contact between non resident parent and 4 month old - overnight stay????

[mostlyhappy1234]

hi,

i have a 4month old and the other parent does not live with us and has not yet applied for parental responsibility. i offered to put the name on the birth certificate but parent refused.

there was a fortnightly