Need some help with my annual leave

[BrendaWenda98]

So I'm expecting (yay!) and am now stuck and confused about when to take my maternity leave. I'm finding it a bit frustrating flicking through google calendar and my companies HR platform to find the right dates. I found out I am 2 months pregnant a few days ago and I haven't told anyone at work and I'm not sure what to do. Any advice and gems would be appreciated!

Hey congratulations on the good news! Welcome to the world of motherhood, its full of many unexpecting twists and turns and challenges. One of which finding out the best time to tell work about.

Now it's a personal preference, but, the statutory limit is before 15 weeks I believe (correct me if I am wrong). With regards to planning the dates, I use to print out a calendar and plot the days I am off on it manually and stick it on the wall somewhere at home.

But nowadays there are tools like calendar.google.com and outlook but you also use something like offdays.co.uk which is a bit more specific for leave.

The key date you need is your EWC (Expected Week of Childbirth). Everything works backwards from this date.

The 15th week before your EWC is the Qualifying Week. The 8 week/2 month period before this is used to calculate your pay.

This calculator helps you work it all out. https://www.gov.uk/maternity-paternity-pay-leave

In terms of when you should go off, if you've got a sedentary job (i.e. office job, mix of WFH or easy commute) I'd aim for 39 weeks and save your annual leave to extend your time off at the end of your maternity or reduce the number of days a week you work if you can for a while.

Does depend a lot on how well you are in your pregnancy.

Be prepared for little one to have every illness going the first winter in childcare and you need to take additional time off.