Six weeks paternity.

[Raven11]

I wasn’t sure where to post this as I don’t think DP is being unreasonable of such, but maybe I’m a bit unreasonable as I’m sure there’s plenty of women out there who would love their partners to be ‘too keen’.

We’re expecting our first baby in the autumn and we’re both very excited. DP is honestly one of the most caring men I have ever met and he’s taking his role as dad very seriously. Sometimes he’s a little too keen: I was going out to a mum and bump coffee meeting and he panicked as he didn’t book it off work. I know full well how lucky I am to have him every step of the way (and to have him waiting on me hand and foot!)

However, he’s taking six weeks paternity leave when the baby is born. As we’ve already had our main holiday this year he’ll be taking the majority of his left over annual leave and using his bank holiday days too. That essentially leaves six months without any annual leave. As his work is fairly flexible (he works from home the majority of the time) he’ll be able to get any medical appointments/baby appointments off in that time but no actual leave.

This is probably where I’m being unreasonable I’m more worried/being selfish that I’m not sure how I’ll cope with having him around for 6 weeks as honestly we’ve only ever spent a full couple of weeks together. He’s also quite intense with us spending time together; he likes us to be in the same room, or if I go out to the supermarket he’ll usually prefer to come too.

I’m planning on breast feeding and while he tries his best with domestic tasks he’s not great (he can throw a pasta together with a jar of sauce or cook beige food in the oven) and he’ll mop the floor if I ask him to but he always needs directing. Female members of my family have offered/will come and help but they don’t want to step on his toes. I’m not sure if I’m being completely naive here but I can imagine him being bit of a spare part for six weeks and then it being an absolute slog until next spring without any annual leave. Or shall I just suck it up as it’s his baby too and I should count my lucky stars that he’s keen to spend as much time as possible with baby.

Ive tried hinting/suggesting other ideas with his leave and he seems pretty set on six week paternity once baby is born.

In your entire relationship you’ve only ever spent two full weeks together?? And you’re already having a baby together which is incredibly stressful when you have no idea how compatible you really are?

Have you been to courses on breastfeeding? Do you know to assume the baby will cluster feed for most of the first six weeks and you will be sat down, doing very little other than feeding? If he is happy to be at home and clean, tidy, prepare drinks and meals, then I think many women would be very grateful.

Is the real reason you don’t want him to be off because he annoys you? If so, that’s not a good place to have gone ahead and decided to start a family from.

I think it's nice he wants to spend the first few weeks of baby's life you both. He's as entitled to that time as you are

Ah, by two weeks I mean two weeks just together spending 100% of our time together i.e. when we’ve been on holiday just the two of us.

He doesn’t annoy me. I absolutely love the bones of the man and he’s my best friend.

My partner took 6 weeks off but it sounds like he’s not as useless at domestic tasks. My job was to heal and breastfeed, his job was to manage the house, feed me, settle the baby and deal with schedules of visitors and so on.

tbh at 4 weeks I could have coped quite happily without him there but it was really nice for him to have the time off too.

if it means he wouldn’t have any time off for 6 months o think that’s sad as having a week or two off at 3 or 4 months old would be lovely too to spend some family time together and honestly they are so easy to take on holiday before they crawl.

I always think it pays off massively to focus post-birth expectations eg I said I explicitly wanted him to deal with all the requests for visits and to do the food shopping online and to make sure I got a shower or bath everyday. That wasn’t a huge request but it made a huge difference to me and wouldn’t necessarily have been the things he himself would have prioritised if I hadn’t told him.

sit down and discuss roles and expectations in those weeks and that might lead to spreading out the time off a little bit.

To be honest, it’s great to have your DH home after the birth. My DH too care of me, so I could take care of the newborn. So made my meals, did the house cleaning and laundry. Held baby so I could shower and do my healing sitz baths. Did all the errands outside the house. DH also did all the nappy changes and settling the baby back to sleep for night time feeds.

If he’s lacking in cooking and cleaning skills, he will certainly get better with practice! Six weeks could be a total boot camp in cleaning, cooking, laundry and baby care for him. Think how much worse he will be at pulling his weight on all this in the future if you deny him this now.

"In your entire relationship you’ve only ever spent two full weeks together?"!!

This!!

But I do think spreading the leave out a bit more might be a better idea, and having some in reserve, for example, if you are unwell and he need to take some to look after baby (although maybe that's another type of leave). And surely you'd want to have a holiday/some trips with baby in that 6 months. My DH WFH very flexibly so I'm happy for him to just take a couple of weeks off

Have you considered whether you should get married? I know this wasn’t what you asked but I think it’s worth pointing out you could be about to make yourself very financially vulnerable if you intend to take a long maternity or return to work part time? Even if going full time it sounds like you’ll be picking up the bulk of the housework/mental load!

