Welcome, and before we go any further — congratulations to you and yours! We sincerely hope that your journey through pregnancy so far has been one of good health, for you and your baby.

Our goal is simple: to partner with you to create the best leave experience possible.

There's so much to learn when you're expecting a baby. Even more so if this is your first time taking leave!

With this guide, we hope to:

As your due date approaches, you may find yourself trying to aggressively check off as much as you can from all the to-do lists. It's likely that "figure out my leave" is somewhere on that list. After reading this guide, we hope you'll be able to check that off the list with confidence!

Your leave is just that — yours. It's particular to you and your circumstances and as such, no parental leave is exactly the same as another.

Simply put, it's time away from work for two primary reasons:

Broadly speaking, a birthing-parent parental leave typically has two types of leave built into it:

We model these two types of time for you right in your Cocoon leave plan. It's one of the first things you'll notice when you begin planning your leave.

Understanding how these components work is our goal for this section!

First, let's talk about the concept of "disability." This is a word that you may not have considered when you began thinking about your parental leave!

There are certain laws that designate recovery from childbirth as a disability. Recovery time for this disability is determined by the way you deliver your child: 6 weeks of time for a vaginal delivery, and 8 weeks of time for a c-section.

6 weeks for vaginal delivery, and 8 weeks of time for a c-section is a presumed period of disability.

This time is modeled in your leave plan by default. You can change the delivery method any time along the way, but if you increase the amount of time of your post-birth disability, your leave will be outside the presumed period of disability and you will need your health provider to certify you need this extra time.

Pregnancy is hard — on your body and your mind. It's very common to need to step away from work earlier than your due date, especially as you near the end of the third trimester, for reasons related to your pregnancy. We want to, above all, reassure you that this is normal to do.

As we discussed a moment ago, just as the act of giving birth creates a disability, any medical complications during the pre-birth period that arise from your pregnancy are also generally considered medical disabilities. Depending on where you live and your company's policy, you may have additional leave time available to you during this pre-birth window. (You can always check this under the Policies section in your dashboard.)

Should you need to take this time, you can plan for it by toggling on the "pre-birth disability leave" button. If you need more than 4 weeks of pre-birth disability, this is also outside the presumed period of disability and you will need your health provider to certify you need this time too. You can also read more about the mechanics of pre-birth disability time in our FAQ.

The other portion of your leave is usually called "bonding." It is the period of time after you've recovered from your disability. Disability time must always be taken, and completed before you transition to bonding time.

Depending on where you live, there may be additional time or pay available to you during this period that extends beyond your employer's policy. (If this is the case, Cocoon will always model this for you right in your dashboard.)

Bonding time is, as the name suggests, meant for you to bond with your new baby and family. As such, there is more flexibility in designing this period of your leave: in general, you can split it up into multiple chunks of time (depending on your employer's policy) or return to work after your disability and save it up to use later.

If the data here is of any comfort to you when trying to make your decision, we see that most birthing parents tend to take their bonding leave continuously (that is, they don't break it up), and tend to also use it right after disability (that is, they don't return to work between). But — the shape of your leave is totally up to you and we encourage you to plan your leave however is best suited for the needs of you, your little one, and your family.

Absolutely! We made a video walkthrough of the full process.

Broadly speaking, leave can be thought of as a combination of two things:

Cocoon uses software to accurately represent the total amount of time available to use during your leave.

Leave time is calculated using a few variables:

To see how your time is being calculated, you can check out the "time" section of your leave dashboard (it's the little clock icon).

Once there, click anywhere on the purple bars, and we'll expand them to show you which laws and policies (usually known as "entitlements") are in play for your leave.

No two leaves look the same. If you've taken leave before at another company, it's entirely possible that your leave will look different this time. Perhaps you've moved states — that, too, could result in a very different looking leave. Maybe your manager or your direct report has more or less time than you do: this, too, can absolutely happen! Every leave is different.

Most of the time, our software gets it right on the first try. That said — you know your situation better than we do! If something doesn't look quite right, reach out to our Support team to discuss.

We totally get that. Becoming a parent and caring for a child demands a whole lot — and many people need to take as much time as they can get. As we mentioned above, our software automatically and reliably models all of the time available to you, either by law or under your company policies right as you start planning your leave. (Except for pre-birth disability, which must be manually toggled on.)

