I was glad DH took one day - and that one day he had already planned to take off anyway because DS1 's school was closed that day. Luckily I gave birth on a Saturday night and DH could work his entire Saturday (he worked until 4, DS2 was born at 8), and then he didn't have to go back until Wednesday (instead of his normal Tuesday). He owns his own business. This baby was very considerate for DH's schedule in his birthing plans.
My H was home for four weeks - paid - with the twins. It was fantastic. I was very sad when he went back to work but honestly it was fine. Sure it would have been nice to have him home the whole time I was - but it was unnecessary.
For #3 he only took two days because his new job had screwed up leave policies and taking FLM would not have been a good move for us financially.
Even if a couple has ample savings, not everyone wants to use those dollars for an extended paternity leave.
I didn't respond to the poll because H was a little different. He has his own law firm and is the only attorney so his staff really can't "cover" for him. M was born on Thursday and he took Friday off and went back to work on Monday. Even when we go on vacation he is constantly in touch and handling client issues.
With that being said, he did make sure to come home early and go in late for the first couple weeks.
Also, I don't think I would have wanted him home the whole time. I had a friend whose husband is the stay at home parent and he left his job as soon as the baby was born even though she got 16 weeks off. I would have gone crazy. H's office is only 5 mintues from the house so I would drop by with M a lot for lunch and some adult conversation.
When we have kids, DH will have a longer leave than me, most likely.
His company offers 12 weeks at full pay - and usually both moms and dads take the full amount with no repercussions - and an additional 12 weeks at half pay.
I work for a small business so I will get the bare minimum (6 weeks of state disability) plus state family leave of an additional 6 weeks within the first year.
Post by runblondie26 on Apr 11, 2013 8:50:21 GMT -5
Luckily, we didn't have to make that decision since DH can arrange his schedule to get a nice big chunks of time off. Since we had a lot of family visiting the first couple months, he'd work a lot for 2 weeks (with a few short stops at home), then have almost 2 weeks completely off.
After that, he switched to working just the "night shift" 3-days a week, and then was home with DD during the day. He doesn't make as much money doing the red-eye trips (compared to to multi-day trips), and it's more draining on him, otherwise we'd keep that schedule all the time. It worked great for the 1st year though, and saved us on infant ($) daycare. We'll probably do the same thing for this one.
At the time, DH worked for a small office in insurance sales . He was not FMLA eligible, the boss was not that flexible with both extra time and modifying DH's sales goal to accommodate any time DH took off, and DH received only 10 days of paid time off total--this was meant to cover sick time and personal appts as well as vacation (yuck, right? ). So he took one week off, keeping the other 5 days available for emergencies. Our son also had awesome timing by coming very early on a Saturday, and the week before Labor Day. So we came home on a Monday, and DH had off until the following Tues, sort of maximizing the time possible. But yeah, parental leave is a mess in this country.
Lol. My H was working while I was in the hospital. We have plenty of savings and he makes plenty of money. We just never decided that he needed to be with me. He was ready to go back to work and I was ready to e with the kids.
DH gets 6wks paid paternity leave but only took one week. At the time, he had a lot of deals going on at work and couldn't be away that long. Since my ILs and then my mom were at home with me for five weeks after DH went back to work, it wasn't a big deal. I was a little sad that we didn't plan better and had DH take a longer leave after everyone left. Oh well, maybe next time!
DH was off for 2.5 weeks. The first 3 days were paid paternity leave; the rest was FMLA time. He was the first male at the company to use FMLA time for the birth of a child, although at least one other guy did use 2 weeks FMLA time after talking to DH and realizing that it was an option. We had toyed with 3 weeks, but DH was hoping to take a big-deal, time-sensitive project at work, and he was concerned that he wouldn't be able to take it if he was out of the office longer. My job is not very secure, so we take any opportunity for DH to gain more job security or get ahead at his company.
At the time, we didn't have family in the area. I had a really rough time breastfeeding at the beginning, so it would have been nice to have him home for a few more days since it felt like he left as soon as things started to fall into place, but it was fine. He did shift his schedule temporarily to go in later and not stay late so he could help more overnight, and that was a big help. He has definitely bonded well with DD, and we're pretty 50/50 with parenting, so while more time off would have been fun, I don't feel like it was detrimental to have him go back to work when he did.