Sharing maternity / paternity leave.

[ThePartyArtist]

I'm very newly pregnant so getting ahead of myself, but hey, I like a research project!

Just been thinking through a few things...

Can anyone talk to me about paternity / maternity leave? Trying to work out what would work for us. Currently I earn a bit more than DH, work full time and generally it's 9-5 Mon - Fri (occasionally an evening too). DH works full time but spread over 4 days: on week 1 he does 4 weekdays, week 2 he does 2 weekdays and the whole weekend. This means he is always off on a Wednesday but the rest varies within a 2 week pattern.

I am just thinking we probably need to make some decisions. No idea when one / both of us needs to talk to employers about it? I am keen to wait until I am about 14 weeks before telling work, due to a contract situation.

It would be nice for either me to be off for a year (9 months mat pay, 3 months unpaid) or me to return sooner than 9 months and my DH do the remainder of the paid leave time plus the 3 months unpaid. After that our options will be nursery or childminder as we have no family locally.

You need to tell your employer 15 weeks before your due date. Gov.uk is a great site with all you need to know. Since April 2014 you and your partner can share leave and pay and it is called shared parental leave. Be warned tho. Maternity pay is likely to be enhanced but shared parental pay is payed at a statutory level of just under £140 a week unless your or your partners employer chooses to enhance it. If you come off maternity pay and onto shared parental leave pay you cannot then go back onto maternity. The good thing about SPL is that you and your partner can take different blocks or be off at the same time. It's quite complicated so check out the gov website and talk to HR when you're ready to share. Congratulations btw!

My employees know I'm pregnant, but won't discuss maternity leave with me until I have my MatB1 form, which is given here at the 25 week appointment- this does cut it a bit fine for the 'tell employer by 15 week before due date' rule.

R.e. parental leave an who takes what- look into what each of you would receive. Do your employers just offer statutory, or is the package more generous?

My DH earns a lot more than me, so we're planning for me to have 6 months (7 if we can stretch to it), and him to have a month after the end of mine.

^ employers, not employees 🙄

You aren't factoring in any maternity time that starts before the birth, so if you take off from say 36 weeks of pregnancy or earlier then you won't get a full year off with your baby and if say you go nearly two weeks over due that's less time off with your baby again.

He works only 4 days a week so this means that he's there three days a week plus four evenings a week so in my opinion I wouldn't opt for shared leave if I was you.

It really hinges on your DH's parental leave package. As you're the higher earner it makes sense for him to take the unpaid portion. However if he has a generous paid element he could take some a bit earlier. It's a great opportunity for you both. Lots of friends have done it and really benefited.

DP and I are doing shared leave. We are both self employed so our accountants are managing the change over with HMRC I return to work in a few weeks and we have SMP.

It was always our plan and I'm so happy DD & DP will have that time together but a little sad to miss out. However it will be nice to have some adult time back at work. Many friends have done something similar and many in my antenatal group intend to do the same (lots of freelancers managing jobs/clients for it to work).