Hi Annabelle,

I had my daughter during my phd, partly for all of the reasons that you state (flexibility; less disruptive to take time off during phd than at start of academic career; decent maternity paid from research council), and also because I was a lot older than you and needed to get on with it. It worked very well for me, and as you say, it was easier being a phd student parent than balancing parenting with a full-time job. I took six months off, and I don't think that it has damaged my long term career prospects at all. My advice would be to do some research on the cost of childcare (c.£1000 per month here in London for full time care) - don't assume that you will be able to work productively with a baby / toddler at home!

I've submitted my thesis and am awaiting for a viva; in the meantime I'm making ends meet by sessional lecturing. What I'm trying to find out is whether anyone has managed to pick up sessional lecturing work in the summer term (e.g. May, June), or does it pretty much dry up after Easter? Has anyone had any luck finding work as exam invigilators, exam marking etc over the summer period? I don't need full time work, just a few hours a week (to ensure that I qualify for maternity allowance in the latter half of next year). Am in the UK.

I have the opportunity to contribute a chapter to a collected volume of essays based on a conference that i spoke at a while ago. The chapter is written and good to go - I was originally going to submit it to a postgraduate journal, but my supervisors advised that I should hold out for something better.

However, I reckon that if I was to spend a bit of time re-writing it, it might have a chance of being accepted by a high quality peer-reviewed journal - the trouble being, I don't see how I woud be able to make the time to do that until some point mid next year.

I'm tempted just to let it go the the edited volume, than at least I have a publication in the bag, even if its not a particularly high profile one. However, I would also like to use this material in my monograph (have just submitted the thesis and am thinking about writing a monograph proposal in the next few months). Will publishing as a book chapter ruin my chances of being able ti use the same material in a monograph?

Just that really. Submitted last week, and have been offered a viva date at the end of January. Slightly disappointed as was hoping to be a Dr by christmas! I have a sense that this (nearly four months) is still within the acceptable limits of time to wait between submission and viva (especially at this time of time, when academics tend to be busy), but am interested in what others' experiences were?

I have a two year old, and took the first six months off work to concentrate on the baby, so I completely understand how lonely it can be looking after a small child by yourself all day. The solution as I see it is pretty simple: treat your phd like a job, and work on it Monday to Friday, 9-5 only. That gives you evenings and weekends to spend with your family, like any other working parent. I think that its a bit of a myth that you need to be working all hours to succeed in academia (providing you are working efficiently, of course).

Also, what does your wife really want? Is she happy to be postponing her career to be with your child? Or would getting back into work / study make her happier and more fulfilled? It looks like you need to have another conversation about what she would really like.

Hi Star, it sounds as if we are in similar fields. I upgraded from Mphil to Phd status shortly before I gave birth, so I had around 25,000 words at that point. I didn't really need any support from my uni, but I made a point of emailing my supervisors once I hit twelve weeks pregnant, let them know when the baby was due, and outlined my plans to take six months leave before returning full time. I also make of point of telling them that we had budgeted for full time childcare - basically I tried to keep it professional, and let them see that having a baby wasn't going to affect my work or my ambitions for an academic career.

Working through pregnancy was pretty tough, and I found that I got very little done during the first trimester. However, you might find that you feel absolutely fine, you won't know until you do it! I would suggest that writing up whilst pregnant is probably not ideal, but if it is the situation that you find yourself in i am sure that you will make it work.

And yes, the maternity package that I received from my funding body was actually way more generous than that received by friends working for law firms etc.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

I had a baby in the second year of my phd. I treated the (funded) phd as I would a paid job; I took six months maternity leave, then went back full time, putting my daughter in nursery. All worked out fine, and I have (almost) submitted, plus have publications, teaching experience etc. Working through sleep deprivation and illness was a bit grim, but you would have to do that in any job. I don't feel that I have had to choose whether to prioritise an academic career or having kids, and I think that having a baby during a phd can actually be seen as a clever career move, as you get the childbearing stage out of the way before you get stuck into a job.

Two caveats: my partner has been immensely supportive, and thinks of looking after our daughter as a joint responsibility. Also, I spent virtually all of my grant on childcare. I would advise you to think seriously about childcare, how much of it you want to use, how much it will cost etc., and have a serious chat with your partner about what having a baby will mean for your career, and far how he is willing to support you in having both.

