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If you're about to be a parent, whether it's for the first time or not, then you've probably thought about all the changes in your life that are coming—especially in the area of finances. Having a baby alters your financial picture. If you take maternity or paternity leave, those changes can be even more pronounced.

If you have student loans in repayment, you may find it difficult to make monthly loan payment with a new baby, and you might be wondering how to make it work.

So how do you handle student loan payments while on maternity leave?

Here are the options available to student loan borrowers:

Family leave deferment

If you have a federal student loan, you can ask for a parental leave/working mother deferment, which offers you time without payments. Becoming a new mother isn't cause for an automatic deferment, like a job loss or serious illness, and so you'll have to work with your servicer directly to request this type of deferment. Navient, one of the largest federal loan servicers, offers information about this deferment on their website.


To be eligible, you'll need to either be pregnant or have a baby less than six months old. You must prove this via a birth certificate or doctor's statement confirming your pregnancy.

In addition, you cannot be working full-time or attending school during the deferment period. If you're hoping to ask for a deferment without taking the time off work, you'll find your request denied. The maximum length of a deferment is six months.


A forbearance allows you to either make a smaller payment or postpone payments completely. Like the deferment, you'll need to contact your servicer and request it. If it's approved, you can take some time off of your student loans while you're off work. Just be aware that even during forbearance, interest continues to accrue, which means your total balance will increase during that time.

Income-based repayment plan

If you'd prefer to keep making payments but just need the amount reduced, you can apply for a new income-based repayment plan. The Income-Based Repayment (IBR) plan caps your monthly payment at 10% to 15% of your discretionary income. And since it's also based upon the size of your family, it will account for the fact that your family size has changed, and your discretionary income has decreased. To apply, contact your loan servicer.

Pay as you earn (PAYE) plan

Another option is the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) plan, which allows you to pay 10% of your income, but only up to the payment amount you would have paid on the standard plan. Because the income and family size are reassessed each year, this plan is great for growing families. It allows you to get a temporary reprieve with lower payments. Then, as you further your career and increase your income, your payment gets back on schedule. Your servicer can help get you set up with the PAYE plan. Your spouse's income is only counted if you file taxes as married jointly.

Revised pay as you earn (REPAYE) plan

Under the Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE) plan, you'll pay the same 10% of your income, with annual reassessment of your situation. You won't, however, get a break from counting your spouse's income. With REPAYE, all income counts regardless of how you file your taxes. The good news is that anything left on your balance will be forgiven after 20 years. Talk to your servicer to see if it's a good fit.

Income contingent-repayment (ICR) plan

The Income Contingent-Repayment (ICR) plan is either 20% of your discretionary income, or what you'd pay on a fixed repayment for 12 years, whichever is less. Just as in the other options, you must update your income and family size each year even if nothing changed. In addition, you may have to pay taxes on any amount that is forgiven because the government considers it income. It does, however, work on subsidized, unsubsidized, PLUS, and even consolidation loans, and can be applied for with your servicer.

Budgeting for a baby

There's no way around it—having a baby brings a lot of new expenses. From the things you'll need to buy before the baby comes, to the amount of diapers, bottles and other things your child will need in their first year, you'll need to figure out how much that will cost and how to correctly budget for it. has a calculator that can help you break down what your child will cost in a given year. You can divide that number by 12 to understand the monthly costs.

Then, you'll want to identify where you can cut back, if possible, to continue meeting your monthly student loan obligations. For some, that might mean eating out less and bypassing the afternoon latte. For others, it'll require a full restructuring of the budget, especially if you plan to take maternity leave that's not fully paid. Since most maternity leaves are unpaid, you'll need to consider expenses, monthly bills, or other obligations that normally comes out of your paycheck and add those to the budget for the time that you're home.

After you get a handle on what your finances will look like and you have a functional budget, don't wait for your child to arrive before trying to live on that budget. In fact, the sooner you start cutting back, the better. That way, you can get a head start on saving, and you'll also be able to adjust any facets of your budget that prove unworkable.

The bottom line

Having a baby is a joyful experience. But caring for a newborn brings enough stress without the anxiety of how you'll pay student loans while you're on maternity or paternity leave. The best time to plan for your new family member is long before you bring them home. Take the time to talk to your servicer, make a budget and prepare your finances for your baby.

