How to Write Around the New Baby

A pep talk and a toolkit

I worried and worried and planned and put off having my baby until the contracts for books 2 and 3 were signed and sealed, because one of the things that we ALL know about babies is that they eat you up. Your body, your mind and your time belong to them while they’re tiny. I won’t patronise you by reminding you how fast it all goes because you know that. You know full well that there’ll come a day when your three year old (three and THREE QUARTERS actually Mummy) will tell you sternly they don’t need pushing on the swing anymore and suggest you go and read your book. You know that, and it doesn’t make it any harder to be away from your writing NOW. So… don’t be. Squeeze it in. Here’s how -

Work with the baby’s sleep

Some babies sleep like stones, sweetly in their Moses basket while you serenely type at the kitchen table. Some do… not. But your writing time is probably the baby’s sleeping time, so you might have to work with what you have. Most babies sleep better if they’re moving/in a pram, or on you in a sling. What might work is a short walk to a local coffee shop to get them to sleep, then they stay sleeping in the pram while you work. Maybe they need to be in a sling but you can still have the coffee. Maybe they will wake up the second you sit down (I swear my daughter woke up from the smell of any hot drink) so you will need to do slow laps of the park, keeping always moving like a shark, either typing or dictating into your phone (otter is a decent transcribing app if you do this). As the baby gets older you may find activities that lead to a predictable long nap (swimming is this, for most people). It might be efficient to go to swimming and then always head to your writing cafe (I recommend not going home - there’s always so much to DO).

The baby and the book, three months in. I could not take my own advice about not going home because it was bloody spring 2021.