Nobody told me maternity pay comes in layers. I thought it was one number. It is not one number.
Eilidh is on maternity leave with Finn just now, so this one is close to home (the household budget spreadsheet is open in another tab as I type, obviously). But this is not really about us. It is about a question that has popped up a lot this week: how do you actually pay for a full year off with a baby, when the pay stops well before the year does?
A money blogger’s three rules for funding twelve months of maternity leave, despite three months with no pay at all, were doing the rounds on parenting sites at the end of last week. Then on Monday 12 October, MPs were asking ministers in the Commons about statutory paternity pay and whether it is anywhere near enough. The minister, Sir Stephen Timms, said the government’s review of parental leave and pay is due to report early in the new year. So nothing changes yet. But it is a good moment to understand the system as it stands, because the planning lands on both of you.
How the maths actually works
Statutory Maternity Leave is up to 52 weeks. Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) only lasts 39 of them.
For the first 6 weeks, SMP is 90% of her average weekly earnings before tax. For the next 33 weeks it drops to £194.32 a week, or 90% of her earnings if that is lower. Tax and National Insurance still come off. Then the last 13 weeks of a full year are unpaid, unless her employer offers something extra.
£194.32 a week works out at roughly £840 a month before tax. Against a normal mortgage or rent, that does not go far. And the big drop arrives at six weeks, right when you are both pure shattered and least in the mood to look at a bank app.
Some employers pay enhanced maternity pay on top, so check her contract or staff handbook first. Plenty of schemes are generous early on and still taper down to statutory pay or nothing. Read the actual policy, not the version someone remembers from the staffroom.
What dads get (and what you might not)
Since April 2026, Paternity Leave has been a day one right. That means you can take up to 2 weeks off from your first day in a job, either together or as two separate one week blocks, any time in the 52 weeks after the birth.
Here is the bit that catches people out, though. The leave is day one. The pay is not. To get Statutory Paternity Pay you still need to have worked for your employer continuously for at least 26 weeks by the 15th week before the due date, and earn at least £129 a week on average. If you started a new job recently, you might be entitled to the time off but not the money. Is that just me who did not know that?
Statutory Paternity Pay is the same flat rate as later SMP: £194.32 a week or 90% of your earnings, whichever is lower. Your employer might pay more. Ask early.
Then there is Shared Parental Leave. If you are both eligible, you can share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay in the first year, as long as she cuts her maternity leave and pay short to free it up. You can take it in blocks or be off together for a bit.
Be clear what Shared Parental Leave does not do, mind. It does not add extra paid weeks. The 37 weeks of shared pay come out of the same pot as her 39 weeks of SMP (she has to take the first 2 weeks after the birth herself). So it changes who is off and when, but those unpaid weeks at the end are still there unless one of your employers enhances the pay. Some do. Most do not.
A couple of smaller things that are easy to miss:
- Keeping in touch days. She can work up to 10 paid days during maternity leave without it ending her leave or pay, if she and her employer both agree. Lots of parents on the forums say they saved theirs for the unpaid months on purpose.
- Pensions. Pension contributions usually stop during unpaid leave unless the contract says otherwise.
- Child Benefit. It is £27.05 a week for an eldest or only child. Even if you end up paying the High Income Child Benefit Charge, a claim in the name of the parent at home still gets them National Insurance credits towards their State Pension while the child is under 12. If you think you earn too much, claim anyway and opt out of the payments.
- Unpaid Parental Leave. You can take up to 18 weeks per child before they turn 18, usually no more than 4 weeks a year per child and in whole weeks. It is unpaid, so it does not help the money, but it can help the gaps.
Up here in Scotland, Social Security Scotland also runs the Best Start Grant Pregnancy and Baby Payment and Scottish Child Payment for families on certain benefits. Check mygov.scot if there is any chance you qualify.
What parents are actually saying about the money
I went through a pile of Mumsnet and Netmums threads to see how couples handle this in real life. A few things kept coming up.
The split is where it gets tense. One of the most common posts goes like this: a couple who have always kept their money separate and split everything 50:50, and now she is about to drop to statutory pay, or nothing, while his income does not change. She does not want to come back to work with her savings gone and his untouched. The replies are not subtle about it. The baby is both of yours, so the drop in income is both of yours too.
Pro rata or one pot. The two fixes people suggest most are working out what share of the take home pay each of you brings in each month and paying bills in that ratio (so in a month she earns nothing, she pays nothing), or putting everything in one joint account and giving each of you the same personal spending money. A dad who suggests either before being asked comes out of these threads looking very good.
The minority view gets pushback. A few people argue that if you choose to take 12 months on 9 months of pay, you should still cover your share. Others point out fairly quickly that those extra months also save the household a big chunk of nursery fees.
Baby costs are bigger than nappies. One poster’s rule was that anything you would not be paying for if the baby did not exist counts as a shared baby cost. That includes baby classes, the coffee and cake with the antenatal group, and the slow drip of high chairs and first shoes, then second shoes, then third shoes.
Savings vary a lot, and some people needed less than they feared. On one Netmums thread, people had put away anything from about £1,000 to £11,000. The mum who saved £11,000 said she only used around £2,000 of it over the whole year. Another said living on SMP day to day was fine, because babies themselves do not need much. The childcare bill when you go back was the real killer, and she compared it to a second mortgage.
Practise before it happens. A tip I liked: from the 12 week scan, one mum started putting the amount she expected to pay in childcare into savings every month. It got them used to the new budget and built a cushion at once.
And the blunt answer. On an older thread about money running out at 39 weeks, the replies were short. If you cannot afford the unpaid months, you go back sooner, and you tell your employer as early as you can. Harsh, but fair.
What to actually do this week
If you have a baby on the way, or one already here and the 39 week cliff in sight:
- Put both your pay dates into the GOV.UK maternity and paternity calculator, then write down what will actually land in the bank, month by month, for the whole year.
- List the fixed bills (housing, council tax, energy, food, travel, debts) and find the leanest months. The gap between the two is your number.
- Divide that gap by the months you have left before it hits. That is your monthly saving target. Start it as a standing order on payday so it is gone before you notice.
- Read both employers’ policies for enhanced maternity, paternity or shared parental pay. Ask HR, in writing, if anything is unclear.
- Agree how you will split bills before the first low payslip, not after. Pro rata or one pot, whatever works, as long as you both have the same breathing room.
- Claim Child Benefit as soon as the birth is registered, even if you plan to opt out of the payments.
None of this is glamorous. It is a spreadsheet and an awkward chat over a cuppa. But nobody wants to be doing that maths at 3am with a baby on one shoulder (I have tried, it does not add up any better in the dark).
The review could change things next year. For now, plan with the rules we have, and do it together.
Sources: GOV.UK Maternity pay and leave, GOV.UK Paternity pay and leave, GOV.UK Shared Parental Leave and Pay, GOV.UK Keeping in touch days, GOV.UK Child Benefit, GOV.UK Unpaid parental leave, GOV.UK maternity and paternity calculator, Hansard, Statutory Paternity Pay, 12 October 2026, mygov.scot Best Start Grant.
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