AIBU to refuse to cut short our holiday for childcare?

This ex… well, we have a litany of crimes. Affair with two teeny tiny babies
Upped sticks and moved far away
Stamping her feet and demanding ex cancels holiday
oh and spends childcare money on…. A night out with girlfriends no doubt will be reported.

I don’t know… maybe I’m just a tiny bit skeptical these days

If the children are meant to be with you… then arranging cover is very much your responsibility

You’d never get to go away at all if you could only go when you don’t have your contact time. It’s perfectly normal that people do this over the holidays. Most people don’t offer money to cover childcare either.

The vibe of the thread is very much that he is a crap father. The

Why would he be providing money for childcare during his holiday UNLESS the children were due to be with him?

and given it’s only 10 days a month… it is likely that his holiday won’t cover all the days he was meant to be caring for them.

Oh dear OP. Mumsnetters HATE step-mums, there’s a lot of bitter first wives.

Don’t go home early, she’ll have to sort something out. She’s a big girl!

In other words a step mum would expect her husband to be a better parent than the mother who cheated on him, broke up their family and cons extra money out of him which she does not use to benefit her children. Not exactly a great role model, is she?

Yawn. I’m glad you think you’re funny, I doubt anyone else does.

Where on earth did you get that from? Nowhere in the OP's posts does she suggest that the holiday she is on is happening during the time her husband has charge of his two elder children.

Actually, "It’s a little frustrating that we have to think about childcare when it’s not our days" and "Yes it was her time so she should have really sorted it out" rather suggest the opposite, don't they.

A woman had an affair while married, such that she was unsure which of two men had fathered her second child; then she left her husband and moved away with her new partner. I think trying to make her inability to arrange childcare for either of two weeks during time she is in charge of her children even though her ex-husband had given her money to pay for that childcare into somehow being her discarded ex-husband's fault is a stretch from here to the Horsehead Nebula.

As for heaping blame on the OP about a perfectly reasonable pre-planned holiday arrangement, I find that weird. (Do people seriously think the ex-wife would have allowed him to take his children with her abroad during her time with them? I mean, really?)

But neither of these is what the OP was asking about; she was asking "Is it reasonable not to cut our children's holiday short because my husband's ex-wife can't get her act together to sort out childcare for her children for three days". I think it would be wildly unfair on the children who are at Disney to cut their holiday short because an adult can't manage to do something huge numbers of people manage to do every day, so I think not penalising the younger children is utterly reasonable.

How long is a “good distance” I wonder

and given he has such previous limited time with the children… how peculiar he chose to book a holiday to clash with the days he has them

He has his children for 10 days a month and he books a holiday to coincide with some of those 10days . Lovely

Why wasn’t he arranging the childcare given he’d selected to go on holiday during the 10days a month he has his children

All men can be misogynistic but to do it properly you need a woman.

So much for women’s empowerment. She’s an adult/parent. She deals with it

I think that I would consider that before getting pregnant for a man who had a 3 year old and a 1 year old to raise, they didn’t have one baby, they had two, completely selfish father.

If you are going to blend with an already broken family then you need to be compromise. The stress may be too much for the relationship to last, will he go and impregnate another woman? He’s not exactly the forward thinking kind.

It's the MN step-parenting rules.

Step-kids need holiday with their mum. holiday with just their dad, and must be treated as full family members of both families.

The step-mum's children get one holiday with their mum and dad, with half-siblings given plenty of 1-2-1 with their dad.

YANBU to not rush back from holiday to help out.

YABU for not taking his older kids with you on holiday. Taking them away for only 4 days is pathetic. And sad for them. They’re second class citizens in your house aren’t they?

I wouldn't be very happy having to entertain the two older children when I've got a toddler to deal with too. The OP has two children, not four and she's allowed to spend time with them on their own. Also is she not allowed to just take one out somewhere and leave the other one with DH/other relative/friend/at school/at nursery?

Who knew that if you had more than one child you had to take them all everywhere at all times, stepchildren or otherwise.

Glad I only had one child with one man and avoided all this blended nonsense.

If she has a partner why isn’t he helping with her DC?

I have just read your updates and my reply was a bit harsh. I can see he does take big kids on holiday too!

It’s very mean that the big kids aren’t included on this holiday in my opinion, then the childcare would be sorted. The age gaps aren’t that big.

if dad thinks that holidaying with some of his kids is more important than the livelihood of his other kids parent that’s on him. Her mum is ill it’s not her fault.
if he doesn’t help in any way (he could fly home early, without you, or he could send a family member to help) then kids will make their mind up about how serious a parent he is.

The timeline doesn’t make sense to me either, the children are stepping stones in years, from two different mothers.
Why did he not wait until he raised his children to be a little older.

I don't buy the 'in the space of 2 years the XW was having an affair and left, the DD2 was born and DNA tested, the DH met and procreated with OP (DD3) and they had that baby'.
This, or some of it, was during COVID.

Neither do I. If it is correct, this father is irresponsible as now there are 4 children.
He needs to consider the snip if he can’t stop impregnating women.

If he was female, he’d be judged for it.

You both sound like good parents. So the only way I can see that you are BU. is by taking notice of the numpty comments on here.
As others have said..turn your phones off and have a good time.

100% this 🙌