Originally posted on lendedu.

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Almost all parents agree that reading is one of the most important skills to encourage in young children, but did you know that reading to your child can directly impact their brain development? Reading to your children is one of the most important things you can do, but there are also many other quite simple literacy activities that not only help kids learn to read, but show them that it's fun and encourage a lifelong reading habit.

Winter is the perfect time to get cozy and spend some extra time reading. Try one of these literacy activities next time you're in need of some indoor fun this winter.

1. Create a listening station

In Montessori classrooms for young children, the classroom environment is considered critical to learning. Part of a successful classroom environment that meets preschool-aged children's needs is including cozy spaces.


Especially in a group setting, but even at home, children need quiet little nooks where they can escape and feel safe and enclosed. A listening station makes for a perfect quiet space.

Provide a selection of a few different audio books for your child to choose from. If you don't have any at home, public libraries often offer many great choices. If you feel like splurging, there are other child-specific listening devices perfect for a listening station as well. The Chameleon Reader takes this a step further and lets you turn any book your child loves into an audio book. This offers such a great alternative to screen time, especially during tricky times like long days of airplane or car travel.

2. Make a story bag

A story bag has a collection of small objects with which a child can recreate a story. You can make or buy story bags for any book your child enjoys.

Choose a book they are familiar with and love. Show them the story bag and model how to recreate the story with the objects. Then let them take the lead. Don't worry about it if they get creative with the plot, that's all part of the learning!

3. Introduce sequence cards

Similarly, try providing your child with a series of images from a beloved book and inviting them to put them in order. It's fine if they use the book to help them, it's not a test!

This is super easy to do yourself. You can just take photos of the illustrations with your phone and print them, or order the photos from a site like Shutterfly if you don't have a printer. Laminating will of course make them last longer.

4. Act it out

Many children learn best when they are moving and physically engaged, so try putting your child's favorite story into action, pretending alongside your child as you move through the plot.

Stories with lots of action, such as We're Going on a Bear Hunt or Where the Wild Things Are, are a good place to start, but you can really act out almost any children's book with your child.

5. Do an author study

Next time you read a book your child really likes, ask if they'd like to hear about the person who wrote it. Read them the little author's bio at the end of the book and say something like, "Hmm, I wonder if they've written anything else we might like."

Go to the library and search together for more books by the author you've chosen. If it's a less well known author, you may want to reserve some books from the library ahead of time as well.

6. Use a story-telling inspiration basket

This is super simple and easily tailored to whatever your particular child is interested in. Choose a small box or basket and fill it with a few little items to inspire a story. For example, for winter, you may include a toy snowman, scarf, sled and cookie. Show your child you can use these objects to make up your own story.

When you model the activity, you can write down the story you create, but if your child just wants to tell you the story, that's great too. Write it down for them and invite them to illustrate it if they're interested.

7. Share oral stories

Oral storytelling is becoming a bit of a lost art, but it plays a valuable role in helping young children develop rich vocabulary and a true love for storytelling and reading.

Try doing this as an after dinner activity, turning off all of the lights and lighting a candle to make it special. Don't worry if you don't consider yourself creative, children are sucked in by oral storytelling even if you tell them the simplest story about your day.

In time, you can invite them to join in on the storytelling fun as well.

8. Write the words for their pictures.

Long before children learn to write, they tell stories through their artwork. Invite your child to tell you the story behind a picture they've made and write it down for them.

Not only does this make your child feel super special and valued, it helps them make the connection between written words and stories, which is a key literacy skill.

9. Play reading games

There are so many easy reading games you can play with young children. One of my favorites which we use a lot in Montessori is "I Spy". I love this game because it can be done anywhere, and because children love it!

This is a great one to play if you're stuck waiting at the doctor's office or stuck in traffic. Simply say, "I spy something that starts with 'c'" using the phonetic letter sound. Take turns finding things around you that start with that sounds. For older children, you can play "I Spy" with rhymes instead, saying "I spy something that rhymes with bat".

To play at home, you can also use a basket of objects starting with various sounds.

