To ask for your experiences of shared parental leave?

[Parentalleaveadvice]

I've namechanged for this, because some of the detail is potentially quite identifying.

I'm nearly 12 weeks pregnant and have had a good scan confirming that the pregnancy seems to be going well. This is all still a little speculative, as we're trying not to count our chickens, etc. However, for various reasons I want to tell work in the next couple of weeks, so I need to have some idea of my plans (I do know that I'm allowed to change them at any stage, but I want to give them an indication of what they need to plan for).

Would like some advice, but this is all quite complicated so I'm sorry if it becomes a long post!

Our current plan: I take 7 months maternity leave, then he takes 4 months shared parental leave. At that point either I'm back at home for a bit, or the baby goes into childcare. The reason for the uncertainty about this is that I'm an academic on a fixed-term contract that ends 10 months after my due date, and while I'm hoping to have found something to go to, the likelihood is that wouldn't start until September, a few months after he goes back to work.

This makes lots of sense for us for lots of reasons. I get enhanced maternity pay, but only if I go back for three months - so I can't take leave up to the end of my contract. I get paid more than him, so if one of us has to be on statutory pay it makes sense for it to be him. Most importantly, we both really want to be equal parents, and hope that this would help that.

The one thing that gives me pause is: I know not one single person who has used shared leave since it came in. I suspect that quite a lot of friends and family will be a bit horrified at the idea of me going back to work 'so soon'. Part of me thinks this is silly, part of me thinks - well, what do I know (this would be my first)?

So, I just wanted to ask for other people's experiences, and any advice you might have about this plan? As I say, I know literally nobody who has done this, so I'd really like to hear how it worked out for people!

At my workplace most women with senior management aspiration come back full time or near full time (4 days) after 12 weeks.

I did 20 weeks then my husband did the same after I went back to work. After this we juggled annual leave and husband was conveniently made redundant so had a "month off before getting another job. So for the whole of the first year we were never full time at the same time.
It was fantastic. Loved it. Can't recommend it enough.
It was so much easier for me to return to work (I love my job and I'm the higher earner so it made sense) knowing she was happily at home with her daddy. Although she later loved nursery too.
Best of all my husband learned first hand what a tough job being a SAHP (wifework and mental load included) is and it now fees like a very equal and fair household. We also had an older child and that ML (me only) was very different and I did end up as the default parent.

We havent done it yet but our plans are much the same as yours, I'm doing 7 months DH is doing 5, then we are both returning to work full time and our child will go to childcare. Parenting responsilities will be split 50:50.

DS1: me 9 months DP 4 months
DS2: me 8 months DP 6 months (redundancy well timed)

Absolutely do it. My boys have a real bond with their dad and goes to him just as much as me. He also knows exactly how stressful and how wonderful it is to be the stay at home parent...

I did nine months, DH did the last three.

It worked really well for us. I could go back to work and really get my head back into it without worrying about him. DH loved his time at home with him, made the effort to get out and about with him every day.

If it works for you financially, I'd urge you to do it. I think it's really important that more men start doing this or else the whole initiative will just die a death.

My experience with it is really positive. I think is made a massive difference to the bonding for DH and DD as it meant he was much more involved in the day to day stuff. The stay at home parent is usually the one setting the routine, knows which toys are current favourites, if cheese is in or out of vogue etc and I think it does mean the other parent can be a bit left out when they show up at the weekend. I don’t think this matters nearly so much when kids are older as bedtimes are later so working parents do get that time in the morning and evening pluskids are more self sufficient and not constantly changing up their routines (e.g when they decide that they would only be rocked to sleep rather than bounced all of a sudden...). I know two other (one mum and one dad) who’ve done this and they would both say the same.

I did it recently. Like you, it was important to me (and my husband for that matter) that we be equal parents.
Our initial plan was to split it equally down the middle, six months each, and that is what we told our respective employers. That changed as I ended up having 6 weeks off before my son was born, so he'd only have been just 4 months when I was due to go back. I had only just really recovered myself by that point so felt it was unfair that I had to go back and he was also bottle refusing. I also wasn't ready, which surprised me. In the end we split it 9months to me, 3 months to my husband.
It worked really, really well. My husband was the first man he knew of to share the leave and I think he was a bit apprehensive, but he really enjoyed it. I became a little wistful about not having the full year, but it made my return to work much easier as I wasn't worried about my son settling in childcare.

