Maternity leave + 1 year sabbatical

[sunnydayhunny]

Has anyone got experience of taking 1 year maternity leave + 1 year sabbatical leave after maternity leave in civil services. I am pregnant and exploring options to take longer time off without leaving workforce permanently.
Please share any experiences.

Sort of!

I returned to work after my last maternity leave and after 6 months realised that I needed more time off (for many reasons, not particularly baby related). I started a 2 year period of Extended Unpaid Leave (ExUL, affectionately known as a Career Break) 9 months after I returned from maternity leave. I am just about to go back, into a new role because they don't have to hold your role for you when you're on ExUL).

In my experience there is no problem taking ExUL straight after Maternity Leave (although I would "return to work" to use up accrued annual leave and make sure you're back long enough to keep your Contractual Maternity pay).

Personally, I'd wait until 9 month or so through your maternity leave to make the request for ExUL. You might change your mind, or the work environment might change and make it less appealing to take a break.

Oh, I also meant to ask whether you're planning more children. It is obviously financially much better to be back at work before you get pregnant again.

I'm not in the civil service and I haven't actually done it yet, but I am planning to take a sabbatical following my maternity leave this time.

I only took 8 months maternity leave for my first (we did shared parental leave so I couldn't take the full year) and I felt like my son was so little going back! That's not a judgement on those who decide to go back sooner, everyone is different and different things work for different people!

This time we're still taking SPL, but my husband isn't having as long off, so I'll have about 9-10 months mat leave then taking another 9ish months sabbatical. I'm only planning on having two kids so I thought I'd take the opportunity while they're both still little to have a bit of extended time off with them.

An other option you could consider to extend your leave is unpaid parental leave. You don't get much of it (I think it's a maximum of 18 weeks per child for their whole childhood). I took a few weeks of this at the end of my first mat leave. One benefit of this is that I still accrued annual leave while taking it. With a sabbatical I won't (but your work's policy may be different).

This would be my last maternity leave. Both DC would be young so I want to spend as much time possible with them.