Paternity leave - using unpaid parental leave

[Firsttimerugbymum]

Hi!

Just looking for advice if anyone has done this before.

Trying to organise paternity leave for the baby in January. We ideally want to have as long as possible and was looking at maybe taking 2-4 weeks unpaid parental leave after to add on so he has longer with baby.

I know most would use holiday, however DHs job is still reasonably old school and has two week shutdown in August and a shorter one at Christmas which already uses most of his holidays.

Given that his work is old school, I’m not sure how they’ll react to the request however reading into it it appears not to be something the company can refuse without reason, especially following the birth of a child.

Any experiences with this?

They can’t refuse it but they can dictate the timings, so they could say it doesn’t suit to take it at X period you need to take it at Y.
You really won’t know until you put the request in.

Thanks @Hufflepods for the reply! It does say on the gov website that unpaid parental leave can’t be delayed if it’s taken immediately after the birth of a child.

I guess it depends how awkward they want to be - his work is pretty stable in terms of demand (which is always high) so I think they would find it difficult to reject.

Alternatively you could look at shared parental leave. This would mean you shortening your maternity leave period in order for him to take extra leave e.g. you have 4 weeks less maternity leave and he has those 4 weeks as shared parental leave. It can be taken at the same time as you are on maternity leave