To expect time off work for baby’s (non-urgent) medical appointments?

[coffeeforone]

My 9 month old DS appears to be allergic to quite a lot of things (eggs, eczema, hay fever, nuts, unknown foods). He has been referred for blood testing, allergy clinic and dietitian appointments all of which happen to be in working hours. I have 3 appointments over the next few weeks and there will probably be follow ups too.

I’m fairly short on annual leave, so wondering if it would be unreasonable to ask for the time off (unpaid if necessary) and if my employer can say no to this? I don’t think it would class as ‘emergency time off for dependents’ as I will know in advance of any appointments, and allergies are quite common I can’t imagine my employer being too sympathetic.

I would of course share the appointments with DH but he has just started a new job and is still on probation (and was off with a stomach bug a couple of weeks ago), so it would be better if I can do these.

I work full time office hours and there isn't really a 'making up time' culture. We're expected to be available most of the time and work additional hours as required and paid a good salary to compensate for that. I don't really have another option but just wondered if IABU to expect the time off work?

At my last job we had something called dependents leave for this - we could take afternoons or a day here or there for illness, appointments etc - and it was paid. It was limited to 5 in a rolling year. All other leave was unpaid (in my first year my son was ill countless times so maxed it out unfortunately).

YANBU to ask at all. Some companies are quite flexible with this (mine was) and others not so much.

Sorry coffeeforone I was doing other stuff. You are not legally entitled to parental leave for odd days but most e,players would I think allow you if for hospital appointments. As someone else said, much easier than covering weeks off in a block. If your employer doesn't have a specific policy I would ask. Be clear that you know it's a request but suggest ways you can either make up the time or take it unpaid. It sucks that parents need to but hospitals tend not to have routine appointments at weekends ( some do). Someone else said people who don't have children would love to take time off. They can. But people with caring responsibilities like parents and the children of elderly parents are entitled to leave. If no one looked after kids or the elderly we would be a poorer place

OP in your situation I would ask retrospectively if one week of your booked holiday could be unpaid parental leave, then you will get back the individual days to use up for things like this. It makes sense to always keep a few days in hand for sick kids

This is what gov.uk says about parental leave:

You must take parental leave as whole weeks (eg 1 week or 2 weeks) rather than individual days, unless your employer agrees otherwise or if your child is disabled. You don’t have to take all the leave at once.

@DontMakeMeShushYou

OP has already said that, "...the HR policy is that same as the Statutory one. i.e. 21 days notice, blocks of a week at a time."

I'm surprised at the number of people suggesting you're being unreasonable. This is one of the reasons why mums sometimes find it hard to work. It's impossible to juggle the needs of a baby and a job without a bit of flexibility.

If the appointments aren't available out of hours, there's not much you can do really. Your child needs to be seen - for people suggesting you should use your annual leave, what would happen if you had no annual leave left? Make your 9 month old baby wait to be checked out??!!

As a society we have a duty to show each other a bit of compassion, and like a PP said, to look after our children and elderly. And the OP isn't getting one over on the childless folks - she's either going to take it unpaid or make the hours up.

Yes, your boss may well refuse. In my opinion, it's more than a bit shit if he/she does though. I used to be a manager before I went self employed and I'd have allowed this, no problem. Businesses run best when there's give and take and a bit of flexibility on both sides.

The OP and her DH has effectively booked up a month’s annual leave between them though, which doesn’t help matters, TwinMummy1510. I think unpaid leave is definitely the fairest way forward here.

OP has already said that, "...the HR policy is that same as the Statutory one. i.e. 21 days notice, blocks of a week at a time."

@SuperSara Yes, which is why I have been clear that she needs to explain how it would benefit her employer to grant single days rather than blocks of one week. The HR policy, as written, matches the minimum legal requirements but that doesn't mean that there is no room for discretion to be used if an employee has a persuasive enough case. I'm not sure why you're confused about that.

I think parental leave comes in blocks of a week, doesn't it? You might only need half a day, but you've used a week as far as HR are concerned.

Vital lesson here - when you have children (of any age, as they get older you end up with school meetings etc), do not use all your holiday allowance on booked holidays: keep some annual leave days in reserve as you will inevitably need them.

Oh, you've made a parenting rookie mistake. Going forward:

Buy all optional leave possible when offered, you will always use it.
Take a week of unpaid parental leave every year and use it for a holiday. That then frees up annual leave for child related appointments.
Don't use all your annual leave on holidays, those days have gone. You will need at least a week each per year of annual leave for child related appointments. Allocate more for a child with chronic conditions.
Do you have healthcare through work? You might be able to get money from that when you have hospital stays with your DC, makes it a bit less painful if you have to take unpaid leave. Don't think you'll get it as a day patient though.
Be prepared for schoolholidays, or rather the hell that is snowdays and teacher training days (when there is no childcare available). And look forward to your eldest turning 16 so they can babysit for you.

If you don't want to cancel your holiday then you either need to take the days off as unpaid leave or try and make the time up. Are these initially appointments or challenges? If your child is being challenged then it will take most of the day so making up time will be hard.

Yanbu to ask. You need to be careful though. My dh took unpaid parental leave for our dc's appointments and operations/hospital stays and he was given a disciplinary for it.

I think if they say no then you will have to take unpaid leave or look at cancelling some of the holiday. I also don't understand what you are going to do if your son becomes unwell between now and when your annual leave replenishes either? Do you have a back up plan in place?

I’m being given a paid days leave for my dependent for a hospital appointment (waited months for) due to travel etc

But our leave policy is generous and at managers discretion - so my extra time without overtime is being repaid effectively.

Buying additional leave is merely unpaid leave, with some of your pay from the rest of the year being held back and paid to you in that week of unpaid leave so you never go without pay. So if they allow you to buy additional leave, they should be willing to allow you unpaid leave.

I also don't understand what you are going to do if your son becomes unwell between now and when your annual leave replenishes either? Do you have a back up plan in place?

No, no back up plan! I think we have been very lucky in the past with DS1 (now 3.5) and haven't really needed to take much time off, so we are learning these lessons the hard way with DS2! With DS1 DH's previous employer was super flexible so he could 'work from home' when DS was Ill and then do the actual work late in the evening when I was home. As long as it got done it didn't matter. With his new employer we need to be more careful as he is still so new. Although the industry is generally more flexible it should get easier once DH has been there for longer.

So my boss has come back and said "...just take the time you need (paid) for any appointments that are just a couple of hours and we'll keep that under review..."
They also suggested that if I think I'll need to take some full days then maybe consider changing the one of the weeks' holiday to unpaid parental leave, then I have 5 full days to play with for longer appointments.

So I think I'll swap 5 days of the holiday for parental leave and it's all good. But definitely a lesson learned for the future.

Sounds like a good outcome. :)

Glad I read the thread before responding as I was about to suggest your boss's suggestion (using parental leave for the holiday and getting back the annual leave to cover this). Glad you got it sorted!

What a sensible boss! Such a good way forward. It's incredibly difficult to plan for childhood illnesses especially when each child is different.

Legally you aren’t entitled to it but I don’t see why they’d have a problem with you taking unpaid leave as long as it wasn’t excessive. I’d ask.

Genuinely happy to hear your boss is of the sensible sort!

Your boss sounds fab- lucky you!

Oh that's good - that's a good outcome, you have a nice boss.
Glad it's sorted now. :)

It's not really fair to people without kids who would probably also like time off. Where do you draw the line? Lots of elderly people have appointments that their working carers have to arrange.

^ This.