A few further things occurred to me to mention, though you may already know about the paperwork side of things:
Childbirth during Covid
Just to say I empathise that restrictions mean you might not be allowed to be present at the birth. Happened to me, though not for my firstborn child.
Birth certificate
Short version: get a couple of birth certificates issued and translated as this is not automatic (due to the family register being king in Japan); your child may need them in the future (I needed a birth certificate to get married), and it might be a pain to get these issued from afar (in geography and/or time).
Long version: you can request a certificate of birth registration acceptance (出生届受理証明書) from the ward/city/town office, a translation of which would almost certainly be accepted internationally as a birth certificate for most purposes. These can be issued within about 30 mins of registering the birth.
You can also get a certified copy of the document you and the hospital fill in to register the birth. This document can look quite messy (see first pic here:
http://www.okinawatranslator.jp/%E5%87% ... %E9%A1%9E/), but unlike the 出生届受理証明書, it includes the address of the hospital, and for this reason was the document required when I registered my son's birth with the UK authorities and officially give him his middle name. Might be worth getting one or two copies of this as well, just in case your child needs it in the future.
Paperwork
Get details in advance of exactly what documents your employer and your spouse’s employer will need for the birth. Provide these efficiently so as not to delay your child’s health insurance card.
In my case, my employer required:
1. A birth registration notification certificate – from the ward/city/town office (so I got some spares for my baby’s use too)
2. A new jyuminhyo, including baby’s MyNumber – from the ward/city/town office
3. An updated koseki tohon (as my wife is Japanese) – from the ward/city/town office
4. A dependent’s form – from my employer
Also, be sure to register for family allowance (15,000 yen per month for many, paid in batches of four months). I think there is a monthly cut-off for applications (which may or may not be published on your city/town/prefecture’s website) and no pro rata for part-months. I could be wrong. But in any case, applying as soon as practical will maximise your benefit.
Similarly, there’s a child healthcare subsidy system for which you’ll probably register at the same desk as the family allowance. This caps child healthcare costs at 580 yen (in my circumstances); given my son has had a couple of hospitalisations, this has really kept costs down. (You’ll still pay for hospital food; it’s the medical costs that are almost zero.)
Non-childcare leave
• Your company may offer 1-5 days of ‘special paid leave’ for your spouse’s childbirth.
• You may have annual leave available.
• Your insurer may offer 60% reimbursement for lost salary for 14 days after your spouse’s childbirth.
Thus, you might have some options in how you deploy your leave around the time of childbirth. Pros and cons. Childcare leave renders you exempt from pension and social insurance contributions from the month in which it begins even if your leave starts on the last day of the month; something to be aware of if juggling different types of leave, though the baby comes when he/she comes!
Childcare after return to work
Cross this bridge when you come to it, but little by little become aware of when and how to apply for a childcare place (eg hoikuen), and the local situation re competition for places. In my location, the child-rearing department told us that basically 0 years was the main chance to get kids into the system, and that kids seeking places at 1+ would be waiting for vacancies to arise when children moved out of the ward, and such vacancies might not match our needs in terms of location and time, and that we might keep being trumped by higher priority kids in any case. Things might not be so competitive where you are, and there are alternatives to hoikuen anyway, and childcare leave can be extended if you apply for childcare but don’t get it. On this point, we were told straight up by the department that some parents deliberately apply for hoikuen which they are unlikely to be accepted for so as to extend their eligibility for childcare leave beyond one year. The officials help such parents achieve their goal because that means that the kids which actually want the places get them, which is in everyone’s interests.
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