Back to back maternity leave?

[Stardust127]

Hi

I’ve just found out I’m pregnant. I have a 7 month old and currently on maternity leave. Would I be able to do two consecutive maternity leaves at my current job without going back in between? I’m due back in May. I’ll be around 20 weeks then.

please no judgemental comments. Feeling a bit fragile atm 🙂

thank you xx

Bump 🙂

Yes but you need to look at what the lack of income due to not going back in between will mean for your eligibility for maternity pay.

No I don’t think you can. As you’ll only be 20 weeks it’ll be too early for you to start your second maternity leave.

Congratulations!

The short answer is yes but not sure what your pay would be. Check out Nugget on instagram or the gov websites.

I'm currently 8 weeks pregnant and returned to work in November maternity leave so
Will have been back about 8 months when I go off again.

You probably wouldn’t get any enhanced maternity pay offered by your company as that’s usually discretionary and statutory maternity pay is calculated based on what you’ve earned over a period prior to taking maternity leave so you’d probably only qualify for the minimum amount which is £184 per week. They also don’t have to keep your existing role open for you just offer you a suitable role after the second one ends.

When this happened to me (smaller gap between my children than yours) I went back for 3 months and then went off again.

Hmm not sure about the other responses. You won’t be far along enough in your pregnancy to take back to back maternity leaves.

You can’t start maternity leave until 11 weeks before your due date, so roughly 29 weeks gestation. So no I don’t think you can.

What sort of work do you do? In my job you have to be back for 6 weeks before you can start again.

I did this along time ago, there are 15 months between my children and I just qualified.

Never went back at all

Thank you all for your replies. Looks like this pregnancy may be leading to an early miscarriage. There’s been no line progression at all. I’m so upset.

I’m very sorry to hear that. Hope you are ok.

Thanks so much. I’m doing better now because I’m trying to emotionally detach for now , at least until we know for sure what is going on. It’s the only way, or I’d be a blubbering mess.

I hope you are okay OP. Thinking of you.

Don’t go off pregnancy test lines.

I was going to say this. Line progression is far from accurate and reliable.

Hope you’re ok though op. Sending hugs xx

I'd only be worried if the lines were definitely getting fainter OP.
How many dpo are you?

I think you’re all right. Thank you so much for commenting 🙂The lines are now getting a bit better but only get darker after half hour. They’re just faint lines to start off with. Definitely there though, and pink. It’s so strange. This happened with my son. Ive got bloods tomorrow as mentioned so im looking forward to getting the results for that to get some clarity. My period was due Monday , no bleeding so far. Cramps are bad, but I also had those with my son and GP says it’s so normal. Fingers crossed .

(top test yesterday morning, bottom test this morning)

Yes I think you’re right. I am 15DPO xx

Thank you so much 🥰 I don’t know how to feel tbh. I just want some clarity I feel like me and DH are in limbo. Poor guy, he’s just as anxious as I am. I will update this thread hopefully with good news

Hope you are ok OP. I had a similar situation in that I found out I was pregnant whilst on maternity leave but the dates worked out that I would still be in post long enough in between to re qualify for my second leave. I think it will vary by company, are you able to check your company intranet or contract whilst you're on leave to see what your company's requirements are? Or alternatively could you organise a call with anyone in your HR team to have a speculative conversation? I think it would be worth doing this if you can so you have all the relevant information.

Thank you for commenting :) my contract only states that I’m entitled to statutory maternity leave & pay. Unfortunately my company doesn’t really have a HR dept. The owners are HR, which is difficult when there’s a challenge… with the company. It’s a new ish company, and they don’t seem to know what they’re doing at all. Absolute shambles. I think I’m just going to hand my notice in and get MA for this pregnancy (if it turns out okay 🙂) xx

Eek that's a difficult situation, not much impartial advice available I guess when HR are the owners of the company 🙈 well I hope whatever happens you can make it work, also hoping you get good news imminently with the pregnancy. Sending lots of luck xx

You won't be pregnant enough to do back to back mat leaves. Surely you'd want to keep the leave for when baby is born to spend as much time with them as possible. Especially if your older one is still so young too!

I was just about to comment to say I would personally quit and claim maternity allowance as for me there wasn’t a huge difference in the money I would receive. But I know it could be seen as irresponsible advice as you’d then be jobless after children were born and a bit older than the the security of a job to go back to