10. Letter boxes

This is directly based on one of the key Montessori language materials.

In the classroom, children use "sandpaper letters," which are exactly what they sound like, letters made of sandpaper so that the child can really feel the shape of the letter as they trace it. A child is given a box of 3-5 letters which they have been practicing and a box of small objects. The child matches the object to its beginning sound. So if there is a little cat, the child will place it by "c".

In Montessori, children learn the phonetic sounds of the alphabet, rather than the letter names, so this comes fairly naturally. There is no need to buy sandpaper letters for your home, but if you have been working on the phonetic letter sounds with your child, it can be fun to play a similar matching game with objects. You can simply write the letters on card stock and find little objects around your house, or in the dollhouse section of a craft store. Young children love tiny objects and are often very drawn to this work.

Nothing will ever replace reading aloud to your child, but these literacy activities can be really fun ways to incorporate additional language practice into your home and to encourage a true love of reading.

Learn + Play

"I'm Dave, Olli's dad."

This is the way I introduce myself to people I meet now. It's different from the way I used to introduce myself. "I'm Dave," used to be followed by, "I'm a designer." Or, "I work in startups." And, "I work for X." For the last 15 years my career was a large part of who I was, a peg I hung my hat on. After my son was born, that identity stayed intact for a while. I usually mentioned, "I'm a dad" secondarily, after some casual conversation.

Then, when my son turned about a year-and-a-half old, my wife and I switched places. She went back to work full-time and I became the primary caregiver. I was now a stay-at-home dad.


I was excited to spend more time with my son because I felt like I was missing big moments in his life while I was at work. Up until that point, weekday time together was relegated to an hour or so before bed. Most of our time spent together was on the weekends and I'd notice the difference in his affection towards me after extended time together.

For the first few months of full-time dad-ing, the sudden influx of quality time felt like a novelty. After a while, things started to feel normal in this new role and we found our groove together. This intensive routine of being with him almost non-stop developed into a relationship that was closer and more complex than before. I became more intertwined with his rhythms, and my parental instincts grew with it.

While I'm happy with the way my relationship has blossomed with my son, this life change has shaken up my identity in ways I never expected.

I still do design work, now on a freelance basis, but "designer" is no longer the linchpin of my identity. In fact, it's shifted a lot of my interests to a second tier, which leaves me struggling to say exactly who I am at the moment.

I know I'm not alone in this reevaluation of self because I overhear bits and pieces of these conversations about identity, worth, and self-perception discussed by groups of moms at playgrounds, parks, and indoor play spaces.

These groups of people form along lines of likeness — moms gravitate towards each other, nannies tend to cluster in groups. Mostly my conversations in these places are brief encounters that hover in the safe zone of children's milestones, small talk like: How old? Potty trained? Preschool? Daycare?

I've yet to come across a dad cohort.

I recognize the difference between my conversations and those that start to veer towards breastfeeding issues or the pains of childbirth. But it can feel alienating.

I don't have it any harder than any other stay-at-home mom, I just don't seem to have the same support network they do.

And when I talk to fathers who work full-time, I sometimes encounter an unrealistic portrayal of what it means to be with a child every day. Like I'm scamming the system and making out like a bandit.

The other day a friend commented that "it must be so nice to be off for the summer." He quickly clarified that he made this statement in reference to not having to go into an office every day. It was an honest slip of the tongue, but it's not an uncommon sentiment.

Looking after a child is hard work, and watching after them full-time invades every part of your focus, brain, and time. A summer day doesn't dissolve the monotony that can accompany watching a child for hours or the anxiety caused by tantrums.

When I was working full-time, I had a solid sense of who I was, who I should be and where I should be. As a stay-at-home dad, I live on uncertain ground. Somewhere between the moms in the park and the working dads I know.

I'm happier now than I was before, but decisions aren't so cut and dry, and the direction doesn't seem as sure. There's not a well-defined path ahead of me.

While the relationships I had have grown more distant with my new focus, the relationship I have with my son is way more fulfilling than I imagined it could be. He's gone from a standard love to an extension of my heart outside my body.

