Having a baby at uni?

[Josiemac93]

Not sure if this is the right topic choice! But just wondering, has anyone here had a baby whilst at uni and continued to study without taking a leave of absence? I think 3rd year with a newborn would be impossible but I'm so bloody broody I just wish it was my turn.

I can remember a girl on my course having a baby (unplanned), it was really, really tough on her. She struggled to complete the course, very hard to enjoy 'Uni life' .... very difficult financially ... I never knew what happened to her after we graduated. I personally would think it a really bad idea.

My niece did, Oxford. They were really supportive.

Practically impossible IMHO

No me. But I really wouldn't.

It would be really hard to study and complete your final year to the best of your ability. Also your first role out of uni can really help set your career path so being restricted by a baby would be limiting.

Thank you for your replies! Yeah I think finding a post grad job is so so important I just hate the feeling of having to wait longer. I totally understand it probably is not a good idea to do on purpose. I'm 29 next year and I know that's obviously very young still but definitely time to get going considering I'd like more than one. I just wish we could try now.

I think I just want someone to tell me I should and justify my broodiness but really I need some people to knock some sense into me so I can complete my degree!

My friend completed her third year despite giving birth round the same time. She then went on to do her masters with a baby to breastfeed etc.

I wouldn't have coped but she was awesome.

There will be students that become pregnant across the country every year. I have a friend whose dd is in this situation now.
Some people 'manage'. Some 'cope'. Some don't. But it is incredibly challenging, and lonely.
You'd be absolutely daft to deliberately choose to do it.
'Making the most of it' or 'doing your best to make the best of the circumstances' is very different from 'planning to make my life as difficult as I can'.

@BackforGood

There will be students that become pregnant across the country every year. I have a friend whose dd is in this situation now. Some people 'manage'. Some 'cope'. Some don't. But it is incredibly challenging, and lonely. You'd be absolutely daft to deliberately choose to do it. 'Making the most of it' or 'doing your best to make the best of the circumstances' is very different from 'planning to make my life as difficult as I can'.

I agree with this. Why make life difficult for yourself?

Yes me in my final year. I was also quite broody and was in a secure relationship (as I thought). It's a very long story but I can only say I was beyond naive, I had a very rosy idea of motherhood, thought pregnancy would be wonderful, my baby would be so calm etc. It was horrendous. I wasn't prepared for the sheer bone tiredness that comes with lack of sleep. The person I though was my loving partner when it came to acting like a father and a responsible adult turned out to be a selfish, immature shit. My baby had colic, I believe I had undiagnosed PND and I had no support where I lived. I knew no one and couldn't manage to make friends because of being so tied up with college and my so called college friends didn't want to know once my life moved on and I couldn't go out partying with them. There is no rush. Finish your course. Enjoy your career for a while and hopefully don't pick a manchild as the father!

@ASnowman so sorry to hear you went through that. That sounds absolutely awful. My husband's definitely not a manchild thankfully, we've been together 10 years and are a strong couple, although him not being one, I know there would be other barriers which is obviously uni.

Thanks everyone for your replies, knocking some sense into me. I know you're all right. Realistically I'm probably going to wait six months into my grad job to start trying but definitely no longer because honestly I cannot cope with this feeling any longer.

Hi @Josiemac93

What you've described is me
I'm in my first year at uni currently. Am 24 weeks pregnant - so got pregnant just as my course started; unplanned though.

It is tiring already. Uni have been great and have put support in etc.
I'm lucky in a sense that my baby arrives when I'm on my summer break & that during COVID I'm learning from home.
Im not planning on taking a break as I'll be on summer break anyway so shouldn't need it; However, it's far from ideal .... I've struggled to get my assignments in whilst being quite unwell with pregnancy - this is my 2nd so I assumed I would have an easy one like before; but I was wrong.

I really wouldn't advise getting pregnant at university; wait, get your degree and then work in your field / have a baby then but honestly, I wouldn't do this again ...

I think you’d be pretty bonkers tbh to do this deliberately. I had no idea how totally exhausting motherhood would be. I was up several times a night for two years for starters. No way could I have handled a degree at the same time; or even a part time short course tbh!
However I don’t think it would be completely crackers to have a baby soon after you graduate. There isn’t really a good time to take time off a career to have a baby so you could have it a few months after graduating, take a few months off then try and get your career going at that point. Once you do find a good job, you won’t want to take Mat leave until you’ve been around a while.

@PandaBabyJuly thank you for your reply! Wow! That does sound intense. I'm sorry it's been hard for you. I think I need to give myself a bit of a reality check. Great your uni have been supportive though and that's it's been good timing. Definitely will be nice for you to have the summer off with your new baby! Yeah the ideal would be to get a job and get pregnant soon after. Just such a hard decision because obviously I'll be feeling pressured to wait a little longer because starting a new job and then getting pregnant straight away isn't ideal and having to go on mat leave etc, just feel like I'd seem unreliable or something haha. But if I got pregnant now, I could have a 7ish month old before graduating and then start work fairly soon after graduating and it would all be grand. But obviously I know it doesn't always work out like that.

I fell pregnant in my 3rd year of uni although didn’t give birth until 2 months after I finished my course.
It was hard enough being pregnant at uni especially with morning sickness so I don’t think I’d recommend doing it with a baby but maybe you could still start to ttc before you graduate.