Hi everyone, I rarely post, but have been lurking on the board for the past four years or so. I'm currently writing up a humanities phd, and am four and a half months pregnant; the thesis HAS to be finished before I give birth in the summer, as the idea of trying to finish whilst caring for a newborn and toddler (I have a 2 year old as well) is just too awful to contemplate. Plus I need to have completed before the end of the academic year so that I can apply for the next round of post-doctoral funding, etc. On top of that, I'm trying to organise three different conference-type events (including filling out long funding applications), and co-ordinating a book project. I'm so tired - I keep wondering if it is all worth it, and have been fantasising about being hospitalised / put on bed rest so I have an excuse to take some time off. I know some people on here have managed to finish whilst pregnant or with young children - please come and tell me that it is all worth it!

Hi Radion,

I haven't posted here in a longer time, but didn't want your post to go ignored. When I was halfway through my MA degree I fell pregnant, and I decided to have an abortion. I was depressed for at least a year afterwards, and lost interest in anything other than going through the basic motions of job, study, etc. However, eventually it passed. I think that it is natural to mourn after a huge physical and emotional event like this. What I am trying to say is that it is OK to feel sad, and that perhaps your feelings are a natural, healthy way of working through your response to this. I do agree that speaking to a counsellor might be a good idea - I talked a lot to my partner and friends about it, which definitely helped. It is now five years down the line and I have a six month baby girl - looking back I am glad that I waited until the time was right. I know how awful you are feeling right now - but it will get better with time. Be good to yourself and try to ride this out - it does get easier, I promise x

Hi Podge,

I reckon that you can fairly easily survive on that amount in London, although you will probably not be able to afford the rent on a flat by yourself. Until recently I was paying £480pcm plus bills in a house share with two other people - you can get a good idea of rent by looking at websites like rightmove. You can save money by cycling, although I think Oyster offer a special student rate for a weekly travel pass - I think that it is about £25 per week for a zone 1-2 pass, although you can check that on their website. If you are living with other students you should not have to pay council tax, and I have generally budgeted on about £30 pcm for gas and electric.

I have lived in London for about ten years, and have recently given up a full time job to live on a studentship (same rate as yours). So long as you are happy to go without foreign holidays and expensive restaurant meals etc, I find that it is perfectly possible to live well on this amount (it equates to a salary of £20k before tax - plenty of people manage to survive in London on far less). Hope that helps!

Hi Ariajolie, I just started my Phd in October, and my partner and I have decided that it is more practical for us to try to have our first baby DURING the PhD rather than wait until I have finished. There are several reasons for this: firstly I am 35, and would hate to wait three years only to find out that I couldn't conceive (although I know that plenty of women do in their late 30s). I am full time and have funding, which has a provision for maternity leave (if I was studying part time and working full time to self-fund I probably wouldn't consider it). I have seen how difficult it is for friends of mine who work full time to juggle work and childcare - I reckon that doing a PhD gives me more flexibility that having a job with fixed office hours, and that juggling a baby and PhD might actually be easier than juggling a baby and work. Finally, even if I put it off until after the PhD, I will still have to balance having a baby with being an early-career academic, which I think might be even more demanding that a PhD. I know that it's not going to be easy, but from reading threads on this forum, I have seen that plenty of other people have managed it. (Although if I was 24 there would be NO WAY I would consider doing this just yet - at that age I was convinced that I didn't want babies ever! :p

Sugarbear- I still have no idea why they tested me for jobseekers eligibility first, and like you, I read a lot of info on their website that seemed contradicted by actual practice. The principal lesson that I took away from the whole experience is that the benefits system seems utterly random and impenetrable! I would advise just putting in a claim and seeing what happens in your individual case - it doesn't seem as if you stand to lose anything by doing so.

Hi Sugarbear, I was in a similar situation last year when doing my MA. I was doing paid work for just under 15 hours a week, and first had to apply for housing benefit via job seekers allowance (I wasn't eligible to receive any money for jobseekers because I was working those 15 hours but still had to sign on every two weeks to ensure that I remained eligible to apply for housing benefit) then was allowed to apply on the basis of low income. I mentioned that I was doing 'a course' and said that it involved 3 hours lecture per week, but played down how much private study it involved. (Initially I told the lady in the job seekers office that it involved ten to twenty hours a week of private study - she told me that it was best to keep that info to myself, as the jobseekers office would consider it impossible to be studying twenty hours a week and still be looking for work!) Eventually I got around £480 housing benefit for the ten weeks that I was out of full-time work, but it took the full ten weeks and a lot of phone calls and letters on my part to get that. Also I was living in a shared flat, not with a partner, which might affect things for you. So yes, it is possible to get housing benefit when doing a part time MA, seems to vary for each individual, and in my case seemed to be dependent on going through the jobseekers route first.