I beam when he's happy and I hurt when he hurts. The goods are tethered to the bads but the bads create opportunities to learn and grow, and that growth means a more developed and engaged human. That is much more satisfying than the work I used to do.

Yes, being a full-time caregiver is hard. And yes, I'm still figuring out what it means to be "Olli's Dad" and a stay-at-home dad in a sea of stay-at-home-moms. But the reward is so much greater than the wins I used to score when I was simply "Dave, a designer."

This story originally appeared on Apparently.


For at least the past month (well, probably longer, but who's keeping track when there's no such thing as a good night's sleep between an almost two-year-old and a 3-month-old), every morning starts with the familiar refrain of my son's tiny voice repeating the same phrase relentlessly like only a toddler can, "Time to wake up mama! Wake up! Time to wake up!" And while I'm sure tomorrow morning will start off no different, I'll close my eyes tonight and know that everything will change. Because tomorrow morning, we'll wake up and he'll be a two-year-old.

Two years since all 8lbs, 7oz of him entered the world after 16 miserable hours of labor. Two years since we met our handsome boy with his full head of hair, fell head over heels in love and decided our lives 'pre-baby' weren't so great after all. Two whole years since I became a mama.


And what a wild ride it's been. At two, he's a running, jumping, talking, tantrum-throwing, truck-loving, perfectly chaotic mess of a kid—a far cry from the helpless newborn we cluelessly brought home just two short years ago.

I'm sure sometime in the next week (okay, maybe more like the next year), I'll be madly scribbling down all the things I don't want to forget about him at this age in his baby book, but perhaps one of the things I want to remember most is what he's taught me in the last two years. Being the personal assistant to a demanding toddler (and now his little brother) is the hardest job I've ever had, but thankfully he's also the best teacher I never thought I'd have.

Strangely, the longer I'm a mother, the less I seem to know, but I'm certain the last two years have taught me five valuable lessons that I'll keep with me long after my babies are grown:

  1. It's okay to say no. I was a people-pleaser before I became a mom, but becoming a mom kicked my people-pleasing tendencies into overdrive. Thanks to my over-confident toddler who says "no" more times than I can count on any given morning, I've truly learned the power of this simple, two-letter word. Now, when an over-eager relative asks to hold my 3-month-old when I want to be the one to hold him? You guessed it: N-O.
  2. Always ask for what you want. My toddler does it all day and he makes no apologies for it either. If I've learned anything since becoming a mother, it's that I can't do everything on my own and do it well. But I can't expect my husband (or anyone else, for that matter) to read my mind and offer to take things off my plate if I don't ask for it. There's absolutely no shame in asking for help—or for that extra glass of wine—because mom-ing is freakin' hard.
  3. It's okay to make mistakes. We wouldn't be human if we didn't. I'm convinced that one of the best things I can teach my children is not to fear failure but to learn from it, get up and try again. As a people-pleaser (see point #1), the pressure to get things right all the time and to make sure everyone is taken care of is REAL. But as a work-at-home mom of two, things slip through the cracks more often than not and the fact that my toddler STILL can't drink from an open cup without spilling half of it all over himself reminds that it's okay to not get things right the first, fifth, or even thirty-sixth time.
  4. Love and forgive with your whole heart. There's nothing purer than a toddler's love. Trucks, snacks, Paw Patrol, making messes, me. I can't count how many times I've snapped and lost my cool with my 2-year-old only to have him look up at me with his big, brown eyes still filled with complete forgiveness, adoration and love. And each time I'm humbled and reminded of the grace I should give myself whenever I feel like I'm failing (and trust me, it's a lot).
  5. These are the days. Really, they are. The 3-month-old no-sleep nights and 8-month-old separation anxiety "only mom will do" moments? Those were the days. The 2-year-old tantrum after tantrum filled mornings and never-ending messes? These are the days. The 13-year-old "don't embarrass me mom" phase and the 17-year-old too cool for school (literally) period of time? Those will be the days. Yes, right now a walk to the grocery store that's five blocks away easily takes half an hour, usually more, but how else would we pick every flower, notice every spider or feed every squirrel if it didn't? I definitely don't do this with patience 100% of the time but perfect or not, these are our moments and our days. They are a part of our story and will become our memories.

