Have you ever thought about sharing your maternity leave? Splitting it with your partner? It's all very modern day family isn't it?
We did the same principle (it was called something else then) with Daisy and we are in the middle of doing it with Alex at the moment.
Basically this time we have been able to split our "leave" into 3 blocks, I am having the first 5 months, Ben then goes off to have the next two while I return to work and then I return back to being on leave for the remaining few months.
I often get asked why and well there is not just one answer to give. Part of is on financial but then there are other factors such as wanting to keep my hand in work (sad I know, but I do have to return one day and I don't want to feel like I've been gone forever), I want to make it easier to return when I eventually do full time and Ben gets time to spend with Alex that he will not get again, not in one big block anyway.
Yes the statutory pay will still not be wonderful but that's a downfall we would have to deal with if it was me who took the whole maternity leave, so either way it's tricky.
I'm not saying I wouldn't choose to have the leave to myself or more so that I wouldn't go back to work at all if I could have a choice because of course I want to spend all of my time with my babies if I can, as much as it's actually easier to go to work in my opinion than look after two very demanding mini people at times (not the same for everyone I know!)! Oh to drink a hot cup of tea or not have your lunch sat going stale all afternoon!
I did a mini little video all about it here so I won't go into too much detail:
Hayley xxx
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