Shared maternity leave - has anyone got an experience of this?

[Sidhdbej]

Has anyone shared maternity leave/parental leave with their partner?

Me and my partner are hoping to start trying for a baby in the spring however for many reasons I would only like to take 3 or 4 months off and then ideally my partner could have another 2 or 3 months off.

I have tried looking on the gov website but honestly it just confused me even more. I work for a university and my husband works for the NHS and we both earn roughly the same if this makes any difference.

TIA!

I did it with my husband. It was financially for us the best way to do this. I did the first 16 weeks so had 90% pay for the first 3 months then 50% after. Once he took over his company paid 90% for first 3 months too, so we were better off financially. We ended up with 6months on 90% pay whereas otherwise we would only have had 3 months. He did all childcare until baby went to nursery at 9months.

Worked really well.

I haven’t done it yet but we have it planned for when baby is due in June. I work for the NHS and will be taking the first 7 months and then my husband will take 5 months so he will be in the SMP and unpaid bit. So money wise we are no worse off as we are both paid roughly the same. It’s been quite easy to sort with HR, no different than my maternity leave a few years ago.