Sons Ex wont let him have access to his baby

After your replies I actually think the poor new mum should restrict access. Your son sounds like a selfish nightmare, and I can see the apple didn’t fall far from the tree!

Based purely on this comment alone, I would say yes you are an awful person and I'm beyond glad it's not me having to deal with you!

@LolaJ82 YANBU. However, your DS' EXP isn't so much denying him access altogether, rather she's placing conditions on it. For now, if I were your DS I'd go along with what she wants to ensure I maintained contact with my child and established some sort of relationship with them, but your DS may also like to refer to this information for how to move forward in the future: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/making-agreements-about-your-children/making-child-arrangements/#:~:text=Getting%20help%20with%20child%20arrangements,of%20children%20in%20family%20courts.

Do what the mom says , show that he is serious anout being involved for a start.

Sorry but when my babies were 6 wo, I was watching everyone's every move with them 🤣 Call me helicopter mom, I don't care! At 6 weeks, I will watch my baby like a hawk and I won't be more than 2m away. You're asking too much too soon. Wait until the baby is closer to 1 year old!

Ps her and my son split, very acrimonious...

I have a wonderful relationship with her and my DG now.

Can I just say how lovely it is to see a response like this from a man on MN.

Great, mature advice.

I really appreciate you saying the system isn't stacked against fathers also. It's a misogynistic lie told by fathers who don't actually want to put the effort in. It's easier to cry victim.

It sounds like you were really great in your situation. It's heartening to hear about you putting your son's welfare first, especially in those beginning stages.

OP, please listen to this man's advice. Your son needs to support and be understanding. Hopefully they can work together and co-parent as trust build as she is out of the throes of just having had a baby.

This is why I never believe a man who says that their ex just stopped contact for no reason.

I was in the same position.

Of course 6 weeks is too early to a ask! The girl is just getting used to motherhood and all the hormones and body changes that come with it.

Give her a break.

This is a great comment which I hope you read OP. You would be best placed to help coach your son to take this attitude, baby and mum right now are one unit and you should try to focus on supporting mum, asking what she needs and giving that, then you might find she naturally reaches for you when she wants a break from baby or feels ready to go out without baby etc. Much better than demanding time with the baby due to your “rights”.

It’s not like it’s even different that they’re not together, even within a married couple that is how it works, dad fetching water and propping up pillows for mum, ensuring mum has healthy food and everything she needs, then mum asking dad to hold baby so she can have a sleep etc. I even watched over my own husband with our baby until I was confident he had got the knack of different tasks!

My husband at 6 weeks postpartum would NEVER have said, “right, give me the baby I’m taking it for a walk away from you as I have parental rights too and don’t want you always breathing down my neck”.

You have no evidence baby's mum is being childish and petty. She keeps offering up her own home for visits which sounds accommodating and conciliatory to me.

👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻

If he wants to be a good dad he has to start by doing things on the mother's terms.

If he does this, and gets to know LO, then he will be in a much stronger position to ask for the few hours at home in a few months time.

She's not refusing access.

She just wants her newborn baby in her home and not to be taken away for hours at a time.

Maybe if you suggested a walk in the pram around the block I would understand... But physically taking the baby away and to your home is not okay.

I don't know any mother that would be okay with that at that age.

You are so wildly unreasonable that I feel really bad for this young girl.

As a woman and a mother I would have thought you would know that to even suggest this is not only crazy but showing zero understanding and compassion.

My kids are adult, but I remember that when they were 6 weeks, I would not have wanted to be parted from them at all. It’s reasonable for your ds to see his baby in the baby’s mum’s home, with her there. Go there, do it regularly and be polite.

Wanting to take a 6 week baby from its mother is a red flag - a red flag on you op - and you should know better. The baby isn’t a toy - the baby lived inside her for 9 months and she is strongly bonded to the baby. I would have cried all those hours if someone had taken my newborn to their house without me.

The mother is being reasonable. I suggest you follow suit.

She is allowing access to the baby but she quite understandably wants to keep the baby with her during it, you can't expect a mother of a newborn baby to just hand over her baby to go somewhere else without her, I didn't let mine out of my sight when they were born, it is in the baby's best interest to stay with the mother until they are a bit older and your son can go and see the baby while at her house

Been in your son’s position myself, with a very strained relationship with the mother. Best thing is to park any resentments and focus on the child. In fact it’s best to think of mother and child as being almost one entity still, what’s bad and stressful for mum will be stressful for the baby.

