To ask for your experiences of shared parental leave?

[Beaujangle]

DH and I are thinking of this but have a couple of reservations/confusions.

The first is around pay. Both our employers pay 6 months at full pay for parental leave. Does this mean I can take 6 months and my full salary and then DH take 6 months at his? Thus effectively being on a full salary?

Secondly - if anyone has done this, how did you find it? Did you feel you missed out by only taking 6 months? In some ways I feel 12 months off work is a reward for being pregnant.

I just can't get my head round viewing mat leave as a reward for pregnancy rather than affordable child care

Or that mums deserve time with their baby more than dads do.

Well, we're all different. Pregnancy is a very difficult time for me and the thought of maternity leave is the only thing that keeps me going. Great if SOME people want to do SPL, all power to them, but I don't see why I should give up any of my leave if I don't want to.

You shouldn't have to

But it's a selfish pov.

It certainly highlights the need to change attitudes towards parental leave

I absolutely think fathers do deserve time off with their babies. Just not at the expense of the mother’s time off with the baby, if she wants to take it all.

It isn’t a difficult concept. Other countries manage to have a right to decent standalone paternity leave. And some UK employers have caught on too. My husband had 4 months off without taking any of my leave. It was wonderful.

@IAmTheWalrus85

Yes I agree

It shouldn't be viewed as taking leave from the mother. It should be viewed as a seperate entitlement

But then I don't think anyone should automatically be entitled to a full year

Yes. My partner is getting 4 months stand-alone leave, not taking a chunk of mine. If he took four months of my leave I’d have less time off with the baby than I spent pregnant, and pregnancy for me is BRUTAL – HG and PGP. Maternity leave is the deserved and necessary recovery period.

I think it's worked with his DH and I have always been. That plus our children are now in school and I'm shortly to go back to uni to re train.

When we first moved in together we listed all the activities that were needed to run a home. We divided them up equally based on how often the job was done / how much time or effort it took. We also agreed to a simple rule of not making life harder for each other. That meant that even though cleaning was his job, I tidied my own mess etc. washing was my job and he had to give at least 3 days notice for a particular item to be washed.

Over the years we have reassessed what we do in line with how our lives has changed. We view life and parenting as a whole not who's done x nappies etc.

While he couldn't breastfeed the kids, he could do everything else. When he got back from work he'd take the baby / toddler and baby so I could decompress for 30 mins, just like he'd done on his commute.

I have never had to tell him how to parent. I've never had to pack a bag or make a lunch in order for him to take the kids out.

Even now, the moment he finishes work he's a parent same as me.

I realise I'm very lucky. I don't know another working mother or SAHP who has it like me.

@Botw1 clearly has a problem. Firstly, most of us on this thread understand women get pregnant and give birth not men. It’s not physically equal, nor is breastfeeding. Any woman that wants to should be enabled to spend that time with their newborn / small baby. Dads still manage to bond with and love their baby and can take their parental leave after the mum. This is not controversial, except to you. Secondly, my Dh is not missing out and my baby is beautiful right now. I don’t know what would make you happy- me sprinting back to work at 6mo and taking more mat leave at 11mo so even though we both take time with our baby I don’t get recovery time as it’s so critical Dh get that time once baby is sleeping and eating FIRST? fuck off.

@Codlingmoths

My only problem is understanding you.

Im just sharing an opinion. Feel free to ignore

I would hate this. I'm taking the full 12 months with newborn DD. DP is brilliant - hands on, practical - but I'm happy he's back at work soon and I can get in a lovely peaceful routine with baby and toddler,

Agree with this totally and other posts echoing the same sentiment.

There is a guy at work who keeps taking stints if SPL. He loves it and it seems to work for them which is great. But they are so small at 12 mo, there was no way I wanted to run leave concurrently and send DD to nursery before then. DH has a wonderful bond with her. He didn't need SPL to do that. She was bf until about 2Y2M and it was me who did all the nights until she was 18 mo because it worked for us. Mentally and physically those 12 months off were so important to me! Babies change so much in the first year that I think doing a 50:50 split short changes whoever goes first. Different stages are easier than others but you've generally got your shit together more in the second six months.

