Has anyone done or is considering doing shared parental leave?

[Sprockerdilerock]

DH and I both work for the civil service and they offer shared parental leave where I can basically donate some of my maternity leave to DH.

I am entitled to a full year off so I was considering taking the first 9 months and then DH doing the final 3. He is very keen!

I think this could work really well for us especially as it would mean me going back to work near the beginning of the financial and reporting year so I could hit the ground running.

However one of my colleagues thinks I'm nuts to take the full year myself but not shed much light on why.

Are there any pitfalls I haven't considered? Or just anyone willing to share their experiences would be amazing!

Out of curiosity @DappledThings and @DavidsSchitt (and again no offence meant every family is different) would you still not do it even if your partners were really keen to experience parental leave?

If DH really wanted to then yes, I would. And I would try not to be resentful about having to give up some of my time off! I would feel it was only fair he got his turn at being off work.

The thing that strikes me is that the early bit is so much harder (and esp if you end up having a difficult birth and struggling with the recovery). When DD was nine months old she was so, so, so much easier to look after than when she was newborn. So your DP would get the easy end.

Whereas my experience was different, DD was a very easy small baby and I could basically sit on the sofa in those early months drinking cups of tea and getting through a pack of hobnobs a day. DD at 9 months was a ball of energy, pulling up on everything and crawling everywhere and couldn’t be left for a moment. I definitely had it easier than my husband did.

No, I wouldn't give it up unless science made it possible for it to be his body put through the pregnancy and birth 😂

Of course, everyone's circumstances are different. We both worked full time after the kids were born (and my maternity leave was up) but our jobs and shift patterns meant that he did as much of the day to day childcare as I did.

Our circumstances are now different again in that he works more hours than I do now so more of the childcare falls to me. That's not something we could've anticipated though. Had we been able to see into the future I might've bunged him a few free weeks off work

And I fully believe that he'd be as equally involved regardless of who had the time off. I've never been one to take on more than my fair share and insist on adults pulling their weight!

I think the tendency for woman to martyr themselves in the household is a bigger culprit of inequality it in the home than not giving away their maternity leave.

We considered it, 9/3 split. It worked out to be the same financially, but the 3 months that DH would have gotten coincided with marking month and while it would have been ok for DH to be off, he just knew that it wasn't really ok iyswim. He'd have had his colleagues on the phone asking stuff and would have ended up doing work in thd evening unpaid, he works in education.

We did split childcare when I went back to work though, both dropping a day. DH has a lovley bond with DS now and its so nice to know he has the confide and skills to look after DS on his own.

Just a warning though, babies, well our DS anyway, got super interesting at 9 months old, started crawling, properly eating food and being properly interactive. We will be considering it if we have another child though.

@Sprockerdilerock

I did think about the breastfeeding issue which is why we will likely go with 9 months vs 3 rather than 50/50. Also recognise itll be important for me to have enough time off to physically recover from being pregnant/birth. I work from home a lot anyway so hopefully is feeding is an issue we can work around it.

I'm so pleased to hear so many people have done it and liked it, I dont know anyone in real life who has.

Out of curiosity @DappledThings and @DavidsSchitt (and again no offence meant every family is different) would you still not do it even if your partners were really keen to experience parental leave?

Op I have been breastfeeding my son since he was newborn , he’ll be 3 years this April. As mentioned before we did split 50-50 the time. At the beginning I’d express some milk and he would have a bottle of milk whilst I was at work. I managed to avoid mastitis so I guess I was lucky. Unluckily my breasts aren’t good for expressing so we ended up doing formula whilst I was at work and bf when I was back. When my son started nursery he’d be given milk in nursery and then bf at home with me. It’s worked for us. Babies will manage to go through the day without milk if they refuse to take anything and then recover all that once they see their mum.

Didn't do SPL but then dh had to finish work due to ill health & I returned to work after 9 months ML leaving him to look after ds.

We are (if everything goes to plan) splitting six moths each, works financially and career wise for both of us, and because we want to be equal parents (not suggesting you can’t be without this, just a good way to kick it off). We can’t wait!!!

We did shared parental leave, with my husband taking the first three months off too. It didn’t make so much sense financially (as then we had to pay for nursery from nine months), but he wanted the first three months bonding time. It also made sense because we have an older child and he could focus on him while I spent ages bf the new baby. Unfortunately his return to work coincided with the first lockdown, so I suddenly was on my own with the two kids with nursery no longer open for my eldest

@renallychallenged

I think the argument about it helping prevent the mother becoming one which does 90% of the parenting is a red herring.

Those fathers who are willing & able to take months of SPL would likely have been involved & capable fathers with or without that time

IME not necessarily. Some of my friends did this for their second child after moving to Germany, but hadn't done it for their first. With the first child they'd had all the old tropes with being default parent, arguing about who has the harder job, needing to leave lists of instructions etc.

The experience of just leaving dad in charge without having the ability to write notes every day helped mum become more laid back about dad's ability to do stuff, and dad having the experience made him both more empathetic and more likely to step in.

The experience of just leaving dad in charge without having the ability to write notes every day helped mum become more laid back about dad's ability to do stuff, and dad having the experience made him both more empathetic and more likely to step in.

This was my experience, too. And I've noticed a similar difference between the UK and Sweden, where at least some paternal leave is more common. It's not that good British dads don't do things, it's just that the Swedish dads don't seem to give off the same vibe of looking sideways for mum to approve or direct them.

I am sure you could get the same effect by working different shifts though. It's going to be harder, though, if mum is always there and always has the final word or is called on in an emergency.