Paternity leave

[newmumbaby22]

I am due my baby on 28th,
my partner has told his work I am having a section that day (not true) so that he can start his 2 weeks paternity leave which is followed by him taking annual leave for the whole of December. As he doesn’t want to lose out on the holidays he has remaining for this year.

is there any way for his work to find out that this is a lie as we obviously don’t know when the baby will arrive

Good grief.
Anything could happen.
Are you okay with being in a relationship with a liar who treats his employer like this?

What do you mean?

he wants to start it on the due date as he has taken his remaining annual leave for the rest of the year? Otherwise he will loose out on his entitled leave as you cannot carry it over to next year. „Being in a relationship with a liar”?!
the liar is taken over 5 weeks off to support me with the baby?

Well they will ask for photos and updates. And you will be extra stressed which you dont need. Is it your first? My labour stopped and started a lot. One minute i thought i was going to the hospital the next things calmed down again. It went on like that for weeks. Thank goodness my partner could start pat leave when i started those contraction and be there supporting me through the false alarms. I was really able to relax and have a good birth. Maybe it will be similar for you.

im sure someone will be along with some legal advice x

@Weefreetiffany

he works in a large company and isn’t friends with management for them to be asking for photos or updates. So that’s not a concern.

he would start his leave this Thursday if the baby doesn’t come before and take 2 weeks paternity which is followed by him taking 4 weeks of annual leave so he will be there if I need him.

we are just worried about obviously lying about the date as everywhere says you cannot start your leave before baby is born but I wonder how they would know this?

Why not the other way around - book the holiday leave from when he wants to start the time off, and then tag the paternity leave on the end, as he can take that whenever after baby is born. From gov.uk

'Your leave cannot start before the birth. It must end within 52 weeks of the birth (or due date, if the baby is early).

You do not have to give a precise date when you want to take leave. Instead you can give a general time, such as the day of the birth or one week after the birth.

So book the holidays and tell employer that he will be taking paternity leave from 'x' date afterwards when baby will definitely be born.

Why can't he just take holiday from Thursday, then 2 weeks paternity when the baby arrives and then use the rest of his leave?

Why can’t he book annual leave for the first 4 weeks and let his manager know he will slot his paternity in when the baby is born and therefore be off until Christmas? I really wouldn’t start telling lies like this!

And yes, he is a liar.
He's trying to cheat his employer.

@treehousethunderstorm

i did suggest this originally but the company won’t allow him to change the leave as they says it’s too short notice which doesn’t make sense as he would be off anyway but “company policy“

Pretty sure it'll be found out as his company will apply to the government for his statutory paternity pay and the government will know when the baby is born I'd assume?

@TheShellBeach what planet are you on? How’s he cheating his employer?

Let’s make it really simple for you. There are six weeks left at work. Father is entitled to two weeks paternity and four weeks annual leave. That makes six weeks absence.

OP it’s a bit irrelevant but I’d go with other posters and suggest he takes his annual leave for four weeks starting on the 28th and then follows it with paternity leave.

Social media would be my biggest concern. You’ll need to keep the birth a total secret online and ask everyone else to do the same.

Not worth the risk: 1) it would be reasonable of them to ask for a birth certificate if they get suspicious. 2) if you are overdue, or (heaven forbid) something goes wrong and you need their support for extenuating circumstances (NICU stay etc) it will not reflect well to admit there was no c section and you've been lying.

Secondly, are you sure he can't carry any leave over? HR may well have default policies but in this sort of situation with parental leave there may be an exception. My partner is in the same situation - I'm due any day now but if it takes a little longer and we enter into a situation where there aren't enough days in the year for the saved up annual leave then the "you can only carry over X amount" doesn't apply because it's been affected by parental leave.

It's not worth the lie, and you know this. Don't give yourself extra stress.

Can't you take paternity leave from the expected due date anyway? I.e. No need to pretend you're having a section.

@TheShellBeach
Didn’t realise we owe anything to our employers?! They couldn’t care less for staff half the time so this isn’t a concern to either of us.

@BarnacleBeasley this is what I want to know as we would like to do that

Great attitude from both of you 🤣

I wouldn’t check this with any parents who let us know (I work in HR). I also believe you should work the system the the best of your ability. It is so so unfair alot of the time. I also wouldn’t remember peoples due dates at all. The amount of work HR has to do what people do with their newborns is the least of our worries.

as for TheShellBeach, thank you for the laugh. I literally laughed out loud at your comments 😂

@newmumbaby22 I also work in HR and wouldn't check this either so it's unlikely they would find out. Tbh I agree with @CSSL7 its such a tiny amount of leave most dads are granted anyway it's not something I would be clutching my pearls over 🤣

@CSSL7 thank you for understanding exactly what we are trying to do!!

working in HR, are you able to say if we will “get in trouble” for this? As in the dates paternity would be claimed and the actual date the birth would be registered etc if that makes sense

Okay, so I thought you could take it from the EDD because my employer's form that I filled in had that option. But it looks like you can't actually take it before the birth. However, given that employers generally prefer to know when they're expecting you to be off, what I'd probably do is have a chat with HR and say you'd like to use your 2 weeks paternity and your AL, and be off for those weeks, and they would most likely let you just wrap the AL around the pat leave, whenever it falls.

@BarnacleBeasley his form also has the EDD as you obviously don’t know when baby will arrive. However thinking about it, if I was to go into labour or false labour on the date then my partner would be off work anyway? Which would surely trigger his paternity leave

You can't start paternity leave before the baby arrives. Your company will be receiving paternity pay for these two weeks, which will be paid to you. If your Paternity leave date and the baby's birth date is different, someone may notice...