This is what I'm doing now with a 3yo already. Baby is due October. I'm used to working and sitting as did with no1

It's entirely possible especially with subsidised childcare but it will be exhausting. No reason you can't but it's also the logistics depending on due date, attendance etc.

Why would anybody actually plan to do this. It would be really impractical.

@Viviennemary I think I'm just weighing up having a baby now and trying to hack through uni, or having a baby right at the very start of my career. I'll be 29 when I graduate and I'd really like 3 children so I want to start early ish. I feel like having one whilst at uni could give me a head start so I could have a couple years of working before having a second. But I understand it would be impractical. I know I'm mostly wrong tbh. I'm just broody and wish we could have one now so I don't have one immediately after settling into a post grad job.

I had a baby in my third year of my undergraduate and I'm currently in my second year of my masters. It's super hard. I wouldn't recommend if you don't have to. After giving birth you need time to spend with your baby and not have the pressure of writing essays and reading. I had PND and had to write a dissertation. Basically nope don't do it.

I write this as I lay awake; currently trying to settle an 11 month old. This is a bonkers idea. Ive been to uni twice and the 3rd year is always the most laborious. The absolute sheer exhaustion that comes with a newborn and studying for finals do not mix well.

Think of all those things you are looking forward to doing with your newborn. Now imagine them with and without the pressure of squeezing in lectures and essays as well. You don't get those early weeks back and you only ever have one baby to solely focus on once. Past that, your time will always be split between them and another.

There is so much pressure with a newborn. If you're so excited about being a Mum, why not try and give yourself the best possible environment to do so and fully focus on your little one and enjoy them. If you have them now, you will be fine and you'll cope. It's just, whether you want that or if you want to wait just a little longer and make things infinitely easier on yourself and not have to split your time and worry more.

Maybe make a list of all the things you love doing but will really struggle to do with a baby. Things you've always fancied trying but haven't. Or places or a big holiday you would love. See if you can celebrate these months of just you and your husband and cherish all the things that will be that much more complex in the future. You will be parents forever. It'll be a long time before you'll have anything like as much freedom again and the responsibility will never end. It's absolutely worth it, but this time is so special too, we're just not very good at realising it at the time x

Terrible idea to plan this OP. What if you feel really nauseous which is very likely. And the extreme fatigue which is also typical in the first trimester?
Not to mention all the financial implications.
Just wait a while!

Agee with PP who says that if you're broody and imagine how wonderful it would be to "be a mum" and "have a baby" then why plan to do these things when you'll basically not be able to enjoy them.

The easiest way to feel good about being a mother is to have as little (extra) stress as possible.

As an aside/comparison, the first time I was at uni I did the whole partying and turning up exhausted at lectures. Well, I thought I was. Later I had a baby who woke up 5-8 times a night for three years. Doing 3rd year that tired would have definitely resulted in getting a lower degree classification. And the thing with babies is you have no idea if yours will be healthy, a good sleeper etc until they're here, so you can't really plan.

I’ve known 3 women who were pregnant in their final year and gave birth shortly after graduating. All 3 had stable relationships and 2 are still with that person, one divorced but many years later not during the baby years. All 3 women still ended up being a SAHM until their children were school and have then tried to restart their careers. If you start TTC when you’ve been in your graduate job for 6months you’ll have been there a year at least before you go on maternity. However, depending on your field and how badly it is hit by the pandemic, you may be looking at taking temporary contracts to get yourself started. I graduated in 2011, so just recovering from the recession and for the first 3 years of working, my contracts were fixed term. I am seeing a lot more fixed term contracts come up at the moment. So I would probably use this time to save whatever you can, which is hard when you’re studying, so that you don’t have to worry about getting a permanent role so you can get maternity pay.

I can’t see why you want to do this. I’m assuming your broody because you want to have a baby and spend time with it, not so you can send to nursery all day from 6 weeks while you go to uni.

@Bumblebee413

Think of all those things you are looking forward to doing with your newborn. Now imagine them with and without the pressure of squeezing in lectures and essays as well. You don't get those early weeks back and you only ever have one baby to solely focus on once. Past that, your time will always be split between them and another.

There is so much pressure with a newborn. If you're so excited about being a Mum, why not try and give yourself the best possible environment to do so and fully focus on your little one and enjoy them. If you have them now, you will be fine and you'll cope. It's just, whether you want that or if you want to wait just a little longer and make things infinitely easier on yourself and not have to split your time and worry more.

Maybe make a list of all the things you love doing but will really struggle to do with a baby. Things you've always fancied trying but haven't. Or places or a big holiday you would love. See if you can celebrate these months of just you and your husband and cherish all the things that will be that much more complex in the future. You will be parents forever. It'll be a long time before you'll have anything like as much freedom again and the responsibility will never end. It's absolutely worth it, but this time is so special too, we're just not very good at realising it at the time x

This was a great response thank you so much! You are all right. I'm not going to do this on purpose whilst still at uni. I do want to savour the first moments with my first baby and doing that whilst doing uni would definitely be infinitely harder. Also to the pp, if I were to have a baby, my contact time at university is 8 hours a week so I wouldn't be sending a baby to nursery all day every day. 4 of those 8 hours are likely to be online for the foreseeable as well.

Thanks everyone so much for the responses and putting things into perspective for me. I am going to wait. It just all feels a lot when I've been broody for so long and my husband is so ready too which makes the broodiness worse! But you are all right. Intentionally having a baby in my final year which I start in September would be ludicrous.