I just parked my ego for a bit and showed up with nappies, formula, clothes and anything if req. I think in the initial month or two is little and often is key. I got to see mine maybe 4-5 times a week for about an hour. I think I got to take my son home for about 4-5 hours about a month and a half in. Which came about as my ex was doing an apartment move so I offered. Frame it all as questions of what does mum want. I’m afraid your son is just gonna have to march to mums tune for a bit.

I got my first overnight at 5 months old, not because I asked for it, but because my ex called to ask if I could have him so she could stay over somewhere on a night out. Being a reliable source of support will get you miles further than harping on about rights and entitlements. Also I would add I’ve not found any systems remotely stacked against me as a father. As long as your number one focus is the child’s wellbeing then that in my experience tends to win out.

Unfortunately in the end I and my son’s mother were unable to pull off a decent co-parenting relationship, and after 6 or so years going through the courts I now have him full time, but never once throughout the entire process did I feel the courts were against me. In fact their lean isn’t about mothers vs fathers at all, but what’s good for the child. They will for preference try and bang your heads together to try and get you on the same page for the child’s sake. Yeah I may have won in the courts, but my son lost
what should have been a solid two parent household setup that I regret not being able to bring into land for him.

The mum and dad both aren't speaking. They're both childish and far too immature to have a baby if they can't even speak to each other.

You're right, the dad should make more effort to be involved - he also needs to be allowed involvement on his own, not yet but in the future (I do agree that baby is too young). But for future, something legal needs to be drawn up because the parents of this child are downright petty and pathetic. It will be worth it for mum and dad and more importantly, the baby.

Whoever is a parent and reading this thread, make sure your kids (both sexes) know about contraption and to use it. And make sure they know to really think, plan and discuss having children, and only when they're emotionally mature enough to give more fucks about the kid than they do themselves.

I am shocked that you, as a mother yourself, would even be entertaining the idea that he should feel entitled to take a 6 week baby away from its mother’s supervision! You should be explaining to your son that this is unreasonable and that it’s perfectly natural for the mother to be watching anyone who is holding her baby and that he’ll just have to do things on her terms until at least 6 months.

Bravo, you said it better than I did with fewer words and more directly.

Her response is very worrying, she's so oblivious.

So you only met her twice but that was enough for you to be sure she was only after this 19 year old boy’s money and you fought with your son over this? There isn’t a cat in hell’s chance that this woman doesn’t know you dislike her and think she’s a mercenary little bitch so while it would be entirely reasonable at this point for her not to be parted from her baby in any circumstances, I’m sure she’s going to be extra wary of the baby spending time away from her with you. It sounds like you did your best to alienate your son from her and it is definitely not in the baby’s best interest to have anyone trying to alienate it from its mother, which she must fear you will try to do.

The ideal thing is these situations is for the father to see the baby little and often at either the mothers house or perhaps at her mother’s house or a friends house with the mother present if she feels wary of having him in her house. They would then work up to him spending time in sole charge of the baby in small increments but almost certainly not this early. This is assuming there has been no abuse involved. The father needs to demonstrate consistency during this time if he wants to work up to eventual 50/50. His mummy can’t act as proxy for him.

You will have to be patient at the moment as the main concern is that the baby forms a secure bond with the baby and that both are well, then that the father forms a bond and is safe and confident with the baby. Grandparents’ roles are supportive and if the support isn’t wanted then you just have to wait, you have no rights to the baby.

If the mother doesn’t want you present then your son needs to go alone or not at all. It sounds like far from encouraging them to calm down and work things through amicably you have been inflaming things so it might be a good idea for your son to suggest mediation, which would involve him and the mother, not you. However with a six week old baby this may have to wait for a while.

If I were her or a member of her family, I would be very wary of you and I would be opposed to you spending time with the baby. I would fear you would attempt parental alienation which is very damaging to children and families.

Go to court then

It doesn't sound like she won't allow access, just that she wants the contact to be at hers and be present.
As it's early days with a newborn, these seem like totally reasonable conditions.
I would work on setting up a schedule of visits that work for all parties, so that contact can be regular and your son and his child can bond. Then when it's appropriate he can ask for a change of venue (maybe a public place) and eventually have the child on his own.

Your DS might not like the current arrangement, but while baby is so little it’s not unreasonable for mum to want to be present. I’d support the current visits as much as you can, with a view to building towards time with baby solo in the future.