Husband wants to take my maternity leave

[Otishound]

Massively confused….
1st baby on the way but cannot work out what we can claim.
I’m an Agency worker so I’m expecting not to be able to claim any maternity leave really. I’m currently saving to take 3x months out after the birth.

My husband is in a perm job - been there for 2 years and wants to take as much maternity leave as possible whilst I work.

Is anyone please able to give some clarity and if their husbands took maternity leave how much leave did they get, how was this paid and what were the rules….

Why are YOU saving for maternity leave? It should be a joint expense

Op are you ok? It's perhaps just the wording but MY maternity leave and YOU saving.

Yes of course if it's a joint decision it can be beneficial financially but that's not how this comes across.

Even as agency won't you get Maternity Allowance claimed via the job centre?

It's called shared parental leave www.gov.uk/shared-parental-leave-and-pay

But yes, why are YOU saving and not the pair of you?

What are his motivations for wanting to take shared parental leave?

Why isn't it an option for his income to enable you to take longer off?

Op firstly you need to find it what you are entitled to yourself, SMP or MA.

Who is the bigger earner? And does he get more than the minimum Paternity Pay?

One thing that needs to be remembered you need time to recover from birth. Also if breastfeeding you kind of need to be with the baby.

I'm thinking it's quite selfish for a man to want to take the Maternity leave while mum works unless their is a massive financial benefit to it, ie the woman is by far the bigger earner.

His paternity allowance will be detailed in his contract and will be different for each company.

Agree all the above

but it is his employer who will able to fully say

lots of red flags here though

We did shared parental leave. It's very simple. You have to take the first two weeks of the child's life, and then between the two of you, you have 50 weeks to split how you like. 39 weeks are paid (at about 150 a week if I recall) but your employers may choose to top you up if they wish. You can take it in chunks, or together, and you can go back to work and then take more leave later. For example, we did it as follows...

DD1: I took 4 months, then DH took 4 months, I then took 2 more months (while teacher DH was on summer hols). We both went back to work when DD was 10m.

DD2: I took 5 months, then technically went back to work but took 5 weeks AL while DH was on summer hols. I'm going back to work next week, having been out 6 months, and DH will take the next 4 months off. We'll both be working again when she's 11m.

Honestly, its been utterly brilliant. It establishes both of you as equal parents right from the start. And it gives your DH the chance to really enjoy his baby. I would seriously recommend it.

Actually in a Factory job the mum must take 4 weeks off. It's one of the oldest pieces of employment law in the UK dating from about 1830.

I find it bonkers that nearly 200 years later women can be back at work in other places in less than 4 weeks.

OP you need to qualify for maternity leave in order for your dh to take leave as essentially you cut your leave short to free up leave for him to take.

Maternity leave is actually for the mother to recovery from pregnancy and the birth. To establish breastfeeding and build a bond as the primary care giver for her baby.

Shared parental leave ie dads taking up the maternity leave is mean imo. Taking a mum away from her baby earlier than necessary. Dads muscling in on the time that should be for mum and baby. Some can find it takes months to recover. It's not all floating around to coffee mornings for us all. But it is for dads as they didn't do the pregnancy or birth part.

I hope you can afford to take the time you need with your new baby

If you have a c section you will physically not be able to work at 2 or 4 weeks.

I didn't know that first part! That's very interesting.

The second part though - in this country, women get to choose when they go back to work. 2 weeks, 4, 4 months, a year, whatever you want, it's up to you.

This is the most disgustingly backwards thing I've read for a while.

Well you might think it's backwards however it's from the baby's point of view. Ie the entire point of maternity leave

Shared paternity leave is when you go back to work and he takes the remainder of the leave.

If you go back after 3 months, he can take 9 months.
If you go back after 6 months, he can take 6 months.
And so on.

It is a statutory right in the UK for all parents.

what do you think maternity is for?

Why is it disgusting? What is wrong with a woman wanting to recover from childbirth as well as being with her baby? It’s the most natural thing in the world!

OP, you need to take time off. Why are you saving? It should be a joint expense!

We did shared parental leave. DH took 3 months, I took 9. He basically took all the unpaid time & concurrently with the first 3 months of mine. Your DH would get paid if he was taking time from the paid portion of yours. It was great having him there. We were moving abroad though so I wasn’t going back to my job so I ended up taking a year off anyway. Otherwise I happily would’ve gone back at 9 months.

I am agreeing with those who are concerned that YOU are having to save (not the both of you) and he's making some demands rather than discussing it sensibly and ultimately understanding that the decision should be made with the emphasis on what is right for YOU given you are carrying the baby! You definitely DO need time to recover, bond with your baby, get whatever feeding you choose established (especially if that is breastfeeding), even if going back to work after say 3+ months because it suits you and the family unit as a whole or that you'd rather not but you see it as a financial necessity and decide to yourself.

I've nothing against the idea of shared care and shared parental leave, of course, and know someone who did use it because she was the main earner and did genuinely want to get back to work quite quickly (although not for her first baby, she could have changed her mind if the birth etc. had been traumatic, say, and this was in a country where maternity and paternity leave are more generous, the nurseries are very good, working hours are good, expressing at work wasn't a problem, and they could overlap a bit too. Even so, she took about 5 months off I think - it was quite a while ago).

As someone who's done shared parental leave twice, with two perfectly happy healthy babies, both extensively breastfed, I can tell you that shockingly enough, men can be just as good parents as women!

I agree that is a pretty gross backward thing to say @NoToLandfill. Why should a mother have to be the primary caregiver? Why should the other parent not get to if they want to? Mums need time to recover from birth but that time varies hugely. If mum wants to work and dad wants to stay home, or that what makes sense for the family, great. By 9 months I was fully recovered and DD was only having a morning, lunchtime and bedtime feed. I easily could’ve pumped 1x a day at work if we wanted to keep breastfeeding only.

I have friends who have taken 6 months leave and then their partners have taken 3 months on top of that.
I think that worked out okay for them.
personally I couldn’t have gone back to work at 6 months let alone 3 months.
my baby was waking hourly still at that point.
also depends how you wand to feed baby- my baby is EBF and won’t take a bottle.
I think it can be good to give dad some one on one time and they realise how much hard work it is and that looking after baby all day isn’t easy.
however if his reasons for wanting to take time off is for a ‘holiday’ he will be in a for a shock

Ok well DH is taking 6 months SPL with DC2. Firstly, because his work pay 6 months full paid and I’d be on 3 months of stat pay + 3 months unpaid, so it’s a no brainer. But also because he loves and wants to care for his children (and will do a cracking job imo) and also because I need to go back to work for my own sanity - unplanned we had 2 in 20 months and I feel like so much of my head has been babies for the last 2 years, I really need to get something else in my life before I drown completely.

Your DP sounds like an arse as PPs have identified so I don’t think this is really your main problem, but SPL can and is used by caring, engaged men to the benefit of the family if they use it properly and their workplace is forward thinking enough to offer equal pay to men and women.

Personally I had zero success when trying to express, even using some (at the time) state-of-the-art machines in a hospital setting, when BF was already established (long story). Some people manage to keep expressing and hence breastfeeding after going back to work, but some people find it difficult or impossible, either physiologically or practically or both, and hence going back to work could spell the end of breastfeeding for you and baby. So if breastfeeding is important to you, that needs considering as well as time to recover and time with your newborn.