My DH is currently doing 4 months Pat leave - a bit different as it’s fully paid (he’s very lucky!) so it’s a no brainier to take it.

I was also a bit apprehensive, but it’s been great. He’s doing all the domestic stuff (including cooking for the first time ever), and most of the cooking.

Its also been really bonding, and it’s great that he sees/ is involved In the proper slog of newborn life. Really different to when he had 2 weeks off with our eldest and I resented him escaping to the office.

DP took three weeks - I'd have liked him around for another week, maybe, but I had a bad pregnancy and birth so was barely managing by that point. He worked shifts though so it wasn't like he was out of the house for five days in a row - having a day off every three or four was better for all of us.

I'd definitely ask your DP to save some leave for later - point out that he'll be able to take the baby out alone for longer when it's older which will give you a proper break, if that's the angle that he's coming from.

Keep in mind that you also don’t know what kind of birth you’ll have, or whether breastfeeding will come easily to you or take lots of work and that for the first six - eight weeks the sleep deprivation is debilitating with a baby waking every two - three hours for a feed. Having someone there to handle all the domestic stuff, keep visitors at bay, look out for your mental health, do the nappies, cuddle the baby while you nap and bring you meals will probably be a godsend. Especially if you end up having a difficult birth and / or struggle a bit with feeding at first.

Being there together at the beginning also sets you up really well for more equal parenting and housekeeping later on, as he will see first hand what the reality of looking like a tiny helpless baby is like, develop his own strategies and feel more confident and able to do it later on as well as having to take on all the domestic load and getting a crash course in all of that.

If you’re worried about him using up all his annual leave, why not do SPL? He could take his two weeks of paternity leave, then do four weeks of SPL. You’d have to give him four weeks of your mat leave but they would be weeks at the end of the year when you’re paid zilch anyway and you can usually add some of the annual leave you’ve accrued onto your mat leave to make up the time. That way he’ll still have his annual leave and can take some time off later on.

Can he take shared parental leave rather than use up all of his annual leave?

Honestly, your message makes me feel a bit sad for him. He's the parent of this child too, why wouldn't he want to spend time with his child? It is any wonder that so many men don't parent equally if that's the attitude they are given from day one? That they will just get in the way?

We had 8 weeks together after our child was born (slightly different scenario, DH was the primary carer and I went back to work after 8 weeks).. I am so glad we did have that time, and with hindsight I would have taken a little longer. That first 4-6 weeks were tough, and having two of us to share the load (including feeding, admittedly not always possible depending upon your feeding method) made life a lot easier.

Some people have absolutely no reading comprehension... It was clear what you meant by only spending two weeks together OP. It's nice that he wants to be involved, but actually it should be a shared decision how much time off to take, and railroading over your wishes isn't actually the sign of a nice caring person. Don't hint or suggest - sit him down and tell him what you need from him. If that's to have two weeks AL in reserve for over Christmas or whatever, tell him that

It sounds like he needs to start an intensive training course right now on how to cook delicious and nutritious meals for you and the baby. He also needs to get focussed on laundry (there will be lots of that) and cleaning bathrooms/kitchens independently so that he can be sure that you and the baby are living in a nice clean environment. I would be sitting down with him to work out what he knows how to do independently right now and what his goals are for by the time you are 7 months pregnant and less able to bend and twist / need more rest etc.

Two things are likely to happen. He will see how much he can do to support you and the baby by becoming very good at managing the household and take pleasure in developing those skills… or he will get a reality check that paternity leave is not cuddling a newborn while his wife runs around the house cleaning and baking, and he will cut it back to 2/3 weeks and then get back to work. Its win win for you both either way!

Also, from my experience, the time that new mothers really hit the wall is about 8-10 weeks when the long term sleep deprivation is kicking your but and all offers of help and pre made food in the freezer has dried up.

Maybe he takes 2 weeks initially, then your Mum comes for 2 weeks, then you run solo for 2 weeks, he then takes another week, etc etc

My DH took a month with both, which was great, as he did all stuff around the house, took kid(s) whenever I wanted to rest, etc. And it was a genuinely nice time to learn to look after our new baby (with number 1). But we both appreciate the other's need for space, so we weren't always in each other's company 24/7. Maybe just have that discussion with him about needing a bit of space? He can help by taking baby for a bit while you catch upon sleep, etc. But I would have loved DH to be off for even longer before going back to work.

