So I secured funding, got place, lined up research - now TOTALLY panicking about PhD - have I lost the plot

[DaisyFlower123]

I am due to start my PhD in September, DC2 is due in a few weeks, DS1 is a fun loving, very full on toddler. How am I going to cope with all of this, overtaken by sudden terror! Any one experienced something similar?

Hi Daisyflower and congratulations on both counts. I am coming to the end of a full-time, funded phd but my two are older. One of the things that I've found hard about the phd is defining work/not work boundaries. Because I mostly work from home, I can be flexible and go to school events during the day, pick them up some days at 3 etc, and make up time in the early mornings and evenings. But the downside to that is trying to work when really I should be parenting. I have a deadline on Monday and it's the holidays so spent yesterday morning hyperventilating and trying to get some work done while they watched too much TV. So it would probably be good to think about how you're going to cope with that.

Of course a lot depends on whether your Phd is lab-based, or otherwise requires lots of being somewhere else - or just lots of sitting thinking and reading like mine. What kind of childcare are you planning to have? In my first year, my younger DD was pre-school and I had a day off a week with her, which I got away with (though maybe paying for now - am not going to finish on time).

There is a Phd support thread - a bit inactive, but have a look at old posts - plenty of people with babies and toddlers IIRC. Good luck.