Maternity Leave Projects (or, Productivity While Nursing)
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I’m curious — did anyone use maternity leave to learn stuff, or otherwise better yourself? What were your favorite maternity leave projects?
A lot of readers noted that new mom friends were critical for their maternity leave, but I’m sure there are just as many people who, like me, just watched way too much television or played on social media in those moments when I wasn’t connecting with my baby.
With my first maternity leave, it was Property Brothers on HGTV. Ah, Jonathan and Drew, I’ll always have a soft spot for you. But after a while, my brain sort of felt like it was rotting.
Psst: We’ve written a lot about maternity leave in general over the years, including how to prepare at work for maternity leave, what to wear to work after maternity leave, what an ideal maternity leave might look like, how to stay connected to the office during your maternity leave and, generally, how to make it easier when you return to work after maternity leave, and what to consider if you don’t want to go back to work after maternity leave.
How to Be Productive on Your Maternity Leave (If You Want To)
I’m currently on my second maternity leave, and this time around I’ve been a bit better about it (although Shark Tank and Ladies of London have made their way into my rotation), but I thought it might be fun to compile a list of brainy but enjoyable things to do with short pockets of time at all hours of the day (where you may or may not have the use of both of your hands, and you may or may not be able to be much more than a passive listener).
- TED – Fast Company has called it the “new Harvard,” and it’s free. World-renowned speakers — professors, authors, leaders, etc. — give 18-minute talks on subjects of interest to them. Watch Sheryl Sandberg talk about how we have too few women leaders, watch numerous talks on the power of body language, or delve into something fun like the secret to desire in a long-term relationship or the concept of happiness and parenting. (I’d suggest starting with TED, rather than TEDx videos — there are some great ones in the TEDx ones but they’re a bit less tightly curated than the talks presented at the official TED events.)
- Online skill-based classes such as Udemy, Coursera, and Skillshare – (Odesk has a great roundup of the field.) Take a class on negotiating salary, learn how to master Excel, and virtually travel to Duke University to improve your reasoning skills. Prices range on these, but many are very affordable (free-$10).
- Online language classes – I’ve used Rosetta Stone in the past, but if I were looking to brush up or learn a new language I might try Babbel or Duolingo.
- YouTube – I watched a ton of free videos on entrepreneurship from Marie Forleo, but you may also want to learn more about meditation from Gabrielle Bernstein, desire mapping from Danielle LaPorte, or even just watch makeup and hair tutorials from The Beauty Department.
These ideas are all pretty video-focused because I was looking primarily for something productive to do with my iPad or phone while breastfeeding, and because it feels like I never get a chance to watch long videos otherwise — I’m too antsy to do other things if I’m in front of the computer!
Update: over at Corporette we’ve rounded up great online classes for working women, the best online women’s management training, and 3 great personal finance classes.
(I do sometimes listen to audio books while I’m tidying up around the apartment, and I suspect I could get into them if I lived in a car culture… but for breastfeeding I preferred to have something to watch with one eye (keeping the other eye on the baby).
Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with just watching Netflix or Jenna Marbles videos if you want to — I know even Tina Fey notes in Bossypants that she caught up on Entourage while pumping. (A great read, btw.)
Still, I’m curious — for those of you nursing and pumping, do you have any favorite things to watch? Any favorite TED videos or online classes to recommend?
A little late to this discussion but still wanted to add my comment.
This is a great post; Listening to podcasts or watching Ted videos or taking a new course on Udemy / COursera actually does sound doable. Glad that I found people thinking like me :-)
I’m going to be on maternity leave soon and this time around looking for ideas to expand my knowledge base that can help in enhancing my career or learn a new skill. While I’m absolutely not sure how much I’ll be able to achieve any of that, I def want to be optimistic. This is my second baby so I feel a little more confident..been there done that, however I also have a 3 year old, though he will be in school full day. I’ll also most likely have some family help this time so I might just get lucky.
First time around it was really really tough as I had major pp depression and a colicky baby so the first 3 months were a blur. Hoping that it will be all more manageable this time around. Good luck to all the potential readers here!
