Parenting & Family

12 month vs 18 month mat leave help

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  • Feb 26th, 2020 11:26 am
Newbie
Dec 8, 2018
21 posts
23 upvotes

12 month vs 18 month mat leave help

Wondering what your thoughts are on 12 month vs 18 month mat leave.

-Wife is due with baby number 2 in 8 weeks.
-Her company does not offer top up
-I am not taking any parental leave, it is all hers
-She likes the possibility of 18 months in case the baby needs her after 12 months, but she won't know that until month 11 or 12.
-Unfortunately you cannot change 12/18 month timeline after you receive the first cheque.

I personally do not see any benefit of 18 months since you do not receive any additional pay. Maybe it is worth while taking 12 month, getting paid in full, then taking an unpaid leave for a short period of time if your company will allow it.

What are your thoughts?
18 replies
Deal Expert
Aug 2, 2001
18944 posts
10527 upvotes
My thoughts are:
- Your child will likely not "need" your wife after 12 months any more than they "need" your wife after 18 months, so do not base this decision off that.
- One advantage to 18 months, at least in my province, is that the price of child care drops at the 18 month mark (ratios change).
- Another advantage is if you have your other child taken out of childcare you will save an additional 6 months of child care expenses for that child.

I'm truly not sure if waiting until 18 months would make the separation anxiety any easier. And, truthfully, it's probably mainly dependent on your child anyways so you will never know. 18 months is a great option if money is not a concern and your wife wants that much more time with her children. As this is child #2 I suspect your wife likely knows what her initial want is (i.e. if she was screaming she wanted to get out and back to work for child #1).
Deal Addict
Mar 24, 2015
1404 posts
739 upvotes
Ottawa, ON
I'd say it depends what you would like to do in terms on childcare. In Ottawa, most daycare centres take toddlers from 18 months. We were limited in terms on daycare centres what would take toddlers from 12 months. They were either too far, had a long waiting list, or we did not like them. They are also more expensive for 12-18 months. So we had our in-laws look after our sons until they started daycare at 18 months. There is also home daycare (which is cheaper than centres) but we had a bad experience with our second son and he only stayed there for a month, then back to my in-laws.

We're thinking of having a third so this has come up in my mind a few times. I'm thinking work part time from 12-18 months and have my mum look after our child 2 days a week. If my mum is not available, then I would take the 18 months leave. It would also be our last, so I want to spend more time with the child.
Deal Fanatic
Sep 21, 2004
8687 posts
1542 upvotes
From a financial standpoint I agree with your assessment. 12 months makes more sense. Especially if you're not tight on $. Collect the money first and decide on course of action later. If your wife needs more time, do it as unpaid. Note: there's some minor tax considerations so it's not exactly the same but we're talking minimal here.

However, I believe you need to look at this from not just a financial standpoint. This is your offspring we're talking about. You shouldn't (can't) make decisions just based on number crunching. Things like bonding time, physical, emotional, cognitive development cannot be measured against dollars. The first 5 years of your child's life are arguably that most important and sets them up for life.

We're currently on our 3rd mat/pat leave. My wife has taken ~2 years/child and I generally take about 3 months each. We've lost/missed out on a lot of income and have had to make some sacrifices to make it happen. Money can always be made but you can't get these early years back.
Jr. Member
Nov 9, 2006
148 posts
60 upvotes
Vancouver
Please correct me if I'm wrong. This may also depend on the province. You can always do 12 months and then ask your company to be extended to 18 months. The amount of EI payout for 12 and 18 months is the same. So you'd get paid from EI for 12 months but keep your job security for 18 months.
Newbie
Dec 8, 2018
21 posts
23 upvotes
Stock R wrote: From a financial standpoint I agree with your assessment. 12 months makes more sense. Especially if you're not tight on $. Collect the money first and decide on course of action later. If your wife needs more time, do it as unpaid. Note: there's some minor tax considerations so it's not exactly the same but we're talking minimal here.

However, I believe you need to look at this from not just a financial standpoint. This is your offspring we're talking about. You shouldn't (can't) make decisions just based on number crunching. Things like bonding time, physical, emotional, cognitive development cannot be measured against dollars. The first 5 years of your child's life are arguably that most important and sets them up for life.

We're currently on our 3rd mat/pat leave. My wife has taken ~2 years/child and I generally take about 3 months each. We've lost/missed out on a lot of income and have had to make some sacrifices to make it happen. Money can always be made but you can't get these early years back.
I whole heartily agree with what you said in your second paragraph, I feel the exact same way. This is time you will never get back with your child. We are just trying to figure out the pro's and con's of 12 vs 18 months. The new baby is going to go to daycare at 12 months, if all goes as planned. At this point, the baby will be in daycare, so not sure what the pro's of going with 18 months will be?