I don't think you should agree to this until your baby has arrived and you've had time to settle and consider it properly.
When I was pregnant I offered to come in whilst on maternity leave for a future work event, DS would have been 3 months. Apparently I'd just express and leave him with DH.
In reality, you'd have had to have prised my baby from my cold, dead hands to get me away from him at that point. I also struggled to express which didn't really matter as DS never drank a drop from a bottle, despite repeated attempts.
6 months is a really lovely age and I'd have been devastated to leave DS or DD at that point, they are starting to become little people instead of lumps of baby. Sitting, crawling, pulling up, cruising, walking, first words are all from 6-12 months.
Also, post partum recovery can take up to a year for a lot of women, especially emotionally. I was no where near office ready at 6 months.

I would have loved to have done shared parental leave for both of my DC.

I went back to work at 7 months both times, firstly because I was ready, but also because I earned double what my DP did, so financially it would have made more sense.

He also didn't see any of the realities of parenting tiny babies, or of having a newborn and a one year old (mine are 12 months apart), and often accused me of laziness if the house wasn't spic and span when he came home.

As a result, I became the default parent, while felt he was a hero dad of the year if he dropped them off to nursery once a week (meanwhile I was the one who had got them up, washed, dressed, eaten and packed their bags for the day!).

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and he is very much an EXDP now. He has our DC for strictly 4 days per month, and again feels he is hero dad of the year for doing me that favour 🙄🙄🙄

If I had my time again, I'd have had conversations with my intended about his approach to finances and childcare, and stay or leave the relationship depending on his answers.

We split it 50/50, both taking around 4.5 months. Partly on a practical level, as I earn 3 times what DH does, and partly to share the first portion of looking after a baby.

Worked fantastically for us, DH loved the time with each DC, and I was grateful for the relative lack of disruption to my career.

BF both, DS for a year (expressed at work) and DD until she discovered the joy of food and refused to BF from about 7 months!

I did shared parental leave and know a few other parents who did it. (Sorry long post)

Most employers policies aren't clear, but as parents tend to have separate employers with some you can actually take some/all of the period off at the same time. In some cases you have to take it off during the statutory maternity/parental pay periods to get full pay, while in others you don't.

I'm freelance and the higher earner so I did 4.5 months on statutory maternity pay. My DP got something like 2 weeks paternity leave on full pay and 4.5 months full pay. He also used some of his holiday as DD was born towards the end of one holiday year for him. So he was around for the first month with me then went back to work, and then we switched. His employer then changed their policy after 2 years because fathers kept taking leave so the amount of time off he got off on full pay isn't possible. His employer were shitty when they realised DP was going to take leave during the statutory period and they would have to give him full pay. I also found out they were being shitty to other fathers.

One couple we know the father took 2 weeks of covering paternity pay, 6 weeks off as shared parental leave so he got full pay and used his holiday so he was off for 3 months with the mother. The mother then took 10 months off I know at least 6 months of this was on full pay due to having the same employer as someone else I know.

Another couple I know the mother took 6 months off on full pay and then the father took 6 months off on full pay when the mother had finished 6 months. They have the same employer.

I also was talking to a plumber I used while I was off who runs his own firm. He took a month off and then took every Friday off, while his wife was on maternity leave. He then continued to take every Friday off when she went back to work. (He's not the only father I know who runs a firm who did this while his children were little.)

With one of my former colleagues his wife took of the first six months. He took 2 weeks paternity leave during that first six months and then he took the last 3 months. He was on statutory pay.

Agree with this description of the pay. It was a massive headache trying to calculate it and when we did it both of our HR depts got wrong at least once!

I went back after 9 months with my first and DH then 3 months as SPL. I found it really good as I went back to work knowing that DC was with the one person I trusted them with the most!
DH found it really hard though - I didn't find out just how hard until I brought up doing it again for DC2 and he totally didn't want to. He felt really excluded as a dad in baby groups, and DC1 started crawling the week after we swapped over and got into everything.

