How much paternity leave is your partner taking?

[moomin35]

How much paternity leave is your partner taking or how long would you like him to take?

[Sleepyhoglet]

As much as is allowed. How much is that? 2 weeks?

[ThinkIveBeenHacked]

DH is a TA and DD1 was born the first day of the Christmas Holidays, so he added one week Pat Leave to take three weeks.

This baby is due the October half term, so this time he is planning on taking two weeks pat leave to again have three weeks.

[TKKW]

3 weeks. statutory min is 2 weeks, he gets an extra week paid as an additional employment benefit as he works for a huge company. He's taking all of it and we are hoping baby will arrive early may bank holiday so he gets extra!!!

[LisaC2611]

Our baby is due 15 December so, if it arrives on time, he has already booked the 2 weeks over Christmas as holiday so he will take a weeks pat leave before then and a week after so that we get pretty much a month today. I suspect that he will end up having nearly a month off with me in any event and I want him to have as much time as possible with us

[JustAboutAdeqeuate]

DH gets 40 hours paid and 40 hours unpaid. He'll take the paid 40 hours, then annual leave as his working 'week' is 54 hours over 6 days. He gets 4 days off after that as part of his normal shift pattern.

I would prefer him to use holiday than work unpaid, 40 hours is a quarter of his monthly salary!

[dramajustfollowsme]

None - he is taking holidays instead, as it just doesn't work on costs.
Luckily baby is due in summer when my Dsis and friends, who are all teachers will be able to help out with dd1 when he goes back to work.
I'm not looking forward to those early sleep-deprived weeks.

[ClubName]

Really? Why so long when baby is so tiny? Esp if it's your first. I'd far rather everything got back to "normal" quickly after the birth and DH had some leave later in the year when baby is a bit more interesting. (provided mother is well physically) The first week or two are easy, it's after that things get tough

In your position Just About, I would absolutely save DH's holiday. Let him take the 40 hours paid, enjoy your time alone with baby for a few days until he's on leave again and then have a holiday (home or away) when baby's about 6m

[soundsystem]

DH is taking the 2 weeks ordinary paternity leave when the baby is born then he's taking 3 months additional paternity leave when I go back to work after my 6 months off. I'm slightly jealous that he'll get the time when the baby is more interesting!

[ChicaMomma]

5 days paid paternity leave, then another few days out of his annual leave- so 1.5 weeks in total.

[squizita]

DH is self employed. Double edged: he has committed to 2 weeks PLUS anything he can save up (no work = no money) over the next few months.

After that he is considering part time work when I go back to work (makes more sense financially for us for childcare, as I am the 'reliable wage' and his is naturally more risky and slightly lower).

:)

[katandkits]

DH is self employed so obviously gets no paid leave. If everything is fine with the birth and I haven't had a c section or a hospital stay he will take about a week off and then take off a few hours in the morning three days a week to take care of the kids and give me a bit of sleep. Then he will take a further week off when the baby will be about six weeks old.

[RedPony]

DP is also self employed so he is taking two weeks holiday. Luckily he works with his Dad so doesn't need to book holiday in advance and can be easily covered

[RedPony]

DP is also self employed so he is taking two weeks holiday. Luckily he works with his Dad so doesn't need to book holiday in advance and can be easily covered

[weebairn]

He had 2 weeks part time and hated going back to work, felt he missed loads.
He's taking 2 weeks this time round, plus 2 weeks holidays (possibly a couple of weeks later depending on how things are)
He is also part time with our toddler now so he'll be around more generally which is brilliant :)

[Banana82]

DP is having the 2 weeks paternity when DS arrives mid June then he has booked a couple of weeks holiday for the end of August.

[ilovepowerhoop]

dh didnt take paternity leave as the paternity pay wouldnt have covered the mortgage. He did take 2 weeks annual leave instead

[offside]

My DP is taking 3 weeks annual leave, he isn't taking "advantage" of his paternity leave as he will only get SPP and doesn't want to take the financial loss (moving house as well so everything is a bit expensive at the moment).

He will still have around 2.5 weeks take until the end of the year, obvioulsy he will be taking 3 days Christmas week but he is field based anyway so spends the majority of his time working from home which is a bonus. His boss is also being really flexible and is making sure he doesn't get scheduled to work away from home the 2 weeks before due date and 3 weeks after his annual leave finishes.

[mamapants]

I would say the opposite though clubname so wouldn't want to suggest what other people do when they might have a completely different experience.
I needed DP there at the beginning when it was all new and you're just getting used to things. The lack of sleep is at its highest and you are constantly breastfeeding so no time to prepare food and look after yourself.

[Florin]

My husband gets 2 days paid paternity leave on full pay. He then took the rest of that week off as holiday. He went back when our ds was a week old but took one day off a week for 5 weeks. At the start there is little they can do and to take 2 solid weeks or more seems pretty pointless to me. Him having a day off a week gave me something to look forward too and broke up those early weeks when you don't have classes etc to go to. Then when our ds was 9 weeks he took 2 weeks off and we went down to our holiday home. We were more settled with baby so we could really enjoy him more and he also started sleeping through while we were away.

[slightlyglitterstained]

Felt similarly to mamapants, I did absolutely nothing except feed DS for the first two weeks - DP did every nappy change, bath, all laundry, shopping, food prep. It made a massive difference to how quickly I recovered after the birth. Obviously everyone is different, but for me, I think I would have seriously struggled alone.

Plus the moral support of having both of us there to focus on this tiny little person and worry about stuff together.

[moggle]

Probably 2 weeks and then another week annual leave. If the baby is born late then that might take us all the way to Christmas in which case it'll probably be longer. The awkward thing is that he will be starting a new job around this time, but as he works for the civil service they should be pretty understanding :-)
Obviously as it's our first we have no idea, but I love the idea of the first few weeks him being home as we both try to figure out together what they hell we are doing. I know a lot more about babies than he does so I think if he's not there, it's quite likely I'll just take over everything from the word go, which I do tend to do, but really want to try not to with something this important!

[NotMrsTumble]

Dp was self employed, so didn't really take more than a few days. What did help massively in the early days was that he was able to reorganize his work load so he could have a few hours off during the day here and there to pop home & I didn't feel too abandoned!

Ds is now 1 & dp hogged him made a real effort to be hands on (helped by fact that ds has given up breastfeeding ) during the 4 day Easter break. I got to spend time with the older 2 but really missed my baby! I do think dp feels he'd have liked to have taken more time when ds was born, but it just wasn't practical or financially viable.

[CharityCase]

From experience I'd advise to keep as much flexibility as possible. With ds, he basically slept for the first 2 weeks so wouldn't have been much point dh being at home ( i was hat person who called the HV because i was wirried my baby slept too much- hes made up for it since though). With dd, it was more useful as I had someone to entertain ds and stop him getting jealous. Dd was much more awake those first two weeks. I was lucky to have to straightforward deliveries so i could sit down comfortably etc.

if you can afford it, the greatest help is to keep the older child in nursery if they're already there.

[OhTheDrama]

DH gets 2 weeks so will be taking that and as I'm due about 3/4 weeks before Christmas he's going to take another 10 days off at Christmas.