How long do all you mums get off for maternity leave?

[JazmineJaveed1]

Is your maternity leave enough for you to spend time with your baby or for your baby to bond with you? Anyone else think about this?

I am lucky as I got 6 months full pay, 3 SMP and then 30 days annual leave so by the time I go back to work next month I will have had nearly 14 months off.

13 months for ds and 14 months for dd. The maximum possible to then return to my job.

In my view it should be long enough to wean, learn to sleep through (else it's too exhausting to work), learn to be looked after by someone else and long enough that you are ready to return.

Maternity leave is normally a year.
How long you take is up to you.
What proportion of the leave is paid varies.
I combined holiday and parental leave with my maternity leave and so took 15 months

Lucky girls - I'm self-employed so I'll be taking four to six months max and then going back to work part-time.

I was going to take the year but got a job share at a higher grade so going back at 8.5 months & I'm still in disbelief (DS is 6 months).

But I'm only going to do 2 day weeks for a while.

I got 4.5 months full pay then SMP but we had savings to cover the year which will now be put to gd use when we move house this year.

Legally, I think everyone is entitled to a year plus annual leave allocation. As a Scottish teacher, I get 12 months plus 40 working days annual leave (approx 8 weeks). I took the full leave with DD1 and plan to do the same with DD2.

Yes, of course it was - and I went back after 3 months leave with all of mine, as was the entitlement then.

are you writing an article?

With holiday tagged on to beginning and end, I'll have had about 14 months off by the time I go back in September. 14 weeks was full pay, I'm on smp now.
It is not enough, I don't this any amount of time would be enough! I'm dreading going back already as I can't bear the thought of leaving him (left him at mil's for 2 hours today and I felt like a limb had been amputated)

But a friend who's baby is the same age was planning to become a sahm, but now she's decided to go back in April. I guess that's enough for her.

2 weeks. Been fine as I am at the many children stage so used to it I suppose

Where I am I know of no one that took 14 months. I would say average is 7 months as that is before the separation anxiety stage of going in to nursery.

Our first dc started nursery at 16 weeks and I went to work, dc2 6 and half months, and dc3 too young to go yet.

I went back when DS was 7.5 months, so 8 months off in total.

When I go back I'll have had 10.5 months. 9 months of SMP, then 6 weeks annual leave. In an ideal world is be a SAHM but can't afford it!

I had 12 weeks (DD is now 2). My employer felt it would be very hard for me to have longer and while I appreciate I was entitled to the full year, it's not always easy to accommodate that for senior people in a small business.

Next time (if I'm lucky to have one) I'm looking at taking 6 weeks and DH will take 6 months (works for a much bigger, more flexible organisation).

I took six months each time (6 weeks on 90% pay, 20 weeks on 1/3 pay, and the rest was annual leave I think). Depends entirely on your finances, but I had to save a lot to be able to afford that, I'm not too sure how people manage a year! Six months is okay, if I had all the money in the world I'd get a nanny for the first year and take maternity leave once they're a toddler and a bit cuter!

Everyone in the UK may be entitled to 1year plus annual leave but not everyone can afford to take that much. I was going to go back after 4 months because that was as long as I could afford to live on SMP but my grandparents very kindly decided to give me £3000 to help me extend my leave which enabled me to stay on leave till 8 months.

I am officially on the years leave with 12 weeks pay then s m a but i am not sure i will return to work at all as i can go on benefits which may work out better anyway once you take into account cost of travel and child care. The cost of returning to work will b v high for me.