Why paternity leave for men is actually quite nice

Men now gets five days off when they become a father. Next year, that will be no less than six weeks: quite a difference.

Now you get five times, a full work week, the number of hours you normally work. If you work eight hours a day, you get 40 hours of leave as a new dad. Starting in 2020, you will also receive an additional five weeks of leave, during which you will be paid 70 percent of your salary. You must take this within six months after the birth of your child, but you can of course spread the days and weeks. What a luxury. But it's a good thing too: last year, as a man, you only got two days of leave when you just had a child. Two days for something so important in your life. Perhaps the most important. And also read: zero sleep.

Those 48 hours of staying home is a bit awkward, because how are you supposed to learn everything from the maternity nurse, get to know your child, and of course help your wife when you have to go back to work? Of course, you can take vacation days, but not every job makes this easy, because you never really know exactly when such a little one will be born. You will see that you just have that important meeting scheduled that you cannot miss. Well.

So if you want to have babies: giving birth in 2020 seems a great plan. The more rest you have as a woman, because your husband has six weeks for you. Luckily, my husband works as a freelancer, which definitely works in our favor in this case. He can take off as long as he wants and whenever he wants, and especially because he knows that busy times are coming, he can already prepare well for that with any big jobs.

And leave is quite nice for a man. In fact, mine is really looking forward to it. Chatting together in that baby room, discovering everything together, and let's be honest, having two on the way is quite handy. Enjoying baths, cuddling, snuggling. They are our children and together we will experience those first hectic days and weeks, with everything that comes with it. How intimate is it to experience that with your husband? Additionally, he also has more time to catch up on sleep, should that not go well at night, and to take a moment for himself. If he is really lucky, they can already watch some football together (from the playpen). Then he will be disappointed when work calls him back.

No darling, it won't feel like a vacation, because there is plenty to do. But we will make it a celebration with the four of us.