[n4r9]

Yes, I'm very jealous of what you get, "up north". Some companies in the UK are generous - I hear Google (or at least DeepMind) provides 3 months - but some dads in my antenatal class only got a single week off. And some of the mums went back to work after 6 months, putting the baby in nursery at that age.

[gambiting]

UK is weirdly crap at it compared to other European countries. Dads only get 2 weeks at statutory pay(like £150 a week), mums can take a full year but they get progressively less with time, where if I remember correctly after the first 3 months they only get statutory pay(about £600 a month) then in the last 3 months they get absolutely nothing. So yeah, no surprise women are getting back to work sooner - the financial penalty for staying on maternity leave is huge.

[n4r9]

I'm not sure if her company is particularly generous, but my wife is getting 3 months at something like 80 or 90% pay, then 6 months stat pay, then 3 months nothing. Fortunately she still accrues annual leave during the year, which means we do have the option of covering the final month at full pay. We're going to try to tough it out and tack a month of leave on at the end instead.

How old is/are your kid/s now if you don't mind me asking? And did you have another one after the terrible sleeper? I only ask because we're now in that phase of trying to decide whether having another one is what we want.

[gambiting]

Sorry for the late reply - our kid turns 3 next month.

And nope, I'm very much against having another one, exactly because the first one was such a bad sleeper, every time I start thinking whether to have another child I remember sitting on the floor and literally crying because I was so exhausted and he just wouldn't sleep, or doing something and just knowing that he will wake up in an hour and there is nothing I can do to prevent that. It was absolutely awful and I don't want to take that risk again.

Having said that......he is an absolute angel now. Very bright, very cuddly, loves to play and hug and definitely reciprocates all the love we give him. So I do sometimes think "wouldn't it be great to have another" - and then I remember again.

[n4r9]

Thanks for the reply. I think that is a common theme - first kid being a bad sleeper makes a second kid much less likely. We're on the tail end of an illness now and he's rarely going for more than 1-2 hours without attention. And he's never regularly slept for more than 45 mins in a nap. It must be a huge difference in quality of life if you know that they're going down for a 2 hour afternoon nap. You can nap yourself, or get a workout in or something. That said, I've heard nightmare stories even at your daughter's age. One friend couple of ours has a 3 yr old who wakes up between 2 and 4 am every night, and needs playing with and reading to.

> I remember sitting on the floor and literally crying

I feel this, and it's still like that for me sometimes. Last night I shouted "Just go to sleep!" at him, I got so frustrated and upset because he kept taking his own dummy out of his mouth and waking himself up. I'm really hoping that once he starts either crawling or walking he'll burn off that energy and sleep better.