One of the first big decisions when planning for your baby is which type of parental leave to take. There are two options for parental leave in Canada (as seen here in the official Canada.ca guide):

  1. standard benefits (12 months of leave)
  2. extended benefits (18 months of leave)

Both of these options will provide you with the same amount of EI income, but the money is spread out over different periods of time.

Just to up the stakes here, your choice must be made before the leave starts, it can’t be changed afterward. As well, if there are two parents, they must both choose the same option if the leave is being shared (which it damn well should be).

My two cents: take the extended (18 month) benefits unless you absolutely cannot make it work.

It’s a recommendation that I wish we had heard more of when we were planning for our first baby, as we both ended up taking some extra time off work.

Of course, this choice is an intensely personal one and will depend on your family and financial situation. However, especially if it’s your first child, time is precious. A year will fly by and it will seem very early to be sending your little baby to daycare when they are only 12 months old.

Here are a few more reasons for my recommendation:

  • You will save 6 months of childcare costs. Even if you don’t ‘break even’ financially on this compared to getting your full salary, you are spending more time with your baby, which is great!
  • It’s harder to find daycare when your child is less than 18 months old, and this is particularly true for daycare centres.
  • Similarly, daycare for infants (under 18 months) is usually more expensive than daycare for toddlers (over 18 months).
  • Babies get way more fun once they hit the 12 month mark: they have more of a personality, move around more, eat more interesting stuff, etc. It’s a pretty fun time to hang with your baby.
  • If you change your mind, you can always go back to work early. Doing this requires some notice to your employer, but is absolutely an option.

By the way, there is a pretty significant gotcha related to planning shared parental leave that is worth understanding.