2 new parents in grad school--Advice?

[VTtoPSUmama]

Hi all

I'm new to this much needed support board and glad it's here! My husband and i have a 4 week old baby and we are both pursuing our PhD's in Materials Science and Engineering, year 2 of ~5. We want to be attachment parents as much as we can be so we were planning on alternating our schedules (finished with classes, just research and writing now) so that one of us is always home with the baby, therefore avoiding daycare. I am worried about if it is going to work however, at least for the next couple of months because we both have candidacy coming up. We get our topics in february and we have like 2 weeks to write our proposals; another 2 weeks to make our presentation. Any BTDT mom's that know if this is an unreasonable goal with a ~3 month old baby? Should we try to find daycare or can we do this. It seems so hard to write while taking care of a baby, how do you ladies do it!? I have so much anxiety about the next year. I feel like i hardly get anything done now, so how will i fit in grad school and sleep?

TIA

[Carita]

We needed at least PT daycare, and FT was even better. That doesn't mean we can't be AP. It just means that during the day I was pumping BM, and working hard, and at night and on the weekends, I was completely devoted to my little man. I won't lie - it was hard to be away from him, but we had a lot of quality time at the end of the day and on the weekends, not just with my son, but with my husband too, when I could turn my brain off.

I would draw a work plan up and start going for it, talk to child care providers anyway to see what your options are. If you fall behind at all, don't be afraid to ask for help. Its a critical point and you will need all your wits about you. I defended my proposal when DS was 6 weeks old and I could hardly think through the lack of sleep fog. I can't imagine 2 parents going through that at the same time.

[~pi]

:

I think it could be done without daycare, but if you don't absolutely have to do it the hard way, I wouldn't.

It has definitely been best for our sanity to have FT daycare, and certainly hasn't stopped us from parenting according to attachment theory and principles.

Welcome to MDC!

[readytobedone]

congrats on the baby!

i personally found that i eventually needed daycare. but i also didn't try to do any work (except the bare minimum of teaching, for which DH and babysitters watched DD about 10 hours/week) for the first year of DD's life. for me, i don't think it could've worked any other way. i was just too much in a brain/newborn fog. so this is all to say...if you find yourself the same way, just wanting to be with your baby and completely uninterested in school/work--don't worry. it will pass.

i got a little behind, but when i started back (on my diss prospectus and my diss) i caught up and am now on pace with the average of my cohort. that first year of a baby's life is just a hard time to be working full-time, and i would give almost anything not to have to.