Annual Leave and Mat Leave - why does Mat Leave have to start the day after baby arrives?

[zoobaby]

I?m told that Mat Leave starts the very day after baby arrives. Does anyone know why? Is there some legislation about this or something? I can understand the technical need for this rule, but what about situations where the mother doesn?t need to be ?forced? to take time off?

I have 4 weeks of Annual Leave to use before my Mat Leave. If I don?t use it before Mat Leave then it will expire as I will go into another Annual Leave Year shortly after baby arrives.

Originally I thought it?d be brilliant? take Mat Leave from the estimated week of childbirth and stick Annual Leave right in front? meaning I could leave at 35 weeks and have 5 weeks off before baby is expected. I thought 35 weeks would be sensible, and I also wouldn?t feel as though I?ve wasted any of my Mat Leave beforehand.

The above plan will work perfectly ONLY if baby behaves as expected. If he arrives during Annual Leave I will lose the unused days (I could carry forward a max of 5 days). He will be my first and I?ve read that first babies tend to be late, but I obviously can?t rely on that as I?ve been the exception to the rule previously.

What to do? What to do? Advice gratefully received.

Yes there is some legislation - it is compulsory to take Maternity Leave for the two weeks post birth (four if you work in a factory i think). I presume this is for health and safety reasons from an employer liability point of view.

It probably won't be an issue anyway as the baby is less likely to be early than to be late.

Zoobaby, maybe you could talk to HR or line manager to see if you could exceptionally carry forward more than 5 days in case that baby arrives early. My first baby arrived 3 days before EDD and I planned to take 3 weeks of annual leave so we agreed on having a few days paid as untaken annual leave and carried forward some. Enjoy thevrest ofthe pg

Maternity leave can start whenever you choose from 11 Weeks before due date. So if your baby is late that's fine, seems like your annual leave onto maternity leave plan is good!

Ohhh I think I misread. I think the idea above of agreeing unpaid leave if baby if late and to carry over days if early is good, speak to HR.

I have 8 weeks holidays to take and my manager had said to take them before i go onto maternity leave. Babies due 17th June and i could have officially started my mat leave on the 1st April. (I'm not) My maternity leave starts the week i'm due so the 11th (if that's the monday). However, if i have him early, whilst on my annual leave, i start mat leave straight away and carry forward all annual leave, even if i'd had him 8weeks early. Wander if it depends where you work.

Yes, I agree it's an unfair rule.

My DS arrived 3 months early - at 29 weeks - so that's when my mat leave started. My full pay stopped when he was in NICU. After involving HR, I was finally allowed to carry over the 16 days annual leave that I had been unable to take. The condition was that I added it onto the other end of my mat leave, which I was delighted to do, as I'd "lost" 3 months while he was in hospital.

Might be worth a phone call to HR to seee if you can carry over a certain amount to the next financial year.....

Thanks for the advice so far. I shot an email off this afternoon, so I'll see if they come back in the next couple of days. Fingers crossed I'll get someone who's understanding.

my company pay you any outstanding hols at the end of the holiday year if not taken due to mat leave starting early (they don't do it otherwise) so u don't lose the entitlement. hopefully you'll get the answer your looking for :)

Will you definately have four full weeks to use or would you have used some on other days by then?

I currently have 4.5 weeks and i'm due in November. Plan is to start maternity leaves officially at something like 38 weeks, add 2-3 weeks annual leave on to the beginning so finish around 35 weeks. Any other holiday I have left will be spread out so I can do 4 day weeks/odd half days in the weeks before 35 weeks so I don't get too shattered.
That's the plan but seeing as I have PGP already it might not work that way.

The other thing to check is that maternity leave runs Sun to Sat, so when you're counting the days to work out how to slot in mat leave and annual leave, bear this is mind.

Sorry, meant to say that if the baby arrives on a .Tuesday, say, when you are still on annual leave, the maternity leave will be deemed to have started the previous Sunday

I disagree with Families. Mat leave can start on any day of the week (and I've started on a Fri and a Tues).

Yes, there is legislation stating ML needs to start at the latest the day (after?) baby is born.

Think you idea of asking for it to be added on to the end of ML is a good one. Alternatively can you ask for it to be paid?

There needs to be a system, because say your leave year ran from 1 Jan - 31 Dec, and baby arrived on 1 Jan, you couldn't actually take any leave in the leave year.

FamiliesShareGerms that didn't happen for me I had my twins on a Wednesday while still on annual leave and my maternity leave started the next day (and my outstanding leave was carried over to when I finished maternity leave).

Just done some googling: maybe it's a public sector thing (that staff handbooks dress up a statutory?), but there's a lot out there that says that stat maternity leave has to start on a Sunday. See here and here for example.

I found out about this when I went into prem labour on a Friday, didn't have the baby straightaway but it was obvious I wasn't going back to work, and had to beg my boss to allow me to have that Fri off as sick leave then start my maternity leave on the following Sun, rather than lose a whole week's maternity leave.

But maybe it's a public sector convention, rather than a statutory thing. sorry if I've confused anyone.

i too thought mat leave started on a Sunday but when i was discussing this with hr was advised it could start anyday, i thinka mat week runs to Sunday

Mat leave can start any day of the week, otherwise starting the day after baby was born would make no sense! Maybe you're thinking about the expected week of childbirth starting on Sunday?

If you can't use all your holiday before the baby arrives, the employer must allow you to carry over, even if they don't allow this usually. To refuse is sex discrimination - if you hadn't been on mat leave you would have been able to take the holiday...

My mat leave had to start on a Sunday as well, I also thought it was a statutory thing.

My hr dept said mat leave can start on any day (private sector)?

OP definitely worth seeing if you can either carry more forward or get paid for them, my company only let me carry forward 5 days and any other unused days were to be paid x

Thanks for all the replies. It's interesting what Families found. Maybe it is a public/private thing. That raises another question (obv not for me personally) - what if you worked start of week and unexpectedly had baby at end of week and got lumped with back-dated ML? The mind boggles. I'm actually in the public sector and my ML can start mid-week. It's even a question they address in the ML FAQ document.

So, anyway, HR got back to me and basically said that since I'm attempting to arrange things so that I use up all my AL in a timely manner and in the correct timeframe... should it all go haywire due to baby calling the shots, then I could most likely have the AL paid at the end of the ML. This would be at the same time that I take the whole year of AL that has accrued whilst on ML, and must be taken before I start back (that's totally cool with me as I'll go into my new "pay year" shortly after returning and therefore get my new allocation again - hey man, I'm not complaining). BUT, when they say most likely they mean only if my manager agrees with this idea and informs HR/payroll appropriately. Now I just have to wait for my manager to get back from her break, so another week of not knowing for certain!

Good luck with getting it all sorted. It is complicated, and in my organisation we've largely got rid of HR specialists so line managers have to figure it out for themselves. Ie no one ever ever knows if they've got it right!

I was on annual leave when DTs put in an appearance at 31 weeks - mat leave kicked in the day they were born but annual leave rolled over to tag on the end of mat leave even though can only normally carry over 5 days (I had 15 days left).