Paternity Leave

[TinyTimLivesinVictorianSqualor]

How many of you dads took the paternity leave you were entitled to, did you feel at all under pressure from your work not to?
And what about deadlines etc, dp works in advertising, so has copy deadlines every day and to have a fortnight off would be a lot in his working environment so he needs to discuss it with them but we were wondering about otehr peoples experiences.

[CloudAtlas]

I thought you only got paid for one of the weeks, even though you can take two off. Is this right? DH only ever takes a week, and not even a full week at that, he spreads it out.

[TinyTimLivesinVictorianSqualor]

I'm not sure about how you would get paid, I know some is paid for but we could afford the extra week unpaid if we knew it was goig to be happening iyswim.
DP is thinking that spreading it out so he has a couple of half days a week, in work, is probably the best solution for deadlines etc, but I don't know what the rules are.

[flowerysantassack]

Rules

[TinyTimLivesinVictorianSqualor]

Ah, see it says
'
How much paternity leave can you take?

You can take either one or two weeks. You can't take odd days off, and if you take two weeks they must be taken together.'

Whici is what I thought, but your dh spread it out cloudatlas??

I assume if it works better for the company that way then it is down to them to decide.

[CatIsSleepy]

my dh had 2 weeks paid leave (varies according to work place as to whether you get paid in full I think)
he spread it out over 3 or weeks or so

[CatIsSleepy]

3 or 4 weeks that should have said

probably depends on how understanding your boss is and how flexible your workplace is

[CloudAtlas]

he is quite senior and they'd rather have had him coming in to keep on top of work then taking a full week off iykwim, but they did only pay for one week.

[DaddsterInAPearTree]

The whole unpaid parental leave thing is an utter joke. Who on Earth can afford to take unpaid time off?

[TinyTimLivesinVictorianSqualor]

True daddster, we could afford a week or so, with a good few months planning but anymore than that is totally unfeasible.

Lucky I read that site, I'm 23 weeks now and he has to let his employer know by 25weeks!

Apparently someone at work has told him as his normal working week is mon-fri that he is entitled to ten days paid leave, so he is going to speak to them about hopefully having 3 days a week off for 3 weeks. Tbh it would make it a lot easier for them rather than someone else trying to cover all his clients, plus he would prefer to have it spread out rather than go back after two full weeks and see that someone has cocke dup something for one of his ore important clients and caused him loads of aggro.

Fingers x.

[UnquietDad]

I worked as a manager in the voluntary sector when both of ours were born. I was given 3 paid days off for each of them, but combined it with some leave I had saved up - so I actually had about 15 days after DD was born and 10 days with DS.

[EricScrooge]

I had two weeks paid leave and tacked a weeks holiday onto the end of it.

No problems getting it. When i said about the DW being pregnant to the HR dept they just said to pop in and arrange the leave and i could also leave it 'floating' (ie - wait until the actual day she went into labour before it started).

Involved a headache for me to make sure the cover was there on an ad-hoc basis - but it was worth it.

Hated going back to work though after it.

[UnquietDad]

Yes, I got mine to be floating too. Luckily I was a one-man project - well, I was the only fully-paid member of staff - so I didn't need much in the way of cover.

[EricScrooge]

That's good. Would be shit if you had to book it as a fixed term and the DW was really late.

My two were both late so it worked for me.

[UnquietDad]

Ours were both born on due date, incredibly!

[DaddsterInAPearTree]

BTW - I was told (jokingly) that taking parental leave was a "career limiting move".

[clerkKent]

There are plans to bring in Additional Paternity Leave - like AML but taken by the father, transferable from the mother. This would work where the mother earns more than the father, or the mother is too ill to return to work and the father needs to stay home to look after the baby.

[DaddsterInAPearTree]

Eric - I hated going back to work after paternity leave as well - it felt like the start of losing the intimacy with the family when they started doing things I would miss out on week-in week-out. Since that point, I have always been "behind the curve" on sleep patterns, daily routines, things we need to take when we go out as a family etc...

CloudAtlas - I reckon most employers would probably be happier to have you working half-time for 4 weeks rather than absent altogether for 2 weeks.

Parental leave is given so bloody grudgingly. I've had a look at that Additional Paternity Leave and it wouldn't have offered anything extra for me as my DW didn't go back to work after DD1 was born and DD2 came soon thereafter.