I definitely recommend it. It has definitely helped maintain the equality status quo and both of us are equally well equipped parents.
Congratulations and good luck!!

I had 7 months maternity leave, then I went back to work and DH had 2 months shared parental leave, before he went back to work and DD started nursery (we couldn't afford any unpaid leave). It worked very well for us and DH and DD have a great bond. He's also a lot more hands-on than many of the other men I know! It made my return to work very easy as there was no stress about settling DD into nursery at the same time.

DH took DD to all the baby groups I had gone to, but he found it hard as he was the only man there most if not all of the time. One thing that helped was that he had a week off when DD was about six months old, so came along to the baby groups with me and met mums I knew (who were all very welcoming to him, which was a relief).

One thing that made me feel odd was that most of the other mums I met were taking the whole year, or weren't going back to work, so I felt very out of sync going back at 7 months. More of them are back at work now (2 years later), so I feel less of an oddity now.

I met one other mum who was going to use shared parental leave while I was on maternity leave, but I hope more people will take it up in the future. I think it really made a difference to our parenting 'roles' and stopped us falling into the traditional set-up, which is easy to do when you're at home with a baby.

With DS I took 8 months leave and DH took 4. With DD we are taking 6 months each, so I'll be going back at the end of Feb. It worked very well last time round, DS and DH have a fantastically strong relationship and he's looking forward to spending lots of time with DD as well.

A couple of things you might want to think about (these are in no way show stoppers). If breast feeding works for you, you'll still need to have bottles as an option when you first go back. You'll want to give yourself a good few weeks head start before you go back in case of bottle refusal wether you go mixed feeding or expressed (we're still not completely there with DD). Also you may need time to train your boobs!

Also, baby groups. Some can be pretty inaccessible to Dads (breast feeding support?) but if you have a sociable baby they can really enjoy being out & about. Half the groups I used to take DS to no longer exist but after I went back DH continued taking him to swimming and to a music group - he found the groups with a purpose suited him much better and he didn't feel so much the odd one out (there were a few Dads at swimming).

Good luck, and enjoy it, whatever combination you come up with

I took off 7 months and DH took 5 months off. I'm also an academic on a fixed term contract and not taking the full year meant that I could work part-time after returning from mat leave (as I could only extend the grant by 12 months in total). I think it's been really beneficial in lots of ways - having less of an impact on my career than a full year, making us both appreciate what it's like to be the stay at home parent, financially, etc. I think out of all the couples we know we probably have the closest to a 50/50 split in parenting and household stuff, and I think shared parental leave has really helped with that, rather than me quickly becoming the default parent.

Thanks all - it's lovely to see such universally positive comments!

Thank you for the things to think about nocrying - I had thought about the breastfeeding issue, but we'd obviously have to see how that went.

Fellow academic here - I think that your plan sounds great and the relatively flexible time schedule of academic work (depending i appreciate on your specific job!) is really conducive to this working well. Personally I was really keen to get back to the office after the 6 month mark - and you could easily continue breastfeeding with most babies if you end up doing that. I’d be tempted to phase back over a month if that’s an option, using some accrued annual leave to return less than FT. You could then have a bit of overlap time.
Congratulations!

I went back after 3 months full time and DH had 9 months then never went back!
Worked great for us and would do it again if we get the chance.

Hi, I'm a final year Graphic Design student doing a project on encouraging and raising awareness of Shared Parental Leave and its benefits:

We would be very interested in knowing any issues or obstacles you faced in the research or application process.
Similarly, we would like to know about your successes with SPL (if taken)

Your feedback would be very useful in helping us better the system and encourage equality within parenting.

Here are some questions to get you started:

Anyone looking at using Shared Parental Leave (SPL)?
How easy was it to find out about?
If so how easy was the process when talking to work about it?
Did they have a scheme ready for it?
How easy did it fit into your life?
Did it take a lot of planning?
Could the paper work be easier?
If you chose not to what, put you off doing it?

Here's a link to the gov.uk Shared Parental Leave campaign:
sharedparentalleave.campaign.gov.uk

Thanks so much for your help,
Look forward to hearing from you!