This very topic has been on my mind a lot as I prepare for my baby. I like the suggestions you provide. I’m constantly listen to podcast during work to learn more skills or understand something I didn’t know before. I can’t believe the negative comments. Some people are just inquisitive. Bad tv is good in spurts but self improvement is more satisfying.
Someone asked about cloth diapers over the weekend. I just cancelled our diaper service after six weeks. (I cannot imagine washing the diapers myself!) The diapers were not too hard to get the hang of. But my husband wasn’t a big fan so I was doing a lot of the changes. And my baby hated the wet feeling (the diapers don’t absorb the moisture like disposables. So the baby would wake up from the wetness and had to have a change within minutes of peeing or would cry. I was told to try hemp liners but I did not want to invest so much energy in this matter.
I am currently 5 months pregnant with my first child. I have been thinking about maternity leave a lot lately and I cannot decide how long I want to take for maternity leave. I need to make a decision soon, but I am trying to decide between 9 weeks to 12 weeks and whether to ask for some type of flexible work arrangement upon my return. How long did you ladies take? Was there a deciding factor for you that helped you determine how long to be out on leave? Did taking maternity leave end up hurting you professionally?
Don’t know that this qualifies as productive, but I read the whole Outlander series, watched all seasons of the Sopranos and trained by hair to washed every other day instead of every day. I was forced to do a lot of sitting because I exclusively pumped.
On a similar tangent to what was brought up upthread – has anyone else experienced the phenomenon where women take maternity leave to actually take care of a baby, while men take paternity leave and do everything but take care of a baby? When I was in college this was apparently a major problem with the faculty – women would take maternity leave to actually take care of a baby and recover from childbirth, and it became a problem during their tenure reviews. So there was a big push to get male faculty to take paternity leave as well, to normalize it. But the male faculty tended to take paternity leave but treat it more like a professional sabbatical – they would spend the semester off doing research, consulting or even starting a business and come back from the leave even further ahead professionally, while the women came back from leave behind. And it was made worse by the fact that the male professors tended to be older and have kids once they already had tenure, while the women needed to have kids pre-tenure or risk missing the biological window for childbearing.
I don’t know if anything has gotten better since I left, but I just wondered if anyone else has encountered this situation? I feel like in other jobs it’s also happened to some extent – women come back from maternity leave exhausted and frazzled, while (some) men come back from paternity leave having actually gotten some rest and are refreshed, more like they took a staycation.
Absolutely, Self Improvement Overload – no need to feel “productive” during nursing. You’re ALREADY doing what you’re supposed to be doing!
During both my maternity leaves, I watched whatever TV I could during the day (mostly repeats of “Mad Men” and “Downton Abbey” episodes, so I never felt like I was missing anything when I would inevitably get distracted.) I’ve found with both boys that, now that they’re a bit older (6 months), I tend to read library books on my Kindle or phone during the evening and nighttime nursing sessions, when he’s asleep, simply b/c it keeps me awake and entertained. (If baby is awake, the phone or book is too much of a distraction!)
That said, I try to regularly remind myself to put the phone down and stay in the moment. One-on-one moments with baby can be fleeting for working moms, so I just try to enjoy the closeness. (Caveat: if I had read that last sentence just a few months ago, I would’ve wanted to punch me in the face too :) When you have a newborn and have nursed 18 times in the last 24 hours, you will have had enough of the closeness. Read a book! Watch bad TV! No judgment here!!)
Moms, I need some advice about keeping your marriage healthy after a new baby arrives. I just had my first baby a few months ago. After the birth I was exhausted and falling apart for a long time. I also had milk supply issues which didn’t help and I was recovering from a c-section. All this is to say that I was pretty cranky during the first three months, and not very kind to my husband. I’m ashamed to say this, but it’s true. I was so drained from caring for the baby that I put zero effort into my marriage. I took a lot of my frustrations and sleep deprivation out on him.
Now things are distant between us and I don’t know how to improve. I think my husband is scared of being close to me because I might snap his head off! Does anyone out there have experience with this, or advice for how to get things back on track?
Nope. I spent my entire maternity leave cuddled up on the couch with my tiny baby, and wouldn’t have it any other way. I read a lot of books on my Kindle while he slept on me, but they were all trashy/fun books like Gone Girl and Divergent. There is something so nice about just living in the moment and doing things according to a newborn’s crazy schedule. (Of course now I want to go pick up my toddler from daycare RIGHT NOW and cuddle that guy!)
I don’t feel like Kat’s suggesting anyone has to do anything besides take care of the new baby, or that watching mindless TV isn’t a worthy time filler while on maternity leave. But I actually really like this post. I have a hard time sitting still, don’t watch a lot of TV (only have Hulu and Netflix) and so the suggestions at the top of the post sound right up my alley. It actually reminded me of a podcast from iTunesU that I started a few years ago and would like to finish: Justice with Michael Sandel.
I feel like this is the one time in your life (other than when you have the flu or something) that its totally OK to just watch bad TV. Am I missing something?
question about maternity leave tho – were any of you ladies in the position at your office where you were literally the only one who could do certain tasks? If so, how did you handle maternity leave?
I am in a critical role at my company, which is on the smaller side. Because of regulatory/compliance, I am the only one allowed to ‘touch’ certain data. Someone else in my department could do it, but they don’t have the technical skills (conversely, there are others in the R&D department that have the technical skills but not the regulatory clearance to do so).
If/when I get pregnant, I’m not sure what’ll happen. I guess part of me says “not my problem, I’m entitled to maternity leave” but I also want to do well at my job and don’t want to see the company suffer because they have to blunder through while I’m gone. Theoretically I wouldn’t mind working on my maternity “leave”, but I know that’s (1) probably not realistic because, new crying baby and physical pain and (2) tricky from an HR perspective as to how to compensate me/categorize my employment.
What did others do? As a lawyer I’d guess you’d just shift your cases to others in the firm, but in my technical field it’s almost like they’d need to hire someone to replace me temporarily.
Bossypants is also a great audiobook to keep you entertained while dealing with 12 tons of laundry – its narrated by Tina Fey herself.
I also didn’t really do any special projects – I watched lots of TV and movies (the Chew and Rachel Ray were part of the middle-of-the-night cluster feeding routine). One thing I did a little of that I wish I had done more of was combing through the recipes I have saved over 20,000 different sites and bookmarking them all in one place, especially good one for dinners and meal planning once I was back to work. I did do some grocery lists while nursing and then prepped some frozen meals for once I went back to work during my last week or two of maternity leave, once I was out of pure survival mode.
I went in for my annual evaluation when my son was 6wks. I will never forget my (male) evaluating partner recommended I get some professional reading in while I was out on leave. He even let me borrow his copy of “Reading Law.” How generous, right?
I would not have survived nursing before iphones and DVRs. Would have lost my mind from boredom.
Productivity? While nursing (because you have to nurse, of course)?
No. Can we ever just be *enough*?
I’m about to go on my first maternity leave within the next few weeks and the thought that I need to be using the time to be “productive” beyond learning to take care of a baby and *maybe* attempt to lose enough weight to fit into a few of my normal clothes by the time I go back to work… it’s just discouraging and overwhelming and I haven’t even had the baby. Expectations on women and mothers are so high already. I can’t imagine putting any additional expectations on myself.
If I should happen to find something “productive” to do that I enjoy and feel like I can take on, then great. And I think it’s wonderful if people are able to do that if its something they want. But good grief. This is like the opposite of that article that was on regular C*rp*r*tt* about being kind to yourself when you’re working insane hours.
I had big plans for maternity leave, but it mostly ended up consumed by learning how to care for this new tiny person. I did, however, dedicate my nursing times to re-reading the entire Harry Potter and Anne of Green Gables series on my iPhone or iPad (Kindle app!). It was wonderful and I found myself actually looking forward to those nighttime nursing sessions!
I also discovered Crash Course on YouTube and watched a whole bunch of those. I loved getting a quick 10 minute dose of learning (or sometimes refresher) in a quirky, fun format. I didn’t usually have more than 10 minutes at a time for TV watching, so this was a perfect fit for our new schedule around the house.
I still don’t understand how people are out and about making mom friends during those early months. It was a big win for us if I was dressed before 2 pm. Even then, it felt like my son was always needing to go down for a nap – there is no way I could have squeezed any social time in between his numerous short naps (aka crap naps) throughout the day. Clearly I missed some secret to managing life with a newborn.