Recommended length of paternity leave?

My job offers 4 months of paid leave which can be used in any capacity and it can be augmented with vacation time as well as FMLA.

My suggestion is use it. Use every single option you have. You will never get those first moments back. The first time your child smiles, holds your finger, looks into your eyes. You will never regret not going into the office, you will regret not spending time with your first child.

I do understand that finances are a concern, but man do I regret not spending more time with my first kid and will definitely strive to spend that time with the one on the way.

Good luck and congratulations.

I’d recommend taking off as much as you financially can. Newborns are an insane amount of work - changing nappies and feeding literally every 2 hours or so, 24 hours a day. All the normal household maintenance chores still need to happen. Plus your wife will have just gone through a major medical procedure, maybe with no complications but also maybe with a lot of physical and/or mental struggles.

It can be a lot, depending on how everything goes. Even if everything is perfectly smooth, this is a gigantic once in a lifetime moment that you should be present for as much as you can.

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Edit: Also, you should take a vacation - the company should be able to run without you for a week no matter what you do. People need time off.

I’m truly unsure how much is usually the norm for fathers.

Not as much as should be.

I work in a stable office job, while my wife is self employed and will be taking 3 months off. I am leaning towards taking the week after birth off and intermittently working from home afterwards as needed, as even with leave I would most likely not receive my full 100% pay, which we will definitely need.

Your wife will have gone through one of the most dangerous things a woman goes through on a "regular" basis. Birth is physically, mentally and emotionally taxing. Afterwards, any healing that needs to take place will be impacted by the ensuing lack of sleep and personal time. Your wife will need you during this period more than you can even imagine. I'm not going to judge you for what time you have decided on right now, but I will strongly suggest you reconsider and take more time off. Think of all the complications of birth, think of PPD, think of the brand new life that will be there. If something happens or if there is any kind of problems.

In addition to the financial impact, my daily work usually consists of stuff that my coworkers would be unable or struggle with staying on top of, and I do not want to put any extra burden on them, or have tasks not completed merely to back up until my return.

I know you're going through a lot so I don't want to tear into you, but I really do want you to consider which is more important: the safety and wellbeing of your wife and child, or your coworkers being slightly busier for a few weeks. A failure of having a backup plan for you needing time off is a failure of your company's leadership, not of you, and I will be honest, I'd be having serious negative thoughts if I was your wife and I realized that this was one of your primary concerns when it came to the amount of paternity you're taking, rather than your family's needs.

Paternity leave should be just as long as maternity leave. Those first months are crucial for bonding, and learning how to properly share parenting duties.

I would even argue it's an unfair burden on your wife to expect her to carry the bulk of the work.

If you have the leave available use it. If possible, just as long as her.

Edit: forgot to mention - I just had my oldest graduate college, my middle graduate high school, and my last child is going to be in high school in 2 years.

You do NOT get to go back and do it over again. You should be present as much as possible. Work is forever, childhood happens only once. Be there. Be present.

CONGRATULATIONS!

It's a cliche, but your life is about to change irrevocably. You won't even be the same person anymore. It's like going into a chrysalis and coming out as an anxious and sleep-deprived butterfly.

That said, it varies a lot by the nature of your work, your wife's work, how you want to split and handle parenting duties, how much help you expect to have from kith and kin, and how able you are to buy your way out of challenges and stress with money.

The "norm for fathers" is not something to peg yourself to. The "norm" for fathers is to take a week or so. But this is crucial bonding time with your child. You will never get it back. Take as much as you can get away with. The Norwegians are entitled to 70 days! My city has a paid family leave policy that entitles you to 6 weeks at 70% pay. That's pretty reasonable.

If you don't want to leave your team in a lurch, you can try to work out split work arrangements. Perhaps working a reduced schedule at maybe 2 days a week for a few weeks where you can handle the stuff that truly only you can.

Father of a 9 month old here. First, congrats! When in the hospital, use the nursery as much as you can, trust me!

My company only offered 1 week paid, but I took an extra 5 unpaid. It still wasn’t enough, and I obviously was not productive when I got back. So take as much as you can afford, for your wife, your kid and yourself. Family is vastly more important then a job.

Take as much time as you can afford to take. Talk to HR. They can give you all the information. There's a huge range of possibilities depending on the state you live in such as whether you're entitled to any partial pay, whether you can apply PTO to get full pay, etc.

Also if your wife has a C-section she will need you around because that's a major abdominal surgery and she won't be able to lift anything (for example, taking a baby out of a crib) for a little while.

Being a parent can be exhausting. Even if all you're doing is letting the baby sleep on you, that gives your wife the opportunity to sleep or shower. Baby cuddles are pretty great.

I took 6 weeks for each of mine. I had saved enough to make up for the FMLA time I didn't have vacation for. Was hands down the absolute best time of my life.

