Shared Parental Leave and Unpaid leave

[BridieMango]

Hi,

Read a few threads on shared parental leave here but can't seem to find anyone who has mentioned what we would like to do.

We were planning on doing shared parental leave and I was going to do 9 months whilst my partner does 3 months. I have 14 weeks of full pay the statutory pay and my partner is eligible for 12 weeks full pay.

So I was planning after the 9 months to take 2 months unpaid and 1 month holiday so we both have 3 months off at the same time. It will be a stretch but figure it would be worth it having that much time off together to look after our child.

Has anyone done anything similar? If so, how did you go about with your employer?

(I am assuming it is at the discretion of your manager to take the unpaid leave?)

We're looking at shared parental leave but planning to split it into blocks because my husband is eligible for full pay for the weeks I don't use before 26 weeks. It would be worth getting both of your employers' policies to check when your partner is eligible for full pay. There's a lot of information and a calculator on the government website, which also gives you a lot of detail about rights/when you need to tell your employer

I am doing shared parental leave. I am taking 9 months leave (mixture of full pay and statutory maternity pay) and then going back to work full time for the last 3 months whilst my husband takes that 3 months unpaid. It worked out better for us financially that as we have to be on one salary for the last 3 months of maternity leave, that we have my salary rather than his as I earn more than him. We both work for the NHS.