My advice is based on the assumption that you are not having the child yourself and you'll have parents/in-laws/family visiting for a period of time to help out

My advice is based on the assumption that you are not having the child yourself and you'll have parents/in-laws/family visiting for a period of time to help out. - Take up to a week as soon as the baby is born. You'll need time to recuperate from the delivery and get used to having the baby in the house. You'll find however, the first few weeks are easier than you expect: You have family around to help out and for the first few weeks, newborns sleep more and fuss much less than they will in about 3 weeks to a month. - Save the rest of your time off for when your family leaves. This is the best advice I can give any soon to be parent. Firstly, with the family gone, you'll have to deal with the baby on your own for the first time, and it becomes much more of an ordeal with only two people (and one of those people still recovering from delivery.) Secondly, in a cruel trick of nature, typically around the time your family leaves you alone, the baby starts to become much more active and goes for shorter periods between feeding. Unless you are really lucky (your baby sleeps for longer than 2-3 hours or the mom agrees to do all night work and you're able to sleep through it) you will not be getting very much sleep, and it will take some time to get used to being so sleep deprived. It may sound like strange advice, but you're far better off taking the lions share of the time off a month after the baby comes. The mom will appreciate the support you'll be able to give in the most difficult period of new parenthood. If you take all the time off up front it will probably wind up harder on your family.