As others have said, take as much time as you think you can then add some. Mom is going to need help. If she's nursing (and she should at least for a few months) she'll be really short on quality sleep. And that's on top of the exhaustion from growing and birthing a human. I'd recommend pumping and freezing and giving her nights off where you do the feedings with thawed milk.

One lesson I had to learn the hard way a couple of times is that your company will replace you in a heartbeat. You cannot replace this time with your family. People harp on the mother-baby bonding. Got news - we can bond just as tightly as fathers if we put in the time. Your kids will remember.

You will need to balance how much help your wife and baby will need from your body and how much from the money you bring in. Do you all have other people that can help? Grandparents or friends? I took 3 days off but that's because I didn't have benefits at the time and she had 5 people in the immediate area that we could relie on.

My company offers 14 weeks of fully paid parental leave. I am immensely grateful for this. I struggle immensely when I have poor sleep hygiene (which you will with a newborn). This allowed me to be an non-functioning human for a while.

During the first 6 weeks (my timing may be off), they need to be fed every 2 to 4 hours, including at night. Then it tapers down to a turning point around 6 months (where they often can start sleeping through the night).

What's not obvious in that statement is how this feeding cycle happens 24/7 and how draining that can be if you don't coordinate with your partner. In other words, you'll need to make time specifically for your partner to sleep and vise-versa. If you're working a full time job, that means coming home and taking care of the baby so your wife can sleep. It's basically, work, baby, sleep, repeat for a while. All while both you and your partner are likely on edge and crabby.

I don't know your financial situation, but I'd absolutely advocate for taking the most time you reasonable can. I've had several colleges who've split their parent leave up. Nearly all of them have taken 2 weeks during the first stint. That seems to be the minimum for adapting to having a baby around.

I'd especially advocate for not really working about "unable or struggling coworkers". Surface these concerns concerns with your manager, document everything you can, and start the hand offs right now. Your company will eventually need to survive without you. This is a great time to figure it out.

As an aside, some industries require all employees to take a two-week vacation every year. It's primarily intended to help capture fraud, but it also surfaces risks - like key employees and business continuity. Your parental leave is a great time for the business to figure out how to run without your presence and eliminate the "bus factor".

Are you able to negotiate working from home full-time for a few weeks after the initial week off? I had 2 weeks paid when my twins were born and while I was ready to go back to work by the time I did, I also worked remotely full-time so I was able to have the best of both worlds. I could take a break and help my wife change diapers, bottle-feed, give her a quick break, etc. and it helped us both a lot. It kept me "in the action", so to speak and kept her sane.

Congrats brother, just had my first back in October.

Unfortunately, at my job they don't offer paternity leave so I had to do all my leave as unpaid FMLA. I took the full 12 weeks of leave because I wanted the time to bond with my son. It's a lot of work and in my case my wife and I were financially okay that I could take the leave when she went back to work. She had paid maternity leave for three months October - December, I worked during that time and in January I went on FMLA when she went back to work. Then in April she took FMLA leave when I went back to work.

The bonding is way too important man, it's a huge life change and if you're able to take the time take as much as you need. Hell, I wish I could just stay at home most days since I love the day to day dad work.

Congratulations!

I agree with other posters to not worry about the “norm” and find ways that work for your situation to spend as much time at home as reasonable for your situation. Life will go on at work just help figure it out the transition now, but your family is most important.

I am the father of a one year old and took two weeks off since as others had mentioned there is a lack of paid leave for fathers especially in the US.

Some things I didn’t realize at the time which are of course very situation dependent. My wife had an early scheduled induction so I ended up using nearly a week of the two I was off before even getting home from the hospital.

Then once we had both returned to work and my child was in daycare there were more days than expected when one of us had to do an early pickup or stay home for illness.

Good luck!

One of my co-workers recently had a kid and took three months off, but he spaced it out. So he took a month off, then came back for a few weeks, then took another month off, etc.

As for what happens at the company when you're not there, I'll tell you the same thing I told him: don't worry about it. It's not your problem. It's up to your manager to figure out with your co-workers. They'll cover for you, just as you'll cover for them if they're in the same position down the road. Take every minute of time off you're entitled to.

In Canada I got 6 weeks off (topped up from the government, without taking any time away from my wifes top-up) and I took an extra week after as vacation time. I can't imagine going back any sooner than I did. My wife was able to take a year off, but man oh man. Those first few months are just... something else... take as much time as you possibly can. I don't know how single mothers can do it. It was a two person job for at least those first six weeks, and I could argue that it's a two person job for the first three months at least. I know the transition of me going back to work was tough on my wife. She got used to me helping in the middle of the nights so she could get a few extra hours of sleep, but I couldn't feasibly do that anymore and still function at work when I went back, so it all fell on her. Don't get me wrong, I was so happy to be there for those precious moments, but it's thankless, sleepless, non-stop around the clock work. Damn kid is worth it though. Makes me so happy.

