Can be highly dependent on the kid but in my experience: * Definitely lost a lot of sleep in the early months due simply to how often the baby needed food. Thi

Can be highly dependent on the kid but in my experience: * Definitely lost a lot of sleep in the early months due simply to how often the baby needed food. This does start to taper off eventually, but whether or not they will sleep through the night is a coin flip for a long time. * If this is your first, and your partner is in the picture, I actually think that free time can generally still exists. I think I read more books, played more games, and wrote more in Baby 1 Year 1 than I did the year before due to the fact that we were stuck at home a lot more. My advice to try and preserve that time is to establish early a policy of trading off "baby time". In the early months maybe it is sleeping shifts (Person A goes to sleep real early then wakes up at 1AM and is on "duty" while Person B is on "duty" until midnight and gets to sleep in). And then as they start sleeping longer swap off who puts the baby to sleep. * I have found that the biggest change is in the period after work ends and until they go to sleep. As they get older it just turns into a massive list of "I have to do this" during those hours. Whereas before kids that was a very unstructured time * For mine the free time crunch was actually the worst in the 2-4 timeframe because they are old enough to be bored, too young to always entertain themselves, and are in constant need of assistance with life things like eating, drinking, being read to, etc. One of the biggest things that having kids did for me was cause a "hobby triage" where many of the things I was doing had to be re-evaluated to allow for time to do the things that gave me the most joy. I don't binge watch as much TV, watch as many movies, or play a 1/10th of the video games, but I can still focus on the things that bring me the most joy and satisfaction.