My wife and I are expecting our first child at the end of March. I'm ineligible for paternity leave since I've been at my current employer for under a year.
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Any mustachian fathers have some advice? I'm going to be there for the birth and at least a day or so after. I'm wondering who took extended time off and what you would do if you had to do it again?
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There are a lot of options available if you are willing to take unpaid time off work, FMLA is a mustachian dream in some ways for Americans (ignoring how much of the rest of the world gets for time off for paternity/maternity leave). I think you can take up to 12 weeks off per year for having a child.
I think OP would be ineligible for FMLA since he was at his employer for less than one year. However, depending on your job and the nature of your relationship with your boss, I think there's a good chance you'd be able to take the time off as unpaid leave of some sort and still have a job to go back to. (again, depending on your personal relationship)
As for me, I took two weeks off immediately following the birth of our child, it was great and I'm glad I did. I would have probably taken a bit more time off ideally, but our son was born a bit earlier than expected so I hadn't planned everything out ahead of time, so it was nice to be able to take the two weeks on short notice.
I think I'm entitled to take another six to eight weeks of paid leave which I will probably plan in advance and take once my wife's leave ends. That way we can also push off daycare for another two months.
I'm on the fence about taking another four weeks of unpaid leave off after that, while technically I'd still have job protection through FMLA, I think some people were already surpised that I wanted to take the 8 weeks. I may still take the four weeks unpaid leave afterwards, decisions decisions..