Holy crap this is terrible...

A remarkable display of ignorance of both physics and biology

I do hate arguing with crazies...

At the start, it's an interesting mental exercise... but after a bit you get tired of the dance and they just keep going...

anyone have any experiences with good paternity leave experiences? I'm trying to figure out how much time to take and how to structure it, but seems a little open ended for the site itself

@AJHenderson I didn't really get paternity leave, per se, but I saved up all my vacation and flex-time. I took it all starting the day my wife ended her maternity leave.

It gave us close to 3 months of one or the other of us keeping an eye on our son 24/7

How you structure it depends somewhat on your plans post-leave. Will your wife be working after her leave is up? Are you planning on daycare? Having a family member look after your son?

@jkerian deleted answer?

@AJHenderson Yeah. Someone with some... strong opinions... on how our whole world is polluted with nuclear radiation posted 5 or 6 answers, starting with "rant" and then setting the dial all the way to "angry spam"

@Beofett we're going to hire my wife's mother for care when my wife is sleeping (wife is night shift)

@Beofett fun

wife is probably going to take 2 weeks vacation and 6 more weeks STD

might go unpaid for a month as well depending

@AJHenderson We alternated "night shift" depending on who was on leave at the time, although I took a bunch of feeding/changing shifts in the first few weeks.

I figure I want atleast the first 2 weeks off entirely to spend with the newborn, but was thinking about doing half time working from home for the last week of time off I have banked

no, I mean, wife actually works at night

so there is always someone home

ah

nice

sure whoever is home is asleep for 12 to 14 hours a day

but there is someone there if a problem comes up that a parent needs to deal with

we wound up putting my son at an in-home daycare at 3 months (well, really it was a friend and her three daughters), which was really hard on us.

yeah, Danielle's mother is a home nurse, but she's gonna take a pay cut to become professional nanny

so that she can take care of her grandson at our place

how long did it take before the baby didn't really need constant attention?

my main concern is if a month of high availability to deal with the baby and 2 weeks of total availability is too much, not enough or about right

@AJHenderson Honestly, those first few months are still a blur, but there's a lot of sleep involved. I believe after the first month or so, the sleep periods started to lengthen a bit, and by the time the third month started, naps were long enough that I could get a bit of sleep with my son while he napped, too.

keep in mind that kids vary a lot, even at that stage. Some kids sleep easily. Others don't, especially if colic is involved.

I know one baby that was so hard to get to sleep that they kicked him out of the nursery at the hospital on his first night, because he was disturbing the other babies.

Middle-of-the-road is probably on target with 2 weeks of total availability, and a month of high availability.

one of the things I like about the hospital we are using is that they actually encourage the husband to stay at the hospital to and they can actually setup a bed for the baby in the room too

though if you need to get some sleep, they do have the nursery available

big rooms too, the maternity ward is more like a nice hotel than a hospital

@AJHenderson ours did that, as well (same one that kicked that other baby out of the nursery, actually).

it was kind of crazy how nice the rooms were, the delivery rooms are even nicer

the delivery rooms are like the size of a hotel suite

Yeah, the idea of comfortable environment seems to have caught on, and I think it's great.

complete with a jacuzi.. err pardon me "hydrotherapy"

Ours had paintings on the wall that would slide down to reveal medical equipment, and other stuff like that.

yeah, all the medical equipment is hidden away in cabinets and the delivery lights hide up in to the ceiling

aside from the bed having some funky looking parts, the IV stand, a few extra monitors and the baby warmer next to it (which they rarely use anymore) you wouldn't guess it was a hospital room

The only complaint I had was the food... for me, at least; they save the good stuff for the mothers. If yours is anything like ours was, pack snacks, or have family and friends bring you some food :)

and if things go sideways, they have 3 dedicated operating rooms that are at the end of the hall with anestesiologists and surgeons on site all the time

the food isn't quite as good as my wife's hospital, but it is good

Yeah, that's pretty important. Our son was an emergency c-section, after about 8 hours of labor.

we tried out the cafeteria at our birth class

was actually the best turkey club sandwich I've had for the price in a while

I'd expect better if it was the $10+ it costs at my local deli, but it was $5.60

only other place that cheap is subway and this was WAY better than subway

like, if I worked at the hospital, I wouldn't bother going anywhere else for lunch

and then was the weekend with a reduced menu

getting really exciting being down so close to the end though

with under 6 weeks to go, could really pop any time

meeting with our Duula tonight (who is also a friend of the family)

and I really should get a new remote trigger cable for my camera

@AJHenderson Enjoy every minute of it :)

I'm also getting really nervous now about the wedding I'm working at on the 16th

@AJHenderson I took paternity leave! But I live in Austria so I am not sure how my experience could help you. Different laws & corporate cultures etc.

Ping me if you're interested nevertheless. I'm heading to bed now but with luck you might reach me in ... 9 hours from now?

@TorbenGundtofte-Bruun I'm mostly just trying to figure out what would be useful

I'm pretty sure my employer will work with me to do just about anything, I'm just trying to figure out how best to approach it

because I'd like things to go smoothly with getting the baby accustomed to home life and making sure things are running smoothly when I go back to work full time, but have no idea how long that really takes or if it is even remotely predictable