🇸🇬 Singapore
New dad: from the first plans to the first years
Appointments, feeding, nights and paperwork. Take it one stage at a time, together.
Your timeline
Birth to two weeks
Share feeding, changing, soothing and meals. Confirm follow-up appointments and the birth-registration deadline. Never shake a baby; if overwhelmed, put them safely down and take a short break.
Leave and family paperwork
Leave, benefits, parentage and parental responsibility are distinct legal questions.
What to prepare
Check current leave eligibility, notification rules, pay and job protection with the relevant authority and employer; record your agreed plan.
What to check
Confirm legal parentage and decision-making authority separately. Obtain family-law advice for unmarried, donor-conceived, adopted, surrogate-born or cross-border families.
In Singapore
mum guidance provides four weeks of Government-Paid Paternity Leave for eligible fathers for births from 1 April 2025. Eligibility includes the child’s Singapore citizenship, employment/self-employment conditions and, for birth fathers, lawful marriage requirements. Shared parental leave is six weeks for births from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026 and ten weeks from 1 April 2026, subject to eligibility. Confirm allocation and notice through mum/MSF; employer benefits are separate.
In Singapore
Register a Singapore birth through LifeSG within 42 days and download the digital birth certificate. ICA does not register overseas births: use the authorities where the birth occurred and separately check Singapore citizenship, immigration and parentage requirements.
In Singapore
Section 377A was repealed with effect from 3 January 2023: consensual private sexual activity between adult men is not criminalised by that repealed provision. This did not legalise same-sex marriage or automatically grant joint parentage, adoption or leave rights. Marriage recognition, Muslim and civil marriage frameworks, ART access and parentage are distinct legal questions.
Health and emergency contacts
This site does not replace medical advice. For a life-threatening emergency, call 995 for a medical emergency.