I would do this absolutely!! My friend did this and I wish I had thought about it, only because it will actually make your partner realise how brutal it is to be a mum. No one knows until they've done it themselves. I can't speak about the missing the baby part as I think I would've felt 6 months was too early, but I think it worked for her as she was ready and wanted the 'break'.

The pay for Shared Parental Leave is more flexible than maternity leave, so you can actually be on statutory pay for the last 3 months. If you look at "Example – couple share 42 weeks of shared parental leave" in the document at www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-employee-policy-shared-parental-leave it explains it. I work for the civil service and took the final six months at full pay, while my DP took 3 months at full pay (topping up statutory) and 3 months unpaid (no statutory).

(not in UK) we split ours - our DCs are quite close together so i would have been able to take a total of 4.5 years ML if i wanted. I didn't want at all, i wanted 6 months, but circumstances intervened.

So in the end i did the full 3 years with DC1, and when DC2 was 18 months we swapped and DH took the last 18 months of the allowable time for DC2 and it was bloody fabulous. TBH he was far better at wrangling small children and a household, but we each had our moments. And my DC have a very strong bond and several in-jokes with their dad that I've never been part of. And I'm all on board with that.

We did this and loved it. I did seven months, partner did five months, and we got 10.5 months of full pay between us. We actually overlapped some of ours for a couple months, and went travelling through Europe and it was really really special time. Wouldn't have changed it.

You also accrue holiday while on leave, so we both went back using our leave to effectively be part time for the first few months.

I breastfed for the first year, and it was fine. Work gave me a little room with a lock for my office days, and I took an insulated bag. The biggest plus is how fair and even parenting has been. And it's something I've noticed with the friends who did shared leave also - their partners know how to soothe the baby, can be responsible for baby, will take half the nursery drop offs and sick cover etc. So for me if 100% do it again

Yes to this also, we got him used to it from a month old. Not every day but a couple times a week. He's never refused a bottle, and it didn't affect breastfeeding at all

I didn't do shared leave because my partner is self employed. However, with our first, I went back to work part-time after 3 months and this time around I'll be going back full time after 4 months. My partner then gets his time with OUR children. I'm the higher earner and love feeling like more than a mother. I adore being a mother and with my children but I equally enjoy working and being productive in another setting. I work in education so i am fortunate to have regular time off with the kids.

I am a firm believer in both parents contributing to the early years. Now I sit and hear friends talk about how their partner doesn't know anything about their child routine, household chores etc when they have never been given the freedom for long enough to explore it. My partner is just as capable as I am of raising the children. Of course, you do need a clear understanding of what is important to you both before hand. For example, my partner knew breastfeeding was very important to me and so he researched paced bottle feeding and was prepared to offer alternatives if the bottle failed. We also both agree that independence is great for children and gentle parenting doesn't mean no discipline. So if you are going to share leave, be clear on what each of you think is important in raising humans and then give each other the freedom to develop and nurture your individual relationship with your child.

Also just to mention, I breastfed my first for 2 years and 4 months and I intend to continue when I return to work this time. A supportive employer and an effective pumping routine can protect breastfeeding if its something you decide to do/continue with!

Congratulations x

I did 9 months and my husband did 3, and it was brilliant. I loved it so much, and it also really helped me go back to work happily (with him at home) before we settled DD at her childminders. Can't recommend it enough. He is now default parent for the childminder, since he did all the settling.

Oh and I still breastfeed morning and evening, she takes a bottle in the day!

If you’re planning to breastfeed then a 9 month/ 3 month split might be better. This is what we did and it worked brilliantly!

I was ready to return after 9 months but didn’t want DD going to nursery so young, so it was great to know she was happy and well looked after by DH. Their bond was incredible after their time together and we both were much more understanding of one another from about a week into the switch as we suddenly understood exactly what the other one had been dealing with up until then (ie how tiring it is being at home with baby all day vs how sad it is to miss them while you’re at work if you don’t get back in time for bedtime)