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?

Obviously this is a terrible idea. Imagine paying £££ a term only to have a consistent interruption that could be wholly avoided (and you can't guarantee that wouldn't happen). Extraordinary you'd even consider it.

OP surely it would suit both you and your baby better to request you attend all lectures remotely and asynchronously to fit your schedule (not the unis)

as a pp said though, I’d check this is even possible on a DA as you need to take mat leave and that might impact enrolment .

One of my professors in law school once taught Neil Patrick Harris’s mother, who went to law school when NPH was a kid. NPH attended one of the classes once and sat in the back with a book.

Unfortunately, your kid is a baby, not Neil Patrick Harris, and is going to be disruptive at least a few times.

But why go to a lot of trouble to argue a case for something you know has realistically no chance of working? Even if she is an easy baby, there will still be days when she just doesn't feel right, or is teething, and she will disturb the other students.

Since we're all sharing, I feel concerned and sorry for your kids too. IMO your focus should be on them, not handing out unsolicited opinions to strangers in the internet. Just enjoy your life.

Five years, it's part time.

Unless it’s a service dog for eg. A visually impaired lecturer which I’m assuming it’s not or the poster @SafeSex would have mentioned it, I think that’s completely ridiculous and inconsiderate.

Thank you!

Agree - so glad none of this crap happened at my uni back in the noughties! And tuition fees were far lower then as well.

I'm all for women's development not being hindered due to maternity leave, but I'm very surprised that you wouldn't automatically be placed on a break in learning if you're absent from work, which would pause the apprenticeship until your return.

I don't know why I'm so surprised that women do such a fantastic job of obstructing and hobbling other women with such venom and fervour. It's so rampant, especially on Mumsnet. But I am a little bit surprised, every time.

Women shouldn't have to put their lives on hold because they are the ones who carry and feed a baby. That's a biological fact, not a disability, and it shouldn't come with a while host of penalties while everyone else objects to their existence. You have no idea of OP's situation, why she's doing university courses, why she's pregnant - and it's none of your business! Maybe she couldn't 'wait' to have children; maybe her uni course is many years long; maybe this is her way out of low paid jobs and she doesn't want to put off getting qualified.

It doesn't really matter, the point is that society - and your good self - needs to stop punishing women for trying to moving forward.

You're most welcome @Nimnuan Inbox me if I can help around navigating things.

You’re not getting ideas about arguing your case. That’s because there’s really no case to argue.

right?! The brain fog during pregnancy I accepted but after baby came it’s like it got worse lol.

What are your plans if there are post-birth complications OP?

I had a c section, and at 4 weeks I developed sepsis, and DS developed meningitis at the same time.

All of our plans for going back to work were thrown off course. There's absolutely no way that I'd have been able to study, and the reason I developed sepsis in the first place was because from 10 days PP I was pushing myself to be more active.

All of your plans are banking on a straight forward labour and unicorn baby that doesn't gripe or grumble, have travel sickness, have any milk intolerance, colick, and the rest.

I don't think you're being realistic in your approach here. Your questions to the university should be about how they can make this accessible to you without bringing your newborn on site or compromising your health postnatally.

I think it would be disruptive for you and everyone else. Even if you went out if the baby cried, you'd have distracted everybody including the lecturer. University courses aren't cheap nowadays and I think the other students should be able to focus.

Honestly and in this case the solution is blindingly obvious. Post Covid I would be extremely surprised if the uni cannot record the small number of affected lectures and make them available for OP at her convenience. If it’s seminar teaching she can listen in- plenty of students state they’re not happy speaking up.

OP I’d advise you contact the EDI team on the administrative side (not just academic staff) as they will know the policy for sure, sometimes academic staff aren’t totally up to date. I’d be peppering in phrases like ‘reasonable adjustment’ and ‘equality act’ in my email. On their Athena swan page it notes the next step of their action plan is better support for carers…

I haven’t read the whole thread, but I did take my newborn to lectures once a week till she was 3 months old. This was at Manchester Uni.

I left if she fussed, but she hardly ever did, which was actually quite a surprise after her older sister who cried much more.

My lecturers and the other students were all supportive.

I handed in all my work on time and got one of the higher grades in the cohort. My baby was not injured or damaged by going to college with me one day a week.

Good luck!

Plenty of posters suggested the father looked after the baby but OP doesn’t want that. What she wants is to subject a very young baby to three hours in the car on top of a ten hour day being restrained on a lap in a lecture theatre.

Have you forgotten the baby here?

Yeah, I'm not surprised this isn't allowed. If they allowed one, they'd have to allow all. Even if the other students don't have kids, you could still end up with a class full of kids as everyone brought in their nieces or decided they could babysit and make money while in lectures, etc. A baby would be potentially very distracting to other students trying to learn, who have paid their money. You're not going to win this one, OP.

Would it really be so terrible to put your course off for a bit? Even if you were allowed to take your baby into class, it would probably put you under quite a bit of stress and make it hard for you to learn. You can't do everything at once. There'll be time for your course later.

Alternatively, you could throw yourself on the mercy of any grandparents.

Reading between the lines, perhaps OP doesn’t have much support from the father or from her family in terms of childcare. She wouldn’t otherwise be trying to make such an awkward arrangement work. Given the apprenticeship and the desire to graduate “on time”, I’d suggest she’s self-sufficient? Otherwise she’d just be a SAHM?

Just as a suggestion, I did something very similar. I had to attend once a week with by breastfed baby and my husband came along (annual leave) and took her for a long walk, sat in the cafe with her etc. when she was hungry he’d text me and i would pop pop. I did and a hands free breast pump on in lectures to help with pain. Worked really well! My mum did come twice as he had meeting be comment miss, worked very similarly!

Well that poster clearly hit a nerve. Truth hurts

I assume if you were going into your workplace on your KIT day you wouldn’t be able to take your baby into work, so would the same regulations apply for uni?

Thanks but I actually do have good support at home. It's already five year course that's stretched to six because I started in January rather than September, I don't want it turning into seven years.
I relied on husband/grandparents and pumping last time and I may have to do so again. I really want to avoid it if possible, it's just so hard.
With my last baby she wouldn't have been disruptive, and it would have been much much easier to bring her to uni than carry around a cooler full of milk and pump in the toilets.
While there is a lactation room, if I used it I'd spend more time there or getting there and back than I would in class so toilets really was the only option. I also had very little time to eat or work on assignments because pumping took so much time.
If this baby is the same as the last, I can type while she's content in a sling. If she's not, I'll just be in for a hard few months regardless.