The purpose of daycare for us is not to have someone look after the child, we can have grandparents watch the children if needed. The focus for us is that the child will have other kids to play with, learn to share, etc.

mgdsky wrote: Please correct me if I'm wrong. This may also depend on the province. You can always do 12 months and then ask your company to be extended to 18 months. The amount of EI payout for 12 and 18 months is the same. So you'd get paid from EI for 12 months but keep your job security for 18 months.
We are in BC, I am not sure if the company will allow you to extend your mat leave to 18 months after the fact. Also, I would think the company would want to know about hiring a temp with a 12 or 18 month contract from the beginning.
Deal Guru
User avatar
Mar 31, 2008
13010 posts
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Toronto
When you say the child might need the mother after 12 months, is this because you're worried it might be a special needs child? If not, they'll be fine like your first child. I think 18 months make sense if you're not worried financially (taxes would likely be lower to offset the reduced work pay) and there is a real worry of limited daycare under 18 months in your area.

Otherwise, I would stick with 12 months.
Deal Addict
Nov 13, 2013
4523 posts
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Ottawa
Other than a potential tax savings (depending on the pre EI salary and timing of the baby) I don't see any benefit to 18 months. Take the 12 months and take up to 6 months after that. Why wait to get the same amount of money. The whole thing was an electoral ploy to make it seem like we are giving longer leave. I will give you 5 years of maternity leave. Just give me the monthly checks and I will dole out one fifth over fives years and keep the interest for myself.
Deal Addict
User avatar
Mar 9, 2012
4102 posts
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Kitchener
Another thought is the amount you get on CCB will be higher if she takes 18 months, and more likely for a longer period of time. In your guys case, your family income will be lower between roughly April 2019 to September 2020, resulting in higher payments between July 2020 and June 2022. It wouldn't be a huge difference, mind you, but something else to consider.
Why can't we all just get along?
Deal Fanatic
Jun 24, 2015
8523 posts
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if u can afford to give up your work sallary and be off for 18 mos and not feel the pinch financially, GO FOR IT. not all of us can take 18 months off, my wife only took 1 year off, and it was hard financially, esp when she makes good money doing her job so for the next 12 months your making lousy money on EI so it will be hard a lot of sacrifices during that time but when its over, money starts coming in and its better
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Sr. Member
Dec 12, 2007
978 posts
453 upvotes
Toronto
I have a question

Can both parents take parental leave at the same time and both receive separate benefits “double dipping” at the same time ? My assumption if that is possible is that the total amount of weeks will be used up faster ?
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Jul 17, 2008
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phoenix_bladen wrote: I have a question

Can both parents take parental leave at the same time and both receive separate benefits “double dipping” at the same time ? My assumption if that is possible is that the total amount of weeks will be used up faster ?
Always wondered since how does wife's job knows about husband's job who took what.

This is especially if wife/husband lives overseas. How does the overseas company know the person who works in Canada also took mat/pat leave? And vice versa (canadian company knows the overseas parent takes mat/pat leave). This is especially for jobs who pay mat/pat leave (govt jobs, probably private firms do it too?)
Penalty Box
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Nov 13, 2010
7814 posts
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Scarborough
How does Ei work for maternity leave 18 months for a part time retail job with no topup benefits?
Is there still a requirement to have certain # of hours worked, to get18 month maternity leave from such job? What if hours are inly around 500 in last year from applying? Does that mean she get no ei at all?
Banned
Nov 17, 2014
942 posts
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Ontario
apnayloags wrote: How does Ei work for maternity leave 18 months for a part time retail job with no topup benefits?
Is there still a requirement to have certain # of hours worked, to get18 month maternity leave from such job? What if hours are inly around 500 in last year from applying? Does that mean she get no ei at all?
You need 600 hours in the last 52 weeks, or since the start of a previous claim. Doesn't matter if it's 12 or 18 months. Anything under 600 hours gets you nothing. She could have worked 590 hours and would still get nothing.
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Nov 13, 2010
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Scarborough
Copper1212 wrote: You need 600 hours in the last 52 weeks, or since the start of a previous claim. Doesn't matter if it's 12 or 18 months. Anything under 600 hours gets you nothing. She could have worked 590 hours and would still get nothing.
Thanks for the reply.
We’re thinking of her just not applying ei at all then since the hrs are not 600.
It would just be unpaid maternity leave with notice to her employer
Deal Addict
Feb 20, 2009
1474 posts
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My spouse only makes 30K a year so it was a no brainer for us to have her stay home for 18 months. The $ difference between her working and not when factoring the monthly daycare costs are almost negligible.
Sr. Member
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Feb 1, 2006
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Im doing this... get paid for 12 months but dont go back for another 6 months.
~snow white~
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Nov 13, 2010
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Is it 55% of gross income, or net income that EI pays when taking parental leave?
Sr. Member
May 25, 2005
736 posts
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My wife and I took the 18 months (She took the first 15 and I took the last 3) as we figured the savings in daycare costs from 12-18 months was about the salary difference we were losing (I got topped up to 93% for my whole time off) by taking the extended leave. It also worked out as the 12-15 month range covered my daughter being off school in the summer so it saved us extra costs for camps and childcare there.

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