said - if you have a commute that's also valuable time you can use. I used to burn all of it on Netflix, but have recently started reading about stuff I want to learn/get better at.