To ask your advice on paternity leave

[jaseyraex]

My DH is feeling the pressure from his employer to put in a start date for his paternity leave. He's already told them my due date but they want an exact date.

With his last employer, he phoned up the day I went in to labour and his paternity started then. Our first was 12 days late. I feel there's no point taking two weeks leave from my due date and then baby comes late again, he'd only get a few days at most with us. Same if baby came a few weeks early, I'd have no help whatsoever if he was still at work.

Can his employer demand a date? I'm in Scotland, if it makes a difference. The paternity leave advice from his employers website says only a rough date needs to be given, but also that you need to give 28 days notice to change the date. As I said, had no issues like this at all last time so we're feeling a bit confused by it!

They can't demand a date as leave can't start before the birth anyway. This is the .gov advice:

Leave can’t start before the birth. It must end within 56 days of the birth.

You must give your employer 28 days’ notice if you want to change your start date.

You don’t have to give a precise date when you want to take leave (for example 1 February). Instead you can give a general time, such as the day of the birth or 1 week after the birth.