Maternity leave / Shared Parental Leave

[MakingItHappen123]

Hello!

My wife is currently pregnant.
She is self employed.
After having the baby, by law she is required to have 2 weeks off on statutory pay.
She's decided to take an additional few more weeks off unpaid.

I am employed and will have the full leave from the day the baby is born, which I believe is classed as Shared Parental Leave. This is also why the extra few weeks she's having off is unpaid as we can't both claim statutory pay at the same time.

At my employment - mothers are allowed 6 weeks full pay and 10 weeks half pay, before moving on to statutory pay.
However, I've been advised that I will only receive 2 weeks full pay - (same as Paternity Leave), then will be on Statutory pay.

Is this right? Or should I receive the maternity pay?
I'm not the birth mother, but my wife will virtually be going straight back to work, and I am still the babies mother and will be with the baby full time.

Does anyone have experience of this?
Thank you in advance.

I had the same concerns until I read this post, glad you've got a plan sorted for if she needs longer term recover.

@dementedpixie sorry I don't know how I missed that considering it's right at the start of the OP!

Just to give an alternative perspective on recovery - we initially worried about my DP (birth mum) needing longer to recover; she ended up having an emergency section and did have a rough recovery, but she also went back to work because she found being at home with a newborn alone almost impossible. It's not impossible that working might feel like the better option, especially if (and it sounds as if this is the case) it's part-time work that can be broken up into small chunks of activity through the day.

Obviously hope she has a positive experience and recovers soon, but it came as a massive shock to DP that she found it so rough.