Congrats @roncadillac to you and your growing family and good luck as May approaches! I can't speak to gigging or even being in a band as I'm just a hobbyist who plays at home, but I can speak to some experiences as a new father (we just had our first, a boy, about four months ago).
My big hobby before the baby actually was tennis; I played 4-5x times a week, and one or two of those was a 3ish hour session - the others were hour or so hits around my 9-5. I can say that after having the kid, tennis has taken a huge back seat particularly because it's an "outside the house" hobby - I have played only once in the past four months. Fortunately music has moved in to take some of that space, but hobbies that take up a serious amount of the time outside the house are going to be really hard. They're not impossible; my wife sees a show once or so a month and goes to a dinner with friends every other week, but these things have to be planned around.
If tennis were still really important to me we could definitely make space for an outing a week, but at-home hobbies are way, way easier to manage. Little emergencies pop up every once in a while where, even if I'm diddling around on the drums or guitar I can be there to help with clean-up or to step in. There's also no travel time, and every second counts when you're a new parent. In terms of hobbies I do at home (music), I practice at least one hour a day, and often two, and even have time to dip into other hobbies like working out or baking occasionally. My wife similarly has time to do things, albeit a bit less than me because she has to worry about pumping or feeding. We have a somewhat easy baby who sleeps well, and you do kinda-sorta get into a rhythm (which always changes, then you adapt), but even on the "hard" days we always have some time at night to ourselves, especially after the first few weeks.
The little guy is the best - he's really interested in sounds at the moments so strumming a few chords or playing with brushes on the drums has been great, but he really loves his crinkly toys the most. Make sure to prioritize sleep and don't kick yourself if you feel crazy the first few days since they're so insane in terms of day/night craziness. The second night at the hospital was a total "dark night of the soul" with two nights no sleep, screaming baby, feeding issues, etc, but every day gets better.
My big hobby before the baby actually was tennis; I played 4-5x times a week, and one or two of those was a 3ish hour session - the others were hour or so hits around my 9-5. I can say that after having the kid, tennis has taken a huge back seat particularly because it's an "outside the house" hobby - I have played only once in the past four months. Fortunately music has moved in to take some of that space, but hobbies that take up a serious amount of the time outside the house are going to be really hard. They're not impossible; my wife sees a show once or so a month and goes to a dinner with friends every other week, but these things have to be planned around.
If tennis were still really important to me we could definitely make space for an outing a week, but at-home hobbies are way, way easier to manage. Little emergencies pop up every once in a while where, even if I'm diddling around on the drums or guitar I can be there to help with clean-up or to step in. There's also no travel time, and every second counts when you're a new parent. In terms of hobbies I do at home (music), I practice at least one hour a day, and often two, and even have time to dip into other hobbies like working out or baking occasionally. My wife similarly has time to do things, albeit a bit less than me because she has to worry about pumping or feeding. We have a somewhat easy baby who sleeps well, and you do kinda-sorta get into a rhythm (which always changes, then you adapt), but even on the "hard" days we always have some time at night to ourselves, especially after the first few weeks.
The little guy is the best - he's really interested in sounds at the moments so strumming a few chords or playing with brushes on the drums has been great, but he really loves his crinkly toys the most. Make sure to prioritize sleep and don't kick yourself if you feel crazy the first few days since they're so insane in terms of day/night craziness. The second night at the hospital was a total "dark night of the soul" with two nights no sleep, screaming baby, feeding issues, etc, but every day gets better.
