Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH got no additional PL. I think he took three days after my C-Section both times.

Most of us whose husbands took leave didn't "get" anything, we were taking our own leave.

I’m a woman and I have to use my own leave for maternity leave. I “get” to take it because of FMLA though. DC paid family leave applies to men too.

Exactly. Men are entitled to a full FMLA and can take it if they want. It is just a matter of planning ahead to save for it.

2nd pp here. That's what I was implying. I didn't get maternity either but I saved for a decade. I think men don't take it because they don't want to. DH's work now offers 12 weeks paid but none of the men take it. They're very family friendly and DH encourages his employees, but the men don't want that long. Women always take it.

I'm pregnant with a 3rd baby. DH will take 4 weeks when baby is born and then 6-8 weeks when I go back. That helps us so much more than him being home weeks 4-12 when I've got it all covered and just want to relax with new moms groups.

Honestly, not sure what we are going to do. DH just started a job (less than a year so doesn't qualify for FMLA protections), and it's at a DC Charter school (so we aren't sure if he qualifies for the new 8 week DC paid leave - it seems it's just private employers who have to pay in...).

He doesn't earn vacation and he gets 2 personal days for the school year. He also accrues "up to" 10 sick days a school year, so I guess by the time our baby is born (Dec) he might have 4 sick days to use?

So we are really unsure of what to do. We could manage if his leave is unpaid but are of course pretty nervous on him keeping his at will job. If we ask for unpaid time, unsure how much we can ask for...

2017: DH had 9 weeks of sick leave saved up and he used it all (but spaced out over the first 5 months due to a long NICU stay, a road trip to finally introduce baby to grandparents and then staying home the first month I was back at work.)
2019: DH was at a new job that provided six weeks paid and he used it all at once.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH got no additional PL. I think he took three days after my C-Section both times.

Most of us whose husbands took leave didn't "get" anything, we were taking our own leave.

I’m a woman and I have to use my own leave for maternity leave. I “get” to take it because of FMLA though. DC paid family leave applies to men too.

Exactly. Men are entitled to a full FMLA and can take it if they want. It is just a matter of planning ahead to save for it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH got no additional PL. I think he took three days after my C-Section both times.

Most of us whose husbands took leave didn't "get" anything, we were taking our own leave.

I’m a woman and I have to use my own leave for maternity leave. I “get” to take it because of FMLA though. DC paid family leave applies to men too.

Anonymous wrote:DH got no additional PL. I think he took three days after my C-Section both times.

Most of us whose husbands took leave didn't "get" anything, we were taking our own leave.

DH got no additional PL. I think he took three days after my C-Section both times.

DH had left big law when DD was born, so he basically took a year of paternity leave to be with us/her.

When our second arrived (adopted) he took four months. At that point though, he had started his own firm, so he just went unpaid for most of that time.

I'm a fed and due in early November. Assuming baby says where she belongs until October 1, I'll have three months paid parental leave and will take another month of my own PTO. My husband works for a tech company and gets three months paid. So he'll take a month with me when she's born, and then will take the remaining two months after I go back to work. We're SUPER grateful to have the time - and that the federal paid parental leave timing worked for us. (Obviously - many people will have had kids this year ahead of the October 1 date and miss out, which sucks.)

Mine took 6 weeks, 2 at the front end and a month by himself when I went back. At the time he didn't get any paternity leave (fed, couple of years ago), so he used his PTO. If we do it again he'll take every day he's entitled to since feds have joined the twenty-first century. He's a great dad and the using the leave for one-on-one time was intentional instead of overlapping.

We're still trying to figure this out. With our first kid, DH took off a week when she was born, a week after my mom left, then 6 weeks when I went back to work. For baby #2 who is due in November, we've been thinking he'll take off a month when baby is born and 2 months when I go back to work, but we'll see.

DH is a fed. With baby#1, he saved his leave. A couple of his coworkers made some snide comments about how much time he was taking but he didn't let is bother him and he's gotten a promotion since then so I guess it didn't bother his bosses. This time around, he'll get 12 weeks of family leave plus he has some end of year use or lose so I think he'll save some of the family leave for the remainder of 2021 in case things come up.

Anonymous wrote:3 months.

It’s far less common for men to take that much but you have to be the change you want to see in the world!

+1. And it was AMAZING.

3 months.

It’s far less common for men to take that much but you have to be the change you want to see in the world!

He got six weeks, so he took six weeks. We thought about splitting it 2 up front and 4 when I went back to work, but we did not have help and 2 weeks felt too early to be on my own (obviously people do it, but I think 6 up front together was best for us). We got to split shifts so we were both getting a reasonable amount of cobbled together sleep, we both got to bond with baby, and fathers taking the max paid parental leave is so important for gender equality in the workplace.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH took one week when DD#1 was born back in 2016, but we had extensive help from family for the first 6 weeks, until I went back to work.
DD#2 was born in May. DH took 3 days. No family help, either, due to the pandemic. He was WFH at the time, but it was still pretty rough. DD#2 is a very easy baby, but DD#1 is very high energy and needs a lot of attention and engagement.
He is a fed and got no paid parental leave either time. We tried to manage without him signing PTO.

Umm he’s a Fed. We get good sick and annual leave. He could have used either sick or annual for the birth of a baby. He took 3 days because he didn’t save it.

With the birth of DD#2, there was an illness/death in the family that required DH to take a considerable amount of time off in the months before her birth. So, no, he didn't have a lot of time saved, and we didn't want to use up what little he had left. It was an unfortunate situation, and something we hadn't been able to plan for ahead of time, obviously.