@Scott — One handed tanking! There’s a joke about masturbation in there somewhere. Back on topic: I wish that we could work out the time, but for some reason Blizzard doesn’t put target time zones on their servers, and we ended up as offpeak people on our server, and we’ve grown roots there. Our guild spans the globe, and there’s pretty much only one time where we can raid. Crazy! We’ve actually already on your second suggested route: new, completely separate side projects. Duo’ing and leveling again, just completely relaxed and at it’s own pace.

@kikidas — And here’s the part where my wife and I eat crow. We were always the ones who pushed for efficient raids, planned breaks rather than random breaks, etc. Now we’re the random break people… very uncomfortable, and I know it sounds silly but it’s a real repellent to asking for understanding on random breaks. I wish I could go back in time and fix it, because now I understand! (Ok, not the guy who has to tend to his cat fourteen times a raid, but still.)

I was going to give a lovely reply about how two friends of ours do it. But I see Scott already did.

Obviously RL>WoW, but it can work. Maybe not three to four nights of raiding a week, but we typically do 2 nights (maybe 3 if Scott and Nesh give Helena Benadryl… JUST KIDDING) and our guild is based on that concept: RL > WoW. If you need to go because your kid is screaming or your dog just threw up on your shoes… or vice versa… take care of that first, we’ll fill our time telling corny jokes on Ventrilo and dancing naked in the game.

Because Friends > Raiding. :)

But yeah, if you have friends who are amenable to it, start a lowbie pair of people to level together, get the names and email addresses of three other people who are willing to level/instance with you, and before you ever settle down to play WoW, try to work out what you’re going to do that evening and this way, when you log in, you know exactly what you’re going to be doing, with whom, and what you’ll need to get. None of that ‘What do you want to do?’… ‘I’m fine with whatever. What do YOU want to do?’ pingponging.

(And see, even though Scott stole my glory, I can still find lots of babble to fill up your reply section with.)

When Helena was born, Amanda and I weren’t really into raiding so it wasn’t an immediate issue. However, we did like to instance with our friends in game as a way to wind down and would do so with Helena bundled up into a sling( pretty much the only way she’d sleep for the first three months ). I got –really– good at tanking with one hand while the other was gently patting her back!

One thing we really lucked out on was keeping a very strict schedule for Helena’s bed time and her bed time routine. Low lights, wave sounds, a bottle and some snuggling w/ Dad( designated putter-to-bedder ) all at about the same hour of night. Before long, she was constantly asleep by about 6 o’clock each night. Every so often, one of us would have to afk and rush upstairs to give her a pacifier back or run a bottle back up to her, but we were blessed with very understanding friends. People like K over at kdots.blogspot.com, who, consequently introduced me to your blog, were very understanding and would take time to make sure our group make up was of people willing to AFK for a short time while an emergency bottle was prepped.

When my guild imploded and I fell into the Guild Leader role, my wife worked hard to make sure she could raid with us since it was an important part of guild functionality. We just had to be a little proactive about the short AFKs. I was usually tanking so after Opera, during the run up to Curator, I’d AFK and give the baby a bottle since those pulls only take one tank. If we’d hear her over the baby monitor during a boss fight we’d wrap up the fight( hopefully still winning! ) and then rush upstairs!

If you can swing it, if your guild is amenable to it, try to raid together and see if you can get her down about an hour or an hour and half before raid start. If she doesn’t really have a “set bedtime” try to wear her out during the day she she’ll be ready for sleep and have an understudy ready to take your place if you or your wife have to drop. If you have to drop out of the raid, go deal with your daughter, when she back to snoozing, go back seat raid over your wifes shoulder :) Nesh loves when I tell her when to misdirect. Especially if it’s on one of the paladin healers :)

If you find that you can’t raid or still only want to raid together, then start a new project. Run up an alt to 60 and get some instances under your belt on your new toons. It’s a lot easier to find 3 people that are patient and understanding about children than it is to find 9 people.

Nowadays with teenager in my house I do raid. It’s a passion. But it’s a struggle, an constant fight for my right to have a life of my own. Becuase they still want my attention… and can’t understand and accept that I sometimes give it to someone else. To WoW as a parent will always be a challange as long as your kids stay at home. At least if they’re not playing themselves.

However, your choice here was really a no-brainer. Still I really recommend you to try to give each other “baby free” time from time to time. Be it WoW-playing (a little farming or questiong) or something else you enjoy. 24/7 of baby sitting will become a bit suffocating after a while.

You must make sure that you’ll last the whole way.