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?

She says there's a lactation room, that's not the problem.

All the more reason not to allow a genuine unnecessary distraction into the lecture theatre. The universities will want to keep their contracts.

There’s often a uni nursery. It’s going to be an exhausting, expensive time but that’s the reality of a baby, older child and studies. Any family who could help? How many lectures a week? Any online options?

I don’t disagree.

Can you imagine if employers or service providers throughout the country suddenly started making decisions for grown women 'in their best interests'?

Totally agree with you. We should get rid of all health and safety immediately! How dare employers make decisions for adults in their best interests! Working at height? They can decide whether they want to bring their own harness or not! Using dangerous equipment? Up to them if they can be bothered to get training. Plus all pregnancy and maternity regulations - let a pregnant woman investigate whether the chemicals she work with are teratogens and if she should resign instead. Employers definitely shouldn’t be deciding on a safe work8ng environment for them!

No to the above, she has very specific requirements. She wants to breastfeed , so keep the baby with her. She seems to have worked out the logistics, but not the permissions.

Whether not being allowed to attend and watch a recording or not is complicated by her being an apprentice student. I’d imagine the university would even if they were ok with it have to check with the employer. Because there’s no way of checking a recording has been watched. So would the employer be happy to pay a day’s wage for that day with no clue if the work is being done? Plus the idea of the whole day being a didactic lecture is often not true anymore , group work and activities are often used to chunk sessions up especially for a small cohort like apprenticeship students. So she’d miss out on that.

My employer would be fine with remote attendance, but it was refused previously by the university. I'm assuming they'll refuse again but I will be renewing the request, hopefully they agree this time.

Because there’s no way of checking a recording has been watched.

She would presumably fail the course if she didn’t do any of the training.

Expressing is not the same. Plenty of women can't express and many don't want to

Expressing is not the same. Plenty of women can't express and many don't want to

But OP is clear she can.

The op has the choice to express on a lactation room should she wish to. She doesn’t want to use that room so should ask if there is a different room available.

would she even be allowed “at work” until 4 weeks pp anyway ?

Some women can't express, it doesn't matter if there's a lactation room or a ball room or an international space station, boobs don't work on geography

She hasn't had the baby yet so nobody knows.

Utterly selfish to even consider it, but that doesn't surprise me at all with how entitled everyone is these days. I am at uni now doing a masters and sometimes there are children in the AI building where I work. It really fucking pisses me off. Fuck off with your noisy kids.

As for the lectures, anyone making noise annoys me. I didn't attend hardly any lectures due to selfish people being disruptive and as I checked my statement for tuition fees last night it was 86k. That's how much in debt I am for studying and the lectures were intolerable due to people talking and coming and going. The lecturers just rattled through and didn't stop - I think they'd given up caring. Yes, I said something but it did nothing.

It is her second baby

The op is clear that’s her plan. I didn’t pull that out of the sky.

And...? If you're going to say that because she could express the first time she'll be able to this time you should probably have a good hard think about how naive you want to seem before you type anything out.

Well then the op needs a back up plan.

if she’s using a kit day to go in will she be allowed to before 4 weeks?

Cumpulsory maternity leave is 2 weeks. 4 weeks if you're working in factory.

What's her plan? She's been pretty consistent that she really doesn't want to express.

So you’re going to do this with a baby just over 2 weeks old?

@Tfishappening you have really had the OP’s back on this thread! I reckon you’ve posted more then the OP!

Even if the uni said….

Sure bring in baby. Breastfeed In the lectures, potentially multiple times, burp the baby, leave the lecture hall to change nappies, likely multiple times

Woul you want to? I suspect there’s a reason that there hasn’t been an excitable campaign for this before now. Because no one wants to do it and for good reason!