VR is useless when you have a baby

Facebook announced the Oculus Quest 2 last fall at the right time to grab my attention. After months of sheltering in place at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was extremely tempted by an affordable VR headset that would allow me to explore the world outside of my home. I wanted it for virtual reality training. I loved the idea of ​​using it as a portable virtual office. It came out just weeks after Star Wars: Squadrons and promised to put me in the cockpit of an X-Wing.

What finally pushed me to the limit was friendship. A friend of mine had recently moved to another state and convinced me that we could “hang out” in VR and have a drink together every now and then. Like in the good old days, but more out of date. A perfect idea.

We have never had this drink in VR. I had a baby instead.

As any parent knows, having a child changes everything. It restricts your freedom, steals your free time, and makes things simple, like grabbing a controller and playing video games, nearly impossible. It goes double, maybe even triple for VR headsets, which not only demand your time, but your full undivided attention for long periods of time.

I knew it. I should have seen it coming. Not the baby – which was expected – but how useless all of my favorite consumer tech toys would become as a result of this new responsibility. Like many new parents, I underestimated the amount of work a newborn baby could take and overestimated the free time I could devote to my hobbies. When the child is awake, he demands your full attention. When it doesn’t, there is an endless litany of baby-related tasks to do. When these are done, you’d better get some sleep or work, as you won’t have enough time for either.

Finding the time to fit video games and tech toys into a parenting schedule isn’t impossible, but it’s different. Early in the morning, I could slip away to line up for a job on the 3D printer in my garage. When my daughter falls asleep on my chest, I tell myself that, like her makeshift bed, I’m immobilized and sneak around for a while with my PlayStation 4 or Nintendo Switch.

These distractions can be abandoned when the baby needs me. Craft projects can still be put on hold. The sleep modes of modern video game consoles will pause any game at any time. Virtual reality is different.

Virtual reality demands that you ditch ordinary reality.

I have tried using VR since becoming a newborn parent, and it hasn’t been easy. The space in my house that was once reserved for virtual reality now has a rocking chair, a bassinet and several boxes of baby toys. There’s still room for the Oculus Quest 2’s minimum room-wide play space, but barely. Before I even think about stepping out of reality to play Beat Saber, I need to make sure my child is safe. My VR session begins with her bedtime routine: playing, reading, changing, feeding and cuddling until she is ready to go to bed.

When she’s finally in bed and swaddled, I feel safe putting on the VR headset. She’s asleep within earshot, and I should be able to take the headphones off if she needs me. The first time I tried this I found out that the Quest 2’s battery is dead, neglected since the week it was born.

It’s mine.

The second time around, the baby changed his mind about napping moments after I put the headphones on. A third time, later that day, I did a song for less than a minute before hearing babbling noises from the baby sleeper. My life runs on her schedule, and her schedule has no room for virtual reality.

So far, I have only tried using VR during my “shifts” as a parent. During my wife’s shift, I’m usually at work or busy doing household chores. However, after repeatedly failing to juggle a baby and an extremely distracting high-tech headband, my wife took pity on me and revamped her party to give me 25 minutes of virtual reality. That’s just enough time for a 10-minute warm-up in Beat Saber and about 15 minutes of high-intensity cardio in Thrill of the Fight. It was nice to move, crouch, dance, dodge and hit. I had failed to dance stupidly and indulge in the little lie that my active VR games counted as real workout.

But it wasn’t worth it. I woke up badly the next morning. The upper back, elbow joints and rotator cuffs were all painful. My body erupted in pain as I lifted my squirming daughter out of her crib. I managed to find time for VR, but it made it physically harder to be a new parent.

I bought my Oculus Quest 2 at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, hoping it could transport me out of our stressful world and to a better place, if only for a moment. I still need a way to escape – a way to take a break from the stress of the world and the pressure of being in charge of a whole new person – but it can’t be virtual reality anymore.

The Oculus Quest 2 is a headband that allows me to visit virtual worlds, but it also takes me out of my daughter’s world. I can not do that.

Having children made ordinary reality too real for a virtual existence to be worth it. Maybe there will be time for VR when she gets older. For now, I’m going to have to settle for the digital breakouts that I can pick up and drop off in a moment. Simple smartphone experiences. Games to go and play on Nintendo Switch. Maybe, if I’m ambitious, play PC on the Valve Steam Deck.

If all else fails, there’s a perfectly good stack of children’s books stacked next to the rocking chair.