Have a baby during postgrad degree, or wait?

I would look at it from the fairly selfish perspective of would you be willing to give it all up (the postgrad) if something happened with your child that meant you needed to care for them and put your studies to one side? I know that is a fairly selfish way of looking at it but I know that if I were to have a child in the next few years (I'm almost 22, graduate in the summer and am applying for postgrad courses at the moment) as well as studying, I can't help but feel I wouldn't have a bit of resentment that I hadn't waited if something happened in my family situation which meant I had to totally stop studying and potentially never finish.

I know this can happen with a job too but I feel that because you obviously get some financial pay back for the time/effort/money you invest in an actual job, if I were to give it all up due to my child it wouldn't feel as though I'd "wasted" a couple of years on study. But if I were two years into a three year course, I wouldn't really get much return for it beyond more debt as if I never finished it I'm not sure what good a half finished course would do in terms of enhancing my life but if I were to say, go back into the working world (say, only working a few hours a week or something low key) a few years later I'd be able to transfer the skills etc from the job I'd had in the two years much more easily than if I were trying to transfer academic knowledge.

Obviously this is all my own view point though and you're welcome to take it or leave it, but I see having a child as something which I'll only do when I'm willing to give up my entire life for it should that need to happen, and if I were considering further study (as I am now) which I know will commit me for the next few years, I wouldn't also consider having a child in that period simply because I know that if I only finished half of it, I'd regret not finishing it and having a child later. Obviously, I'd love my baby unconditionally and would give up studying for it, but I think I'd feel more resentment of the fact I'd done that than if I'd given up a job for my child.

I know a girl with a baby at uni... but she didn't plan her.

She struggles big time, she barely sees her, with some lecture running til 6pm it's really not ideal.

I mean it's doable if you found yourself in that situation but it'snot something that many people would choose.

She admits that her university work suffers because she has other things that come first, but really if you're going to pay like £3225 per year to do something then you should be abel to put your all into it

I think you and your partner should just enjoy eachother for now, you have plenty of time for babies and I think you'll probably regret having a baby while you're at uni

Honey, sorry, I've already been picked up for not putting this more obviously in the thread title, but this post is in the postgraduate forum. I'm not paying anything for my degree; they're paying me. If I had a baby, I would plan it (as I guess is obvious given that I'm writing this thread).

Honey, sorry, I've already been picked up for not putting this more obviously in the thread title, but this post is in the postgraduate forum. I'm not paying anything for my degree; they're paying me. If I had a baby, I would plan it (as I guess is obvious given that I'm writing this thread).

Honey, sorry, I've already been picked up for not putting this more obviously in the thread title, but this post is in the postgraduate forum. I'm not paying anything for my degree; they're paying me. If I had a baby, I would plan it (as I guess is obvious given that I'm writing this thread).

Just as a point of interest, if you want to change the thread title, you can do it by editing your first post and clicking "Advanced Options".

The thing I do have to say on a personal level is that 25 isnt old in general terms but have you done anything to find out about your fertility? If you dont know now youll kick yourself in 5 years if you later learn something that would have helped you make the decision differently. Years cant be replaced - if you both want children you should both know the odds when you try now and when you try later or you could go down a path where you didnt know the consequences.

And btw I meant job security in that youd have something to come back to after the baby and automatic period where you would obtain maternity pay.

Jennie, sorry not to have got back to you sooner. You are quite right and now you've mentioned it, I realize this is something I need to do. Will check. Job security - you get the maternity time with the AHRC, acc. to my supervisor, so I won't worry on that count. I don't think with academia you can count on having a job to come back to anyway - contracts are for such brief periods of time, it'd be very hard for them to give you the job back. I think you're meant to be moving around a lot, publishing lots of papers, so a year out would need to be between jobs. It's doable, I just think it might be easier during the PhD because I wouldn't have to build up my academic reputation from scratch twice, that way.

But, we'll see. I'll certainly do as you say and check in with my doctor re. fertility. Hopefully someone who has had kids when they were doing their PhD will have something to say too.

Half the people in the neighbouring office had kids last year, so it's hardly uncommon. You can get leaves of absence for PhDs at my uni, so I presume your funding is suspended for them and resumes when you continue your studies.

If it's RC then you get 6 months' paid maternity leave at the same rate.

OP, if you're in a non-lab subject and don't have fieldwork, I'd say go for it. There's never really a 'good' time in academia to take the time out and a 3-year PhD is certainly more secure than a 1-year postdoc. :\

Personally, going by the fact that its an Arts PhD rather than science, I would wait. People seem to assume that longer more regular contact hours (eg 9-5 in the lab) means more work in total. Whether it does or doesn't, what is certain is that with Arts you get periods where you can get away with very little but then other periods where you have to work ridiculous hours and get a huge amount of work done in a short space of time. Personally, I'd find it much easier to manage caring for a child if my study time fit into a set period of hours each day so that I could plan. It would be less stressful for me. If I had a baby and I suddenly needed to rewrite a chapter of my PhD for a deadline or something, it would be impossible.
Conversely later on when you have a 9-5 job, your job is usually something that you put less of yourself into than your PhD. You don't have to do overtime.
I'm a mature student, so I'm looking at finishing my PhD at 28, so I've had to think about all this. But I'm definitely not planning on having a baby while doing my PhD.

Personally, going by the fact that its an Arts PhD rather than science, I would wait. People seem to assume that longer more regular contact hours (eg 9-5 in the lab) means more work in total. Whether it does or doesn't, what is certain is that with Arts you get periods where you can get away with very little but then other periods where you have to work ridiculous hours and get a huge amount of work done in a short space of time. Personally, I'd find it much easier to manage caring for a child if my study time fit into a set period of hours each day so that I could plan. It would be less stressful for me. If I had a baby and I suddenly needed to rewrite a chapter of my PhD for a deadline or something, it would be impossible.
Conversely later on when you have a 9-5 job, your job is usually something that you put less of yourself into than your PhD. You don't have to do overtime.
I'm a mature student, so I'm looking at finishing my PhD at 28, so I've had to think about all this. But I'm definitely not planning on having a baby while doing my PhD.

I'd echo Craggy here: I've been having to look after my sister's child constantly over the last few months and it has been extremely stressful and tiring and has had a detrimental impact on my work: weekends are a wipeout; I can't work until she's asleep which can be as late as 8 or 9pm and then being up in the morning to do archival work but getting home for 3 to do the school run? It's really not conducive to getting a PhD that is worthy of your willingness to do it and the opportunity that it presents. I've never felt so tired in my life as this last semester and the child isn't even mine.

Btw - how are you a mature student?! I'll be 28 when I finish my PhD and nobody has suggested that's 'mature'!

Wow, have to applaud your niceness looking after someone else's child!

Would that it be so simple as that ... I have little choice given that courts have declared my sister unfit to be a mother and my niece has only been back from foster care for 3 months.

Btw - how are you a mature student?! I'll be 28 when I finish my PhD and nobody has suggested that's 'mature'! I'm just idly curious here. Not to be too paranoid about it, too, but if you're over 30 when you have your first baby, you are technically classed as an 'elderly primigravida'. Which kind of brings it home to me!

In my opinion 'mature' status is generally applied to undergraduates.