Taking unpaid time off to share the load - good idea/bad idea?

Hi new to reddit and looking for a bit of advice. Hope this is in the right place. English is my first and only language so if there are mistakes feel free to rinse me for it.I’m about to become a dad in June, which feels weird to type out. My girlfriend and I didn’t exactly plan this but, after a lot of tears (mostly mine), we’re thrilled about having a family together. At the first scan last year we found out we were expecting twins so, for those of you counting, we’re having two more babies than we thought 6 months ago we’d be having and 100% more babies than we originally anticipated.I talked about this with my manager at work, basically giving her the heads up that I would be putting in for paternity leave. She told me that I have the opportunity to take up to three months of unpaid leave from work on top of the 2 weeks semi-paid paternity leave that we get now. This got me thinking - I have a pretty sick motorbike that is just gathering dust in the garage that's worth just over 2 months wages, so I figure I could sell it and then we can live off the proceeds the two months before I have to go back to work. The bike is basically a toy, I lease a Focus that I use for actual transport, so it won’t be missed (OK, I’ll miss it a bit, it’s matt black and makes really loud noises). My girlfriend will have statutory maternity and is planning to use all 52 weeks before returning to work.I’m not doubting my girlfriends ability to look after two babies, but if we can afford for me to be at home for the first two months then we can both share the load, plus I can bond with the babies at the same time as she does. My girlfriend doesn’t think this is a good idea, she’s convinced that she’s got this and thinks that the other women in her antenatal classes will think she’s a wimp for needing help (it sounds like a lot of them are doing this solo from what I’ve heard). On top of this, my mum gave me some old-fashioned shite about it being the woman’s job to look after babies and the mans job to work, which is total bollocks. Basically everyone is telling me that the money would be better spent on setting up savings accounts for the babies.The bike is definitely going either way, but am I wasting money by taking time off work? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/384GIAK