Bringing a newborn to university lectures

[Nimnuan]

I'm on a part-time university course (apprenticeship) and expecting a baby in the next few weeks. I'm not intending to take a break as any break would mean a year's delay. All classes this year my baby will be under 26 weeks old and breastfeeding.
I want to bring her to lectures with me because arranging childcare and expressing breastmilk will be much more difficult at such a young age and given the university's atrocious arrangements for expressing. Obviously if she cries or is disruptive I'll have to step out into the hallway.
I've just been told that I'm not allowed to bring my newborn to lectures because it would be a "contravention of rules and regulations". I've asked to be told which rules and regulations but haven't heard back yet.
Can you give me any advice about how to argue my case?

So what’s stopping this from happening to begin with?

It's doable. Trust me.

This is your second. That’s a whole different ballgame from the first.

Thanks, I'll bear that in mind 😅

I'm a lecturer. I'd probably be fine with it if you sat at the back so could pop in and out to reduce any noise. But then my management wouldn't be ok with it because of h&s issues and the risk of students complaining which will drag down nss scores etc. (Sad but true).

I'd be concerned about your welfare and the baby's though. I would much prefer that you put in place an inclusion plan for adjustments to your learning and attended online only as a short term (3-5 months) measure to allow you to continue.

I’m a Professor and would be fine with this. Since Covid, so few students come to lectures anyway I’d be delighted to have one that is making such an effort to attend. As a PP said, many students are disruptive (eating, chatting, watching YouTube, texting). I’d find that far worse than some slurpy baby.

I actually don’t know what my institution’s policy is but given that it has a parents’ room on campus where you can breastfeed (as do several others) I’d be surprised if it doesn’t happen already. I’m not entirely sure but it may well be sex discrimination on the basis of maternity not to allow you attend or to make special arrangements to facilitate your learning.

And, just to horrify all those who wouldn’t want a baby in the class, sometimes my colleagues bring their dogs to lectures! IME the dogs are generally better behaved than the students.

wait, by last time do you mean in your last pregnancy? So you simultaneously studied with a newborn before? What happened last time around, was it the same university?

Thanks. You're right, objections are useful, but only the first few times. So many people saying the same thing over and over again just makes it difficult to read through the thread.

You’re coming across loud and clear with that statement, OP!

Here we are, in a world where OP can’t possibly be wrong - just not quite yet in the right space of the internet, where all the white noise of disagreement will have gone away.

I don't want to do it from two weeks old.

I am surprised that you think this is manageable from two weeks postpartum… assuming of course the baby comes right at time. You’ll be recovering, the baby won’t have had any of their jabs, you have no idea if they will have colic or similar and your school doesn’t want you to do it. I could see that it might be possible to do one important thing (and of course people bring babies all sorts of places) but a 12 hour day every single week seems unfair on the other students, your teachers, anyone driving near you when you’re as tired as you will be, and also not great for you and your baby.

Access to pumping space seems like an important issue to raise and something you should be able to achieve. It isn’t right that you can’t pump and attend your lectures.

Are you in the UK?

How many lectures do you have? Are they not online or recorded at all? I have taken my babies to various work events including lectures (though not trying to do multiple weeks of a uni course) and didn't have any issues or anyone who had a problem with it but I am not sure how to argue your case with the university as if it is something like insurance they are unlikely to be able to do anything about it. I would be very surprised if there wasn't a room for expressing and storing breastmilk on the university site

She says not accessible online.

So when people start suing because the course they've paid thousands for is being disrupted because people like you think everyone should bring kids in? You don't rule the place because you had a kid! Your rights don't trump everyone else's because you had a kid! Health and safety and liability don't go away because you had a kid!

Women have a choice not to get pregnant at a stupid time! The OP sounds to have been pregnant twice during university courses! You have the rest of your life to get pregnant rather than at a shit time and expect everyone to make sacrifices for you because you don't want to make any.

@Hallamlass Yes, London RG.

But I would think there would be more scope for op to argue to participate online than face to face- e.g health and safety and the impact on other students etc

Was allowed to skip the last few weeks of one trimester without penalty. Grades suffered a bit but passed no problem.
Childcare and pumping from 8 weeks old the following trimester. It was miserable.
Used keeping in touch days until I was back at work.

Op why won't you answer questions as to the childs father having the baby?

It's absolutely not discrimination for a university to not allow babies into class.

And your university sounds awful. Can't imagine how frustrating it would be as a student to attend a class with babies, dogs or a professor who is unable to simply control students watching youtube.

As an ex-university lecturer, I think you should discuss your situation / possible solutions (decent expressing & breastfeeding facilities, watching recorded lectures, occasional attendance if baby is quiet?) with your students union equality officer and the member of staff in your dept / faculty who is the lead for EDI. Your personal tutor can tell you who these are. It was a bugbear of mine that universities still do not accommodate the fact that women students' bodies reproduce. Unlike the workplace, student mothers can't take decent maternity leave. They usually have to either be apart from their newborn, which can interfere with breastfeeding (Angela Ruskin claims to support breastfeeding) or interrupt for a year. You can argue that this is discriminatory, but it would be an uphill battle on your own when you've a lot on your plate & universities will hide behind the insurance / H&S rules angle as it's easier for them. So get those with an equalities brief on side, it's their job to ensure inclusion and ensure equal access to education. They'll also be able to weigh up what is reasonable in terms of disruption to other students.

I would have cautiously welcomed you bringing a newborn to my lectures, so long as there was a very clear understanding that you sat near the door and left the minute the baby was disruptive. So it might be worth a chat with the lecturers. However, you could end up not able to engage much with lectures so I'd only see this as a partial solution.

Good luck. It's about time universities paid serious attention to student mothers.

This is what happens when people skip Effective Contraception 101.

This!

As I said previously:
Because it's going to be very difficult to manage if I have to leave her with someone else. I know about breast pumps. I used one last time from about 8 weeks old and it was miserable.
I don't want to have to do the same thing from 2 weeks old this time if I can possibly avoid it. From around 3 months or so it's a lot easier to be separated for the day.
I'm generally ignoring the multiple suggestions to use childcare and a breast pump because they are not answering my question, just telling me I shouldn't be asking.

I work in HE. This just would not be do-able for so many reasons. Staff are hellishly overstretched at this time of year, much more so now because of multiple voluntary redundancies over the past 9 months.
Please don’t waste their precious time with this!

Maybe ask about online teaching-if the lecturer could do hybrid, would this work? I was told on health and safety grounds I couldn't bring my baby to college classes -I didn't even ask, but the receptionist told me as my first was in a carrier when I went in to sign up. The grounds were health and safety and there was something about other students right to study, probably related to some of the things other posters have mentioned. I don't know as I politely stopped her as I said I wasn't even asking to bring him, but she seemed to assume I might. This was pre Covid, so online learning wasn't really a thing as far as I know (I'm not a lecturer, so could be wrong).