Shared Parental Leave: share your views and you could win £300! NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

Parents with children due or adopted from 5 April will be among the first to take advantage of Shared Parental Leave. To coincide with its introduction Shared Parental Leave, we have been asked by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills to find out what you think about this new policy for parents.

The team there say "From April 2015, parents will have greater choice and flexibility over how they share the care of their child in the first year of their life. Shared Parental Leave allows working couples share up to 50 weeks of leave and 37 weeks of pay in a way that suits their work and family needs. For example, parents can take time off together or they can tag team, stopping and starting leave and returning to work in between if they wish.
Check your eligibility and how much pay you can get here. We'd love to know what you think about this and how you'd use it for your family."

So, please have a look at the information provided here and let us know on this thread what you think. If you or your partner is pregnant and your baby is due from 5 April do you think you'll use it? Would you have used it when you had your last child if it had been an option? Do you think you will share leave with your partner if you have children in the future? How would it work in your family?

Have a look at the video:

Add your comment by 30 March 2015 at 9am and you'll be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher for the store of your choice (from a list). Insight T&Cs apply

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

Too late for me but it does sounds like a very good idea. I wonder how this will affect small businesses though: it makes workforce planning unpredictable and while some worker/job types can cope with sporadic extra leave, some careers would make patchy leave tricky for continuity....

I think shared leave is a great idea in principal. I think companies will find an increase in leave requests which may leave them unprepared. In reality, I don't see this being adopted to its fullest potential in the short term because of the need to have two full time incomes at the same time for many families.

I think it's a good idea and would benefit a lot of people.
I wouldn't have used it as I choose not to go back to work until my children were older.

Aeth, I think employees will be pretty aware of the impact of doing on/off bits of leave and how it would work - I predict the majority of the leave will be a straight split at various points (6 and 6, 4 and 8 or whatever)

I think its brilliant, I would have loved for my husband to have had the chance to do this. He works like crazy and hardly sees the kids in the week so it would have been a great opportunity for him to reconnect with family life and for me to get back into work. We have a 7 year old 5 year old and a baby and its been hard work for me going back to work after a year. It would have been nice to share the burden and for the kids to see more of their dad. Also I think its important for them to see both parents as care givers and both parents as financial providers rather than the traditional gender roles.

I think this is a great idea.

Firstly, it should reduce discrimination against women of childbearing age in the workplace because men will be taking a more equal share of time off.

Secondly, it gives greater flexibility in terms of finances and people's preferences in terms of how to structure their family.

It would also make childcare much easier for couples where the woman has a difficult birth or develops health problems at a later date. This can only be a good thing for supporting women with postnatal depression or who have had cesarean deliveries or other complications.

It could potentially also increase the number of women breastfeeding if their partners were able to take more flexible time off during any rough patches.

Fruu, parents need to give 8 weeks' notice of any leave so it would be hard for it to be reactive to problems.

I think it is a really good idea and makes things fairer and more flexible for families. I would have loved this to have been in place when my last child was born as it would really have helped. My husbands job can be quite flexible at times but it would have been better if formal shared parental leave could have kicked in. It will help reduce pressures on finding that initial childcare and just give parents more peace of mind and overall contentment I think.

Its a really good thing, traditional roles don't really exist any more and there needs to be a greater degree of flexibility over parenting. Anything that helps familys to cope with the pressure and organisation is good.

I am due DC2 in May, so DP and I are eligible for this. But we won't be using it. It's a brilliant idea in principle, and would probably be great for a lot of families. However, we really need the (very good) enhanced maternity pay that my company provides, and if we went down the SPL route, we would only be entitled to statutory pay. So while it's a fantastic opportunity, and probably well worth considering if you would only get SMP anyway, for us it's not a viable option financially.

Also, and this is very selfish I admit, I enjoyed the last 6 months of my 1st mat leave a lot more than the first 6 months - DD was so much more interactive and fun, we were starting to wean, she was getting more mobile etc. And as I bf exclusively for the first 6 months, realistically, if we were to do SPL, I would prob go back to work at 6 months and DP would take over then. And I think I'd feel a bit like I'd done the part where it feels like you're putting in an awful lot more than you're getting back, and was then missing out on the part where you start to feel that you ARE getting more back, iyswim. (I realise that sounds really bad/selfish/mean, but there you go).

I was unemployed when I had my child and the intention was that my partner would be out at work and I stay home and look after our son until he was in full time education, however we split up when our child was around 2 years old.

