Shared Parental Leave

When I had just given birth to my second child, my son Little A, Mr B was there for me in every way possible. It was wonderful to have his support in getting some extra sleep, helping with Midge who was 3 years old at the time and still having sleep troubles, including frequent night terrors. The only thing I wish is that we could have spent even more time together. I know for a fact at the time he wished he could stay to spend more time with his newborn son, to help me in the night (he worked lates and often nights) when Midge would wake and then Little A would wake needing a feed or a nappy change. 

Since April 2015 in the UK the government has put in place Shared Parental Leave, meaning partners can now take time off together (longer than the 2 week paternity leave currently available to fathers and what my Husband had at the time) or they can split the leave allowing their partner or the Father to now spend more quality time with their child(ren) in the first year of their child's life. What's great is that those who adopt now have the same entitlement to shared parental leave as well.

All of this can be very confusing however, which is why GoToMeeting have produced a simple, easy to read and follow info-graphic

Although right now I feel content with my 2 little ones, in the very near future I will be working and who knows what the future brings? I welcome Shared Parental Leave and think it's great. I hope it helps a lot of new parents. What do you think?

Cupcake Mumma

*This post was written in partnership with GoToMeeting*

Portsmouth Fun!

Last week I went on holiday with Midge to a family wedding in Cambridge. In order to get to Cambridge we stayed with my cousins in Portsmouth which turned out to be a lovely addition to an already fabulous weekend.

After we had had the wedding (which was beautiful) we decided to end mine and Midges stay with a lovely family day out. My cousins thought midge and I would enjoy a day out at Canoe Lake Splash Park which is also very close to the beach so there was a nice view!

The children got to put on their swim suits and play about in the fair sized play area which let's off water from water sprinklers. Some of the water went high up in the air and other sprinklers let off water in arches. It was lovely to see the children running around, darting about over the hills and under the water arches.

There's plenty of grass to sit down on, we placed ourselves under one of many trees to grab some shade. Plenty of others had the same idea with their toddlers sound asleep on blankets.

My older cousins enjoyed a zip wire and next to the park was a large play park with slides, climbing frames and swings. We didn't go in here but as your standard play parks go you know children are going to enjoy it, we were there for the water fun!

Everyone enjoyed an ice cream from the local cafe and I also had a small pot of very tasty chips whilst my cousin had a coffee. The main reason we both purchased the latter was because our children needed the loo (at different times) and these appeared to be the only ones accessible to us. The public loos looked like they were closed off a long time ago! Being the cafe toilets they like them to be used by customers only so  we purchased our items and the children got to use the loo at the same time. A little inconvenient but obviously the public ones were closed for a reason (much like the ones down where I live which were just trashed.)

So, if you're in Portsmouth this summer and fancy a super cheap (or even free with a picnic and no loo stops!) I'd recommend taking the children to the large parks at Canoe Lake Splash Park.

Cupcake Mumma