[php] Inserting created_at data with Laravel

I can't seem to insert created_at data in the database table with Laravel. I'm trying to get that data from a POST and then trying to save it to the database.

I'm currently doing like this:

$create_dt = date("Y-m-d H:i:s A", strtotime($_POST['post_date']." ".$_POST['post_time']));
$name = $_POST['name'];

$post = new Post();
$post->name = $name;
...
$post->created_at = $create_dt;
$post->save();

But it gives an error:

Uncaught exception 'InvalidArgumentException' with message in Carbon.php

and

Unexpected data found. Unexpected data found. Data missing in Carbon.php

How can I solve this? Do I need to set $timestamps in my Models to false? (I really don't want do that because I'm fine with how it automatically inserts the updated_at)

You can manually set this using Laravel, just remember to add 'created_at' to your $fillable array:

protected $fillable = ['name', 'created_at']; 

In my case, I wanted to unit test that users weren't able to verify their email addresses after 1 hour had passed, so I didn't want to do any of the other answers since they would also persist when not unit testing, so I ended up just manually updating the row after insert:

// Create new user
$user = factory(User::class)->create();

// Add an email verification token to the 
// email_verification_tokens table
$token = $user->generateNewEmailVerificationToken();

// Get the time 61 minutes ago
$created_at = (new Carbon())->subMinutes(61);

// Do the update
\DB::update(
    'UPDATE email_verification_tokens SET created_at = ?',
    [$created_at]
);

Note: For anything other than unit testing, I would look at the other answers here.

Currently (Laravel 5.4) the way to achieve this is:

$model = new Model();
$model->created_at = Carbon::now();
$model->save(['timestamps' => false]);

$data = array();
$data['created_at'] =new \DateTime();
DB::table('practice')->insert($data);