If he works from home most of the time he'll be around anyway but unable to help, I'd find that much more irritating personally in those early weeks then him making an effort to sort his leave etc out to ensure he can have a good chunk of time with you and his baby.

My DH took longer than that after the birth and it was amazing for all of us. My DC has the most amazing bond with DH and apart from BF there’s nothing my DH isn’t 100% as competent at as me.

6 weeks all the start, if a lot of that is annual leave seems a lot. I’d probably suggest he splits it up a bit.

my DH took 2 weeks after the birth and then took another 2 weeks annual leave about 6 weeks later. That was quite good for us really. I’d figured out stuff on my own, but was ready for his help.

I couldn’t imagine being in a relationship where I wasn’t sure if o wanted to spend all my time with them if it were possible

If we didn’t have to work and could be together all the time that would be amazing. And we’ve been together 17 years!

So yeah I do think that’s odd. And why are you having a baby when you’re not even married?

DH had 9 weeks off and I was glad to have him around. I was in hospital for a week after an emergency C-section then back and forth for appts the week or two after (if he'd had the typical two weeks it would have been gone before we'd even got settled at home). My section didn't heal particularly well so it was a massive help having him around. He did loads around the house to keep things going - shopping (I couldn't drive post section), cooking, cleaning and washing up, walking the dog, washing clothes. All the while I was sat on the couch cluster feeding or trying to heal/sleep - I was forever asking him to bring me a drink or a snack or something else because I couldn't do it myself. He did night feeds with expressed bottles to give me a break and was also a great help getting ready to get out the house - I don't think I could have done it alone (if we wanted to be on time for anything) until week 6 or 7, maybe later! I was breastfeeding but he could help with settling baby, changing nappies, bath time and even just having cuddles which really helped bonding.

Since he's gone back to work, he's been really busy with long hours and doing it all alone is tough going although we are now in a bit of a routine so it's getting easier. Enjoy the time you have with your partner, it'll be over in a flash.

its lovely that he wants to be around, but try explaining to him that it’ll be better to have that time sporadically over the year. Then you can go on trips, or spend time together as the baby grows and develops, or maybe at other points when you really need a break.
2 weeks at the beginning whilst you’re healing and then random days/weeks off during the rest of the year would be much better.

Unless I'm misunderstanding, his wish to take time off to accompany you to a mums and bumps coffee morning sounds really quite suffocating. Why would you need him there? More to the point, why would the other mothers?

I'd encourage him to do 4, thats a good amount to be confident changing nappies, reading cues and getting to sleep. But when baby is at 4 months and hardly sleeping, or 8 months and crawling everywhere, or weaned and you can actually have some time away you'll really appreciate the odd day or week. You could book an actual holiday somewhere.

I agree with a PP. I was absolutely broken by about week 9 or 10 - sleep deprivation was real and the adrenaline had fully worn off. DH had the first 5 weeks off and it was amazing, especially as DS was quite colicky and unsettled in the evenings (you’ll be amazed how much holding and settling a newborn baby wants/needs between feeds) but with the benefit of hindsight, I reckon I would have rather he took time off later. Every experience is different, but I reckon 2 weeks at the start, 2 weeks at 6-8 weeks and 2 weeks at 12-14 weeks would have been better.

I also agree with another PP that the dynamic of having a partner working from home with a newborn can be tricky and probably more difficult to navigate than both being on leave. DH was desperate to give me a break and could see how tired I was, but was obviously supposed to be working. I tried not to bother him but on those days when the newborn won’t stop crying it’s really hard for the working partner to just ignore it and carry on.

If you are in the UK you should check out shared parental leave (SPL). It’ll shorten your leave a bit but it means your DP gets a good chunk of time off without eating into all of his annual leave.

It really does depend on the baby you get. Aside from cluster feeds each evening, DC2 slept solidly for the first 16 weeks; I barely saw him with his eyes open. Got lots of sleep, ate lots of cake. I’d have found the partner at home more helpful at six months for the messy weaning part, or later on when they drop the third nap and want lots of entertainment and get separation anxiety.

Sounds like your DP has separation anxiety himself? I would go Mental if I had to be in the same room as someone all the time and they came with me to the supermarket too. You’ll be touched out from the baby, wanting alone time, later on in maternity (it’s a looooong year): make sure DP takes the baby and leaves you alone at times instead of this short leash. So you might benefit from him having no annual leave later on, just for the space from him when you’re at your limits.