In NICUs we generally don’t stay overnight. We could visit any time we wanted though in the two hospitals we were in. Funnily enough he’s now 8 (and absolutely fine- all hail modern medicine) and still hates bed sharing…🤣

You have to stay and sleep with your child in the general paeds wards and despite the generally excellent care, it is usually hell. (Not to mention that you have a sick child…).

Yes so again pumps are available but we often have to rent hospital grade ones (I did). And yes there are chairs but sitting in those for hours is impossible. I’ll be honest and say I have found the NICUs to be relatively better equipped than the paeds wards.

As a former NICU mum of a 26 weeker, a lot of the money we raise provides for what I suppose are deemed extras- incubator blankets, parents’ coffee rooms, nicer reclining chairs for breastfeeding etc.

And also helped me think through something I am writing about repatriation at the end of WW2 and thinking through the state’s intransigence versus the refugees’ creative use of their circumstances.

I read it yesterday and really enjoyed it. Particularly the contrast between the state’s pejorative view of queue jumpers and ‘shuttlecocking’ versus how the displaced saw these as opportunities.

I have. I did a single seminar for PhD students. For organisation I showed them what my practice was in a very granular step by step way. And took suggestions from them (younger, technically more competent?) about what I could do better. Or how they would improve my practice.

I once got asked for it by an officious bus driver when my younger one wasn’t even six. She kept saying: how do I know he isn’t 11? Because he’s half the size of his brother who is 10????! But to be fair that was the only time…

I think when they get closer to 11 it’s a way of showing that they can still travel for free/proof of age. My younger one who takes the Tube to school uses his everyday because it means we can go through the barriers separately and not wait for the wide gate to go through with me.

Many congratulations!

This is the kind of thing that’s harder after the first book/big project slump. Also learning what to say no to is discipline specific but again a steep learning curve (I am especially bad at this…).

True. And I would find it hard to mentor someone who only worked in a lab/group. But within social sciences/humanities I think you can mentor more generally- eg how to block out writing time in the week. I got some top notch advice from @thomstubbs.bsky.social on this btw!

Which leads to the more helpful question I think which is how do we support junior faculty through that tricky post first book/big tranche of publications phase?

Also: maternity leave and a gap for those with caring responsibilities (esp women)? Also it’s not just monographs, typically in the humanities we do big projects that take time to mature so once you have the material for tenure published it’s going to take time to build up to the next one?