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

Way too late for us- our children are all grown up now, but I think it's s fabulous idea and we'd have gone for it like a shot. And I say that as an avid breastfeeder, because it's quite possible, with a year long leave available, to organise things so the baby can be exclusively fed bm until weaning.
It puts the child at the heart of things imo... Children benefit from having both their parents involved and hands on. There's also the chance that it will lead to fathers being more involved beyond parental leave too. there are often threads here complaining about husbands not doing enough with the kids or round the house, even after the mother has returned to work. It's far more likely that having had a period of time at home in sole charge, husbands will continue to be more involved beyond that time

Imo there's nothing to NOT like about it. If a couple want the traditional set up of just mum taking leave, that option remains. this is simply widening choice which is long overdue and an excellent thing

It is good to see parents and families put first.

If it had been available when I had my children, I may have considered it.

Really pleased with this as it encourages more fatherly involvement in parenting and puts the child at the centre.
In honesty I don't know if I will want to share the year though, as having done the difficult early days I wouldn't want to miss out on the fun 9-12 months bit!
But DH is planning to take a couple of months off in the next few years though to spend with our DC.
He loves that men will have more options to be temporary SAHD rather than always being the breadwinner.

The latest NHS advice is that prior to one year old, a breastfeed should be offered before every meal.
If you are EBF and share your leave youre not going to be able to do that - won't be home for lunch, at my job I wouldn't be home to offer a feed before a one year olds dinner time!
It just seems that this is being dressed up as extending paternity rights but actually is making it impossible to get the right balance for your family - dad around more, can't follow NHS advice; follow NHS advice, dad misses out on the extra leave.
I'm not evangelical about others EBFing btw but I would like to EBF in full for as long as recommended, in the way it is recommended by the NHS and so this 'choice' would actually be no choice at all for our family.
But under the pretence of choice the government are thus conveniently parking the concept of more paternity leave irrespective of maternity which is what we really need IMO.
Fathers should get six weeks leave - the amount of time it takes to recover from a section, for most women to stop bleeding, bf to get successfully established etc. The right to this shouldn't be dependant on the mother going back to work early.

I agree, it doesn't seem right that the only way to give to one is to take from the other.

Pomeral, but you can work and leave ebm for your child to have. I fed ds till he was 23 months old, and he never had any formula, having returned to work FT when he was 16 weeks old.

I agree with one of the above posters regarding the 90% of wage being adapted to both parents! I'm part time so maternity pay wouldn't be much different to my standard pay, however if my husband could have the 90% for 6 weeks he would be able to take an extended paternity and it not have too much of an impact.

CMOTDribbler- agree. I returned when dd1 was 12 weeks, and I was an avid breastfeeder who fed all mine long term.

I believe breastfeeding rates are correlated more with social class/professional qualifications of mum etc... I certainIy knew plenty of mums like me who returned to professional roles in the early 90s after 12 week ML who continued bf, while equally i knew other mums who didn't go back to work and didn't bf either.
It's entirely possible to split parental leave while continuing to feed your child bm and it would be a shame if fathers feel side lined yet again by feeling they cant care for their child as well as the mother can

This a great improvement

I plan to take 11 weeks off, 6 weeks ML and 5 weeks AL in October to go back after Christmas and my DH wants to take the remainder of the time off at shared parental leave so will be about 40 weeks off for him. It's great to have that flexibility as I cannot afford to be off without pay or reduced pay as I earn more and he wants to be at home.

I'd have loved to been able to access this - in fact we are doing it but with no financial benefit. I'm back at work in 4 weeks, my baby will be 7 months. I have to go back as earn a lot more than my DH who is taking over as full time dad so it's really frustrating to find out that timings mean we just miss out on him (DH) that is being able to access the SMP. We could have really done with the money!!

I think it sounds like a really good idea, if my baby was due then I would of loved to have shared parent leave but my baby was born in January.

Great in theory that both parents have the same opportunity but I think in reality things won't change much. I start maternity leave in two weeks and I intend to exclusively breastfeed, my husband couldn't do this. Plus his salary is twice what mine is so we just couldn't afford it. I am guessing this will be the same for the majority of families.

I think it's a great idea in principle, although how useful depends to a large extent whether the mother is planning to breastfeed. I worry slightly that this may put new mums off breastfeeding which would be a great shame. Obviously, it's very important that fathers are more involved with their babies lives, but I'm not really sure how many men would actually prefer staying at home to look after a baby rather than going to work!

A good idea but who is going to foot the bill

Too late for us, but this would have been great for the second child in particular to have some overlapping leave to get back on our feet as a family, newborns leave you so tired the first few weeks it's very difficult when you can't catch up on sleep because the eldest is awake.

It's too late for us now (have our 2 DC and not planning anymore).
I think it's a nice idea though don't think we would have gone with it.
I've EBF both DC so it wouldn't have been practical (continued to BF each for a year & neither would take a bottle so didn't express).

Oh goodness I really hope people aren't put off the idea because of scaremongering about shared leave putting women off bf. I really don't see why it should. Ime if a woman is pro bf, she will get on and do it - I and many of my like minded friends bf long term despite the short 3 month ML back in the early 90s. So a bit of shared leave towards the end of a year long ML really shouldn't put anyone off.

Many couples now have equal earning Power and equal ability to look after children so this is a really positive way of enabling children to have that special 1:1 time with both parents. If a couple agree that the mother will still take the whole leave thats up to them but hopefully it's a great step towards better balanced lives for many couples

When we had our first DC we took advantage of additional paternity leave (which allows fathers to take off up to six months up until the child's 1st birthday). My DH had 3 months at home while I returned to work and it was brilliant. Our son by then wasn't BFing more than 3 times a day (8 months old) so I expressed and fed him before and after work.

What was funny however was how so many people said "wow, you're so lucky that your DH's employer let you do that." No, it's the law and a right for most working men!

This scheme is better where the mother is the breadwinner and wants to return to work quicker. I hope to use it for DC2 and get DH to have some time off in both the early (knackering) and later (RTW) months.

Not sure how employers will like the juggling of weeks on and weeks off though tbh. In reality I imagine take up will be low because of this.

I also hope the amount of media coverage this is getting raises awareness more so than additional paternity leave which v few people seemed to know about.

I think it's an absolutely amazing idea. I found that I was ready to go back to work after a few months and really needed it (later found out it was due to PND). It would have been lovely if Dad could have taken over this leave instead.

I think its a fantastic idea and a great way for the dads to feel more involved and to see that being at home is not as cruisy as they think! But not only that, it just makes sense for parents to share responsibility and a work life balance.

I wanted to do this with my DH but DS was born in 2011 and the scheme wasn't up and running. I exclusively breastfed and looking back it would have been tough to make the transition back to work after 6 months. But, if we have another child we'll definitely do it for many reasons.

My DH is a wonderful father and deserves the opportunity to be the primary carer during the baby's first year. Plus as the higher earner it makes financial sense for me to get back to work! I've learnt from the experience with DS that if we plan for the transition we can make it easier for ourselves. DS refused to take a bottle so hopefully we'd crack that if we had another...

Being completely honest, my DH struggled during that first year as he felt excluded and I think knowing he'd be sharing the leave would encourage us to stick together and help each other bond in the tough early days - e.g. sharing the load during the night time feeds instead of it all falling to me for the first two years.

I'd love for DH to have this opportunity regardless of the financial implications because I loved my maternity leave and I think the benefits for him and his relationship with our children out weigh my selfish desire to have more time off work

I think its a great idea there is a someone where I work who is adopting this year, and it means he will have chance to bond with their new arrival

DP and I are expecting our little boy on 28th April. We are both the first at our workplaces to ask for it so we've got them scrambling to develop a policy and work out the procedure etc . We are so happy to be able to take advantage of Shared Parental Leave. I'll be taking 6 months off and DP will be taking 4. We plan to take DS swimming together twice a week! DP is thrilled about having a few months at home with his son. We're really looking forward to it and I think it's really important that dad's get to have this time with their babies too.

I do think paternity pay should be extended for as long as maternity pay is (it's going to be a real struggle for us money-wise, lots of belt-tightening) but you can't have everything in life at once and this is a huge step towards equality.