I do think this is a good idea though, it allows for more flexibility which is great, what works for one family won't always work for another - this makes it easer for families to adapt time off to their own family needs.

I can see the advantage, particularly for families where the dad will be a SAHD. I don't think it's very bf-friendly though, but ultimately it does give couples the ability to decide fairly how they will parent.

I wouldn't use it myself, but that's irrelevant really I do know families who would definitely have benefitted from this.

It's a great initiative but I can't see there being an immediate shift in childcare responsibilities. I think on the whole the workplace expectation is that men will not be off for a prolonged period.

We used the original scheme in 2011 - it was brilliant. DH took over at 7 months and took 4 months.

We are all much better off for having don't it. DH is a better and more confident parent, and frankly a better and more equal partner. DS has better family role models - he doesn't see childcare or housework as 'for women'. And I maintained the career that pays the bulk of our mortgage, and got a major new role (and a big promotion) when DS was two.

Oh, and I breastfed for 17 months. Sharing the leave absolutely doesn't exclude breastfeeding!

it sounds lovely in principle, certainly the motivation is appealing.
but i cant imagine it being equally available to all in practise - it seems to make sense for shift workers but how would it work for teachers when students need continuity (especially young 'uns)? or lawyers/accountants/event planners/project managers with a time sensitive case load? will there be guidelines for employers with fair/reasonable limits?

We are hoping to use this scheme in the summer. Unfortunately neither DH's or my employer have any decent information on it and have been quite open about that.

We still have questions and are confused

I wouldn't, Ithink it would make breastfeeding too difficult

For those concerned about BF, did you BF for the full 12 months? Because you can split the leave, say,, 11 and 1. Or you can take 11m and have DP off for 1m simultaneously - which might make it easier to establish BF in the first six weeks.

Yonic, I went back to work at 7 months, when DS was down the road on solids. I expressed at lunchtime at work (workplaces are required to provide facilities) as well as breastfeeding morning and night, on my day off and at weekends - as well as picking up night feeds until about 11 months (DS was a horrible sleeper).

It was absolutely fine. I hated expressing before I went back to work but at work I found it easier, and had a little oasis of calm where I was reconnecting and doing something related to my kid rather than my work in part of my work day.

As I say, I had plenty of supply until DS was 17 months, so it really didn't make breastfeeding too hard at all.

I'm not saying it would have been easy had we split the leave earlier - and we're already talking about what we'll do this time (DC2 due in October) and we're thinking I'll take 7 months again, DH will take one month earllyish on and then take 4 months at the end.

I returned to work at 10 months when DH took leave, DS was BF until 18 months. I expressed at work until he was about 14 months.

However Jassy employers are NOT required to provide a place for BFing.

Jassy said facilities for Breastfeeding.

A aargh! Jassy said facilities for expressing!

Too late for us, but I think this is an excellent idea and one many people will benefit from. It means both parents can share the baby's first year, and if the mum earns more, it makes sense for her to go back earlier than a year, if she wishes, while the dad stays at home.

We shared my leave when ds2 was born in 2013.

I took the first 6 months as my employer offered Enhanced Maternity Pay until that point, and dh took the remaining 6 months (3 at SMP rate, 3 unpaid).

It was a wholly positive experience for us, and dh inspired several men at his work to do the same since.

It allows the parents to choose what works best for them as a family. Like many couples, I am the higher earner so it made sense financially for the reduced pay period to be used by dh.

I ebf ds2 to 6 months and then continued when I was around until 15 months. He decided he wouldn't take bottles when I went back, but it wasn't a problem as I don't have a big commute so he just fed before I went to work, had water during the day, fed when I got home and then at bed time.

Dh hugely enjoyed his time at home with ds2, and also doing the school run/helping out at school/spending time with ds1 after school. It inspired us to revisit our finances after the parental leave period came to an end, and dh put in a flexible working request to have a shift pattern that fitted in with the school day on the days I work (Mon-Wed). It cost us a bit in terms of his reduced hours, but we got a bit of that back as ds1 doesn't have to go to aftercare, and gained hugely in quality of family life.

I know it wouldn't work for everyone, but it's not compulsory and it's been so good for those of us who it does work for.

I also like that it meant that for once my family friendly employer won (by getting a member of staff back to work earlier that I might have otherwise), and dh's usually very family unfriendly employer had to do their share (although they tried their damnedest to get out of it).

Something also seemed to click with dh's employer - once they accepted that this was going to happen, even though dh was a MAN, it definitely paved the way for the acceptance of the flexible working request. Before this, male employees had routinely had these requests declined.