My experience is that the first 6-8 weeks were absolutely needed. After that, any additional time is great and should be taken if available.

2 weeks is the absolute absolute minimum, I think. Recovery is not always easy (if it’s a c section, for example, she may not even be able to walk properly at 2 weeks), and that time will fly by. I can’t imagine you’ll even be much good at work after only a week, unless you aren’t planning to wake up through the night at all.

My husband said similar things about not wanting to let his coworkers down when I asked him to be home more. I had to point out that by prioritising them, he was letting me down, and he was placing an unfair burden on me rather than them. He hadn’t really seen in that way until I said so. If you have family nearby who can help her, that’s something (I didn’t, my family are the other side of the world), but it can’t replace the family bonding between the three of you.

Lastly, congratulations!! Hoping for a healthy birth and easy transition for you all :)

Are you in the US? The US has horrible parental leave policies. I would say there is no norm for paternal leave because every company has such different policies.

You might qualify for FMLA, if your company is big enough and you’ve been working there long enough. Some states require FMLA be paid, but most don’t. FMLA is 12 weeks in a year period, but your company can require you to take it consecutively so if you go back early it’s considered the end of it.

I would recommend taking as much time as you can. If you have FMLA, take the whole 12 weeks. When we had our child, my husband and I staggered our time so I had 12 weeks and then he took 12 weeks. This worked out well for us as it was during the pandemic so we were able to keep her out of daycare until 6 months old, but man it was extremely hard for me to get through those 12 weeks. I had really bad PPD/PPA, which I was at risk for but I think having more help would have lessened it. I would ask your wife if she would prefer to stagger your time or have your help. And prepare to change all your decisions when the baby is here- she might feel like she can handle things and the baby is easy or she might feel overwhelmed and need more help. Every baby and birth is different.

Is it sad I only took like a week off? I basically told my boss that at some point I would be woken up to go to the hospital for my son to be born and then they wouldn't see me for a week and don't expect to call or anything. Honestly I was quite glad to be back at the office you don't realize how much alone time and sleep mean to you until you have an infant

I came in here just to give everyone a vote. I’m a relatively new father here. I will echo the other tildes daddes here and say take everything you can.

You will be so mentally fried from waking up every 3 hours to make sure your baby is still breathing and to feed them; you won’t be of any use to work anyway. You should instead enjoy every moment you can!

As much as you can. I can't overstate how horrible those first two weeks are. How little sleep you'll get, how little time you'll imagine. Imagine the worst sleep deprivation you've ever gone through, imagine that going in for months. Now imagine your body has gone through a major operation, and you have a human attached to you 24/7 trying to suck milk that might or might be coming out. Your hormones are completely out of wack, you're tired, stressed, depressed.

Other people have talked not missing out in your child's life, and that's true. But I also want to emphasise that your wife needs you like she's never needed you before.

Like many other posters, my suggestion is take the maximum available without putting too much pressure on the family financially.

For some perspective, I was laid off 4 weeks into my parental leave (my company gives 12 weeks fully paid). We are fortunate to be in a good place financially and adding my severance, I am in no rush to find a job.
If I am being honest, I was relieved in a way when I got the news because I don’t think I was ready to go back after 4 weeks. All I wanted was to be with our daughter and help my wife as she recovers physically and mentally.
The job market is tight, but it will eventually get better. However, I will never be able to make up any lost time with our daughter.

Congratulations & wishing you the best!

I'm a new dad - the kid is coming up on 3 months.

It depends a lot on your family and what the needs are. Everyone's situation, partner, baby, etc., is different and we have to find out what works for us. For me, I really wanted to support my wife through the process, first and foremost. Somewhere along the line, the kid became pretty endearing, too. I play a not-insignificant role in a small-ish company and have always tried to give 110% in all my work responsibilities. I took a month off at full pay and tried to do a 50/50 WFH thing for a month. It doesn't work well. The needs don't stop just because I now have work again, lol. My wife gets 3mo. at half pay. We don't have any other help; it's just us.

In retrospect and with the clarity of hindsight, if it's possible financially, I would take the FMLA maximum with no pay. I would happily delay major purchases (car, house, etc.) and spend down my savings to do that. I'm an older first-time parent, do maybe it is financially easier for me to do that. But it's fucking hard. The baby needs so much attention 100% of the time. Everything is new and urgent and scary. Breastfeeding can be a monumental challenge. My wife had a c-section and couldn't do a lot of basic things. It was a full-time job just to make sure everyone was fed.

But again, depends on so many factors. You'll find what's right for you. Flexibility and adaptability will become very important. Best wishes with the delivery - your life will never be the same. Don't worry, it's pretty awesome.