While I am currently on maternity leave and trying to figure out all things baby and keeping 1 ear to the ground with my job, I found this a very interesting article. I’m lucky to have a very supportive work environment and a generous maternity leave, but conscious that being off for up to a year also has knock on effects to my own career progression.

In my first 4 months of being a mum, I have agreed to review papers and theses, daftly assuming I’d have all the time in the world (ok, at least a few hours a day while baby naps) to do things. I’ve suffered late nights and a lack of sleep as a consequence. I’ve also declined ones I wasn’t so interested in, knowing I’d procrastinate as Emily describes in tip 5. I couldn’t imagine taking a year off from my students; I’m too interested in their work to not be involved, but each of them has a great support supervisory team so they have others they can talk to daily/weekly in my absence.

I encourage you to check out the article originally posted by Women in Science Australia. It has tips for mums/dads on parental leave as well as how to support colleagues going on leave.

10 tips for dealing with work and parental leave

@WomenSciAUST #WomenInSTEM