should I be able to change my hours?

[supersonic]

I currently work 1 - 6pm Mon Tues Thurs and Fri and on a wednesday cover the phone from 5 - 6 - I work from home taking phone calls and making appts. We have a main 0800 no. so all calls go through to my colleagues and they deal with the calls in the morning and in the afternoon pass them to me.
My DD is 4 this month and in Jan starts reception at this stage I would like to change my hours to perhaps 9 - 2 - however I have a strong feeling that this request may not go down well as there would be no-one to cover the phones between 5 -6.
Can this request be refused without any compromise and how far ina dvance do you thing I should mention it?
I am also considering asking my manager about having a an extra day off a week (I would cover the phones between 5 -6)in the school holidays - although I only have 4 days left. Am I right in thinking you can have 13 wks unpaid leave for something along those lines?
Am I being unreasonable with these requests?
please be honest and apologies for babbling on!

You can make an application to change your hours, and it must be considered in light of the business. They have to have a business reason not to accommodate your request. There is a formal request form you fill in and they have to respond in writing within 28 days. Also, you can take up to 4 weeks parental leave per year in blocks of a week . ie. if you only take 3 days, it counts as one week gone, I think, and it is unpaid. Not sure on the 13 week thing - sorry. Someone will be along in a minute to do a super dooper linky thing to lots of old threads on this.......or check the archives in the worky section.

thanks beachyhead.
The other is that I work for a 'one man band' set up so would this have any bearing on the situation, good or bad?
The buisness reason would be that the phones need to be covered between 5 - 6.
With regard to the unpaid leave Ithought Iwoudl ask for an extra one day off a week so it would not inconvenience everyone so much so hopefully he woudl agree to this. I also only get paid a basic salary and from there on after I get paid per appt made so in my eyes I thought the best way would be not to pay me for any apptsmade on the days I was having as unpaid - it seems all so simple to me - but it would!

You can change under the new law for working parents of children under 6 years old

1st though look in to with your HR dept