Sometimes, things comes up: your OB tells you that you need to be on bed rest for the last two months of your pregnancy, or maybe you have some complications from your delivery that won't be resolved by the end of your post-birth recovery period.

If you and your healthcare provider believe you need additional disability time, either pre- or post-birth, please update your leave plan in Cocoon, and you will see on your task list the Serious Health Condition form to download and have your healthcare provider fill out and then upload back into Cocoon. It's important to note that extending your post-birth disability will add additional administrative and coordination work between you, your medical provider, and any state or private disability carriers that you have claims with. The easiest time to extend your disability is during the disability period itself. Once you have transitioned to your bonding period and, if applicable to your case, filed a state Paid Family Leave claim, it can become challenging to revise your disability time.

In general, the best place to start with that request would be directly with your employer. (Usually the HR or People team, but you can also chat with your manager.)

Should your employer grant additional leave time, have them reach out to us directly, and we'll take care of adding it to your account.

You may be wondering by this point — how do I get paid? Is my employer just going to pay me through my normal paycheck? Maybe you've heard from other new parents that they've received checks from the state, or from a short term disability provider. If you've done a bit of research, you may have come across some acronyms: PFL, STD, SDI, PFML. Maybe your employer offers 100% of your salary during a certain portion of your leave, but not the whole thing, and you want to understand how all that works.

Remember how your leave is split into two sections? This is where the distinction matters.

For the disability period, you may have pay coming from up to three sources:

For the bonding period, you may have pay coming from up to two sources:

Once you submit your leave, we'll coach you through the whole process! So if you're still in the planning phase, you don't need to sweat the details too much just yet.

In cases where you live in a state with a paid program, and/or your employer has a short-term disability policy on your behalf, you will prepare a "claim" for that pay. These are standardized forms that we'll provide to you — along with helpful, supportive in-product guides — once you submit your leave.

Please keep in mind that it's not possible to submit a claim before starting pre-birth disability or before the delivery date for post-birth disability. However, you can create any necessary online accounts in advance to familiarize yourself with the paperwork.

That's understandable! This guide to your leave pay goes into a lot more depth.

It can be helpful to think of your leave as a journey with three parts:

Of these three, our hope is that you invest as much as you can in understanding how your leave works, and your responsibilities for managing it, in the pre-leave period. As soon as your baby arrives, you probably know what'll happen — you won't have any time to figure anything else out!

The biggest thing to remember is that it's okay — expected, even — for your leave to change after you submit it. So you should feel free to play around with your dates, experiment, and submit your best guess.

We wanted to share some common points of hesitation at this phase. You may feel uncertainty about:

And we're here to say that — you've got time. Time to figure all of this out. And time to change your mind.

Fantastic news. It's a big step.

Here's how we view a submitted leave. It's as if you're telling your manager and your company: "I'm intending on taking a parental leave. Here's my best guess at my leave dates. They may change!"

We want to reassure you that you can still change your leave after you submit it. It's very normal to do so.

It's best if you can submit your leave as early as you feel comfortable doing. Most employers ask for a minimum of 2 months notice for a parental leave, and we find that most birthing-parents submit theirs towards the end of their second trimester, or beginning of their third.

It's important to remember that up until this point, your leave has been entirely private. Once you finalize the submission flow, your manager and your HR team will be automatically notified — so, should you want to tell them this news on your own before then, be mindful of that. But you don't have to. We can take care of that communication for you, automatically.

Here's a shortlist for you:

Leave is inherently uncertain, and change is normal and expected!

Something like ~4% of babies actually arrive on their due date. The rest: well, they crash into your life early, or they keep you waiting. Totally normal! Cocoon is ready for any changes that you need to make to your dates.

We'll actually prompt you, right around your due date, to provide us with some information about the birth of your child. When you do that, you'll confirm their actual date of birth, and we'll automatically adjust your leave plan.

You can also adjust your leave dates in Cocoon at any time.

No action needed from you on this — make a mental note that you've got additional time, and when ready, add it back to Cocoon.

Leave is a really big moment. Whether this is your first child, or your fourth, you're still in need of care and support to get through this experience. We're here for that. Our hope is that this guide gave you some reassurance, made you feel just a bit more prepared for all the uncertainty that's still to come.

If you're in need of a human conversation about this, we're here for that too. Send us an email and we will help walk your through next steps.

We've seen thousands of people create happy, restful leaves (or as much as they can be with a brand new baby). We're excited for you to join them.

Here if you need us. 👋