Blended Families

?'s about parenting time and daycare (long, sorry)

I haven't been around much lately so here's a quick backstory:

DH has joint legal with EOW during school year and alternating holidays. During summer vacation we have Skids EOWeek. SD's are 4 and 5 and BM lives 30 min. away from us in a separate county and separate school district. Our goal is to move within the next few years to the town that Skids live in. We will then be going for 50/50 parenting time.

When DH and BM went through mediation to set up the current c/o, DH tried to get joint physical but BM wouldn't agree to it. He fought so hard to get every other week with them during the summer that the whole Wednesday night visits that a lot of you get on here just fell by the wayside. BM occasionally gives us extra time but it's not consistent. DH had a recent conversation with their case worker at the friend of the court's office. She interpreted their c/o as saying that BM should be giving DH extra time whenever they could work it out. I didn't read the c/o that way and even if I had, it's very vague and really doesn't commit BM to much. Basically his case worker told him that he should be trying to agree on more time with BM. He is supposed to talk to BM this weekend about it, and I think he should ask for more time than he thinks he would get, assuming that there is no way in H*LL that BM would just give him everything he asks for. Any suggestions on what DH could reasonably ask for?

He also asked the case worker about Skids daycare. Just over a year ago BM asked DH if she could take Skids out of their regular daycare to having her new MIL care for them. The daycare they were in had a preschool-type curriculum but BM swore up and down that her MIL would be working with them b/c she used to teach kindergarten. As far as we can tell, all Skids do at her house is play on their farm, watch tv, and play video games all day. Youngest SD has developed behind many of her classmates and her teacher specifically told DH that they need to encourage her to be more independent and to work with her at home. Still, BM's MIL babies SD all day and does everything for her. I know DH cannot tell this lady how to act around SD's but he does have a legal say in where Skids go to daycare. Do you think DH has a reasonable right to ask that Skids return to their regular daycare instead of staying at BM's MIL after school? If price were an issue for BM, DH would gladly keep Skids after school and they could stay out of daycare completely, but BM has fought this in court before and won b/c she argued that Skids need interaction with other kids.

 

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Re: ?'s about parenting time and daycare (long, sorry)

  • Your CO may be kind of like mine. Since XH and I are suuuper long distance, the only thing in our CO is "fair and liberal visitation." So it's pretty much just up to me. 

    Honestly, your H would be asking her to basically do him a favor--that's at least how she'll see it. So if he wants more time with the kids, I think he should look for ways to help her. Offer to take the kids if she wants to go out one night a week. Let her know that if she travels, he would like the opportunity to spend time with the kids.

    No, he shouldn't have to fall all over himself to do things for her, but you did ask for suggestions. And if she doesn't have to give him more time, he should try to give her a reason to want to.

    As for your other issue with day care, how do you know what goes on all day? Unless there's some kind of nanny cam set up that allows you to watch all day, I don't think you should make assumptions. If you have concerns, your H should exercise his right to have a say. You mention she asked your H if she could pull them out of daycare, so at least she is including him in the decision. It seems totally reasonable for him to express his concerns and ask that they go back to day care. Maybe they could compromise and the kids could go to daycare twice a week, spend a couple days with your H after school and then go to MILs farm once per week?

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  • You're right, we don't know what actually goes on at her house because we aren't there. My assumption is based on our experiences whenever we have seen them together at school functions or extracurricular activities. The compromise you suggested might actually kill two birds with one stone, though. If we can get BM to agree to returning the Skids to daycare a couple days a week and DH keeping them a couple days, younger SD would be able to get that extra help she needs developmentally with the daycare provider and with DH, and DH would be able to spend some extra time with Skids.

    I should mention just to clarify b/c it looks like there might be some confusion, the case worker stated that BM should be working to give DH extra time in addition to the time he's already getting, which is stated clearly in the c/o. I agree though that it would help to convince BM better if the changes we are proposing will benefit her as well as us and Skids.

    Thanks for your input!

    Image and video hosting by TinyPic

    AlternaTickers - Cool, free Web tickers

    image Lilypie Angel and Memorial tickers

    BFP 11/23/10 MMC @ 7w3d Discovered @ 10w2d D&C 1/12/11

    BFP 7/6/11 Our Lucky Charm born 3/5/12
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