what do you think about the whole thing
do you think its right and we should be entitled to split the maternity leave. will you miss being able to take the full 9 months if your partner does want to take more?? would you be happy to returnt to work and allow your partner to be a SAHD??
discuss! xx

ummmmmm i am pretty happy about it - i don't really know the ins and outs but if hubby hadn't been in the middle of uni we would have seriously considered me going back full time and him staying at home a few months back - in fact when he graduates at the end of this year we might do that, depending on who gets a job first

i still think it's important that people don't feel pressured to go back to work too soon though, and i would want at least 6 months all to myself

Nope there is no way I would want to share any of my maternity leave. I wanted to spend as much time with my babies as I could before I went to work both times.

This may sound selfish, but OH works shifts and gets to see the girls at different times of the day, I work 9-5 and on my work days it's a mad dash out of the house in the morning and I am lucky to get an hour with them before bed.

Besides I'm pretty sure OH wouldn;t want to spend that much time alone with the kids!! LOL

Well Dan earns loads more than me, and we can only afford me as a SAHM with him working

If i'd worked and he'd stayed at home then we'd have had to claim benefits to live ..and probably still been skint...besides I don't agree with SAHM/Ds claiming benfits, if you choose to stay at home then you should get no more benefit than you would if working!

So no, financially it was never an option to do it the other way around.

^ we would go with whoever was earning most, it would have been me if i was fulltime this year but who knows next year! but after 6 months i wouldn't have minded (plus we get less benefits than if i was working boo! haha)

may sound selfish, but like pepper i wouldnt want to share...i know obvs i might have had to if he wanted to have more peternity leave, but he didnt even take the full 2 weeks so couldnt see him wanting to anyway tbh

i also hope it doesnt lead to women feeling pushed to going back to work sooner, i think them early months are important (well they all are but ykwim) x

Oh god I can't imagine leaving dom in charge of the house - he still believes in the laundry fairy!

Ithink on the grounds of equality that it's great news and this may be really good for some families. But like others have said oh earns much more than I do so itwouldn't have been an option for us. Also my oh is shite at housework etc so it'd never have worked. We were quite lucky that oh got about 6 weeks pat leave on full pay! x

i think its a great thing, my hubby does fantastic on the days he looks after ava when i'm at work although could definatly improve on the housework. I don't think i would have split my maternity with him though, i enjoyed the time off too much.

I am sure my OH would love the idea and then be screaming to get back to work after a month

The bigger issue on this is how the hell employers are supposed to manage it. OH and I are easy because we work for the same company but essentially in most cases two employers would have to communicate to ensure that mum and dad were splitting it properly and that the right amount was being paid. It sounds like an administrative nightmare to me.

I don't know the ins and outs of how they intend to work this but I do have my reservations tbh.

I think maternity leave isn't just about the baby being looked after - it's about the health and well being of both mother and baby. Ok some ladies sale through without a care in the world and are back to there 'normal' self within a few weeks. However I honestly don't think I would have been ready to go back before either of my two were around 5-6 months old. Not because I didn't want to leave them (this is not something I have ever had issues with) but because I have terrible hormone problems and think mentally I wouldn't have coped with the preasure of going back to work before this point. I am a very level headed person who is very aware of my own body etc and I just know I wasn't myself during pg and up to about 6 months post natal.

If Paul had have wanted to split the time off with me I would have felt selfish and preasured to allow this and could quite easily ended up with health issues such as pnd etc as a result. I would have hoped we would have been able to talk about it but it's not something I was really aware of until I looked back.

I do think in some cases it would be an ideal situation but I think all too often it is forgotten that women go through 9 months of changes both physically and mentally then possible traumatic births and post natal recovery. Maternity leave isn't about having time off to go to coffee mornings and watch day time TV, it's about learning to be a mum, building a bond with your child, allowing your body and mind to recover and adapt and I think very few men appreciate this fact and just see it as 'time off'.

So esentially I think yes it could be a good idea for some but it should be fixed so that the mother HAS to have the first 3-4 months of post birth and then possibly the father can take the rest?

xx

The mother has to take 20 weeks off before the father can Debs.

It's something me and oh are considering because I've run 2 maternity leaves together and I'm absolutely desperate to get back to work so I can get back to normal. His boss is a good friend though so were waiting to talk to him about it, if it causes too much hassle then we wont bother because with the 11 weeks before bab comes then my 20 weeks it wont be worth organising it for the 6 weeks he'll get off

If I earned more than russ it would be an option. But he earns more so I get the time off. To be Ho.est he would make a better sahd than I would, I'm not sure how I will cope without working, but will see

we did this... I went back to work after 4 months and OH stayed at home.. but he wasn't on paternity leave it was just that I earned way more than him. You only get maternity pay here for 18 weeks so there was no other option.

this time I want more time off though so am hoping we can afford it