"We proudly support Antti Kaikkonen's decision", Annika Saarikko, Centre Party leader and finance minister said in a statement.

Kaikkonen will be off work from January 6 until the end of February.

"The opportunity to take and decide on family leave belongs to everyone," Saarikko said.

Kaikkonen announced the birth of his second child in July.

"Children are only little for a moment, and I want to remember it in more than just photographs", Kaikkonen wrote on Twitter.

In Finland, fathers whose children were born before September 2022 are entitled to 54 days paternity leave.

Around 80 percent of dads in Finland take some amount of paternity leave, the government said in 2021.

While several ministers have taken maternity leave during their stints in the current government, Kaikkonen is one of the first male ministers to go on paternity leave.

In the late 1990s, the then prime minister Paavo Lipponen took paternity leave in a groundbreaking move.

During Kaikkonen's absence, he will be replaced by Centre MP Mikko Savola.

"Savola has long and wide experience and expertise in defence policy," Kaikkonen said.

Finland and Sweden dropped decades of military non-alignment and scrambled to become NATO members in May, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

All 30 NATO member states except Hungary and Turkey have ratified Finland's accession, which requires unanimous approval.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in November that the country would approve Finland and Sweden's accession to NATO next year.

Turkey on the other hand has demanded that the two countries take tougher stances on Kurdish militants that it considers terrorists before backing their NATO bids.