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Writer's pictureLaura Atherton

Writing with a Newborn

I'm drafting this on notes on my phone as I do the last feed before bed. It makes a change from scrolling through Instagram or replying to the messages I've missed through the day. How to sum up the experience of writing with a newborn?


(Cue an interruption as he beats my chest with his little hand and cries for something I cannot work out...)



Technically we're out of the newborn stage; he is 20 weeks and five days and a total joy. Motherhood was hard to come by for me and I spent a lot of time preparing myself to accept infertility but thanks to the scientific brilliance of IVF I have my son. I spent less time considering how early postnatal life would look. The NCT course that we diligently signed up for gave me a sense of sleepless nights and days spent feeding the baby. What I didn't imagine was some space, not much but some. And in that space I found the desire to keep writing. Tentatively at first, an hour snatched in ten minute bursts over the week, scribbling in my notebook as the baby slept on my shoulder. Then I realised that I had a good sleeper on my hands and I became more ambitious, returning to a short story I'd been brewing during pregnancy. I'd think through the plot while pushing the pram and then power the words out when I managed to get my son to sleep in his Moses basket rather than my arms. Then the Bruntwood Prize opened. I had planned to write a play whilst pregnant and I had worked really hard on a three act, three hander set on a farm that questioned how big businesses got away with damaging the climate. But the idea got away from me, it spread out and got tangled up and at eight months pregnant I accepted defeat. It wouldn't get finished, I wouldn't have a play to submit during maternity leave. But the Bruntwood... That I really wanted to enter. Could I, would it be possible to write a play with a small baby? I don't know the answer yet but I can say that I'm trying. The plot is loosely based on our experience of miscarriage and fertility and considers the importance of hope as an analogy for action in the face of the climate crisis. I bashed out a draft zero in September, spurred on by my husband taking him for long weekend walks, which gave me time to focus. October is harder, three of the three hours a week that I carved out have been lost to a lovely holiday and writing a proper first draft is harder than a rough, never to be seen vomit draft. I'll keep going, aware that I don't need to submit and that looking after my son and myself is the most important thing. But I've discovered that writing is part of my self care and achieving these goals helps retain a sense of myself outside of my new identity as a mum. I'm lucky that his temperament allows for this time and hopefully I'll be able to press send in January.


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