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November 2015 Moms
TacoSarah
member
Access arrangements for father - looking for suggestions
TacoSarah
member
Hello ladies
You may recall a few weeks ago I posted about how the father of my child and I had separated. Since then, we have not spoken directly and any communication has been via email. Things are not good between us.
To give you a bit of background - he lives 130 miles away and the travel time takes between 2.5 to 3 hours due to traffic. He rents a room in a shared house with strangers, one of whom has a dog. I own a 2 bedroom condo and live alone. When we were together he was going to relocate and move into my condo.
I am looking for suggestions on how to arrange access for him to visit his son. My only priority is the health and wellbeing of my baby and although I can't stand the man, I believe that he needs to be actively involved in his childs life and be given the opportunity to be a good father.
He has the idea that I am going to meet him half way on Saturday morning, drop the baby off to him so that he can take baby back to his overnight and then meet him halfway on the Sunday to pick up the baby. I find this suggestion ridiculous and not in the best interests of my son. His home is not safe and secure or set up for a baby, I don't want my son being stuck in the back of a car for 6 hours every other weekend as this is no fun AND it puts him at more risk of being involved in a road traffic accident. Also I'm not willing to agree to overnights until baby is at least 12 months old.
I'm not comfortable with him being in my home at all, however I see this as the only option to start with. So I was thinking of suggesting that he could visit every other Saturday, spend a few hours with the baby early afternoon, then he could feed the baby and put him down for his nap, then he would need to leave and come back for when the baby wakes up and could spend more time with him, feed him, bath him, put him to bed and then he would leave again.
I'm trying to be considerate of the distance he is going to have to travel, but at the same time I'm not happy for him to be sitting on my couch and having to entertain him whilst the baby is sleeping, so he is going to have to find somewhere to go whilst the baby is sleeping.
The only other thing I can think of is arranging visits at a contact centre, but this will limit the time he has with his son.
Despite the fact that he was very willing to and could easily relocate to where I live, he refuses to because "I don't see why I have to give up my life when you won't change anything, you should move or need to meet me half way".
Does anyone have any suggestions?
Re: Access arrangements for father - looking for suggestions
I agree with you that he needs to come to your house. That's the safe place your son will be used to and it makes much more sense to stay there so he can help you out. Though you don't know what's going to happen or end up being best for the both of you in the long run it sounds like you have a good plan laid out. I dunno about kicking him out for baby naps, though.. It's tough to predict how long a kid will sleep so maybe he could bring a laptop or something to have an activity to stay out of your way. I also imagine you'd have a bit to discuss with him, but that's just my opinion.
Edit, hit the post button on accident too soon
In addition I would tell him that you are not OK with the child being at his house while he is sharing a house with several other people.
In the first several months it would be best not to mess baby's schedule up as best as possibel, so him coming over may be best. Idk that kicking him out during nap time is fair, not to mention you may appreciate this time to talk about parenting details.
The only thing is every other Saturday is really not a lot of time, especially with travel time. Just my thoughts.
Also: breastfeeding is a great excuse to keep babies close to you! It's a tough one to argue with
It's really hard because I'm trying to not let my emotions and personal opinion on him cloud my judgement. He is a very difficult person and he is very self centred and entitled, if he can't get his own way he will create problems for me.
I have tried to informally make child support arrangements with him, but he's only willing to pay the minimum amount he's required to by law, which leaves me with having to cover about 75% of the costs. Child care alone is going to be £800 ($1600) per month when I go back to work. He hasn't offered to contribute to the costs of setting up for the baby, so I've had to buy everything myself.
When he's angry he makes very bad decisions and does things that have huge consequences, for example, the last time I saw him we had an argument. I drove him to the train station and when he got out of the car I drove off. I didn't realise he had put his suitcase in the trunk of my car and hadn't taken it out. So he called the police, told them I had stolen his property and I had been abusive towards him and he thought I was going to harm myself, none of which was true. He's also said he wants a paternity test because he isn't sure the baby is his and he wants to get social services involved because he doesn't trust me not to spend the money he pays me on alcohol. Then when he calms down and wants to make himself look reasonable, he will email saying the baby is his top priority and he wants to be actively involved as much as he can.
I don't trust him with the baby. If he were to take the baby out for the day and we argued, I could see him not bringing the baby back to me.
The house he lives in is not suitable for a baby. His bedroom is tiny so there's no room for a crib, the people he lives with smoke weed and he doesn't know who they are. He has no control over who comes in and out of that house and there is a dog there. Also the thought of my little boy being 3 hours away from me every weekend really upsets me. If he lived close by, on his own in a place that was safe and I could get to easily if there was an emergency, I would be more inclined to let him have overnight visits.
I realise that a few hours every other weekend isn't much, but I need to be able to live my own life, and if he is at my home every Saturday, that means I'm stuck indoors every Saturday whilst he is there.
I just don't know what to do. I want my baby to be happy and safe and have both parents in his life. This isn't what I wanted or how it should be.
I don't want to go to court because I don't want a total stranger making decisions about my son. A stranger should not be making the decisions about his welfare. But I think that's how this is going to end up.
Married 9/28/13
DS born 11/12/15
EDD 8/13/18
I also think that making him leave while baby is napping maybe a bit much. That's going to be a tough one since they sleep a ton the first month or two.
In the UK, as we aren't married, unless he is named as the father on the birth certificate, and to do this he must be present when the birth is registered, he has no parental responsibility rights, so if he were to take the baby that would be abduction. There are 2 ways he can get parental responsibility if he's not named as the father, by me signing a document giving him the rights or by him applying to court for it. If he went to court he would have to prove it was in the best interests of the child that he be granted joint responsibility with me and he would have to provide proof of his involvement in the child's upbringing.
If we have joint responsibility, I would have to get his written permission to take the baby out of the country on vacation, so he could make it very difficult for me to visit my sister, BiL and nephew in Canada, and I would have to consult him on where the baby goes to childcare and school, even though it's me that's going to have to pay the fees and drop off and pick up.