So, on the eve of my 2-year-old's birthday, my mama heart is full. Full of lessons learned, full of memories past, and full of anticipation for the moments to come in year three and beyond. And as I look forward to celebrating my sweet baby tomorrow, there's one more thing that I know is true: Mamas, no matter what age or stage you're at (I see you, sleep-deprived mamas with newborns), hang on to every precious moment a little longer than you think you should because I promise that the minute you blink, you'll miss them.


While I was pregnant I remember declaring (oh-so righteously) that I would never "lose myself" in motherhood. I would never forget about me because I had been me for the past 30-odd years. The idea that the addition of one little life to this vast world would change who I was didn't make sense to me. It didn't make sense in the way that motherhood doesn't make sense to someone who's never been a mother.

We just can't know.

What I did know was that I had been "me" for so long that I wasn't just going to let that go. I couldn't let that go. But whenever anyone starts walking in a brand new direction with no map or guidebook it's inevitable that we will somehow get lost.


In my early days of motherhood, I remember writing, I've never felt more unlike myself than ever before. Translation: I don't know what I'm doing. This is really hard. How did this become my life?

I thought becoming a "mom" meant that you automatically gained access to information you didn't have access to before. Moms have all the answers. They fix the boo-boos. They help the world spin more smoothly. They know what they're doing, and in that knowing, they know — and feel comfortable with — who they are.

Yes and no.

I think that's why it feels like such a loss. You lose how things were before. How easy and straightforward it was before. How free you were before. How alone you were before.

Once you become a mom, you will never be alone again. It's no longer possible to make choices for you and you alone. Because any choice you make from here on out reverberates to your children — to their lives, and their futures.

In creating life, we alter our own forever. Losing actually means gaining. Becoming intertwined with a life that will be with you until you're no longer.

And the way the rest of the world sees us becomes forever altered as well.

As much as mothers are still adjusting to our new skin and figuring out our new identities, society has already decided who we are. We are mothers. And for some reason, once we're filed away as "mom", that one label changes the expectations and assumptions people make — wrong or right. And it's added to everything we do — working mother, mompreneur, mommy blogger.

Yes, I am a mother. Yes, I work as a full-time employee. But why must I be labeled a "working mother"? Why is that distinction so important to make to the wider world?

There has never been a "working father" in all of history, even though many fathers are also full-time employees. They enjoy the singular label of "CEO," "VP of Human Resources," "dentist" or "math teacher."

And beyond just slapping the "mother" label on all of our other titles, we are generally expected to pick one side of the motherhood spectrum or the other.

Motherhood is largely defined as an either/or proposition.

You are either a stay-at-home mom or a working mom.

You are either a breastfeeding mom or a formula mom.

You are either a cry-it-out mom or a no-cry sleep-training mom.

Society determines your value, your worthiness, through these choices and the labels that come with them. But this reductive way of thinking creates a binary that doesn't exist in reality. The black-and-white picture reality paints is actually large swaths of gray — with shades so light they look white and shades so dark they look black.

I, for instance, was an exclusively pumping, breastfeeding, formula supplementing mom.

When my son was an infant, I was a stay-at-home mom who was a freelance employee and consultant who sometimes worked full-time in an office.

I was a gentle-sleep-training cry-it out-mom, who believed in room sharing and letting my son sleep in his own crib, but would bed-share when I just needed sleep.

These choices don't define me as a mother, just as being a mother doesn't fully define me as a person.

I am wholly myself and wholly a mother but I am neither just a mom nor just myself any longer.

I didn't lose myself in motherhood, after all. I found a new version of me. A hybrid mom/wife/sister/best friend self — who is clumsy-footed, type-A, empathetic, assertive, kind-hearted, and honest in both my superpowers and weaknesses.

No one human can be boiled down to one label, mothers least of all.

We are some of the most complex, intricate, contradictory personalities that exist. We hold multiple roles simultaneously, context-switching quickly from boo-boo-soothing to boardroom presentations to date night to acts of self-care.

We are the and.

We are women and mothers and daughters and lovers and teachers and friends and CEOs and toddler-wranglers and and and and…

So, no, there's no such thing as being just a mom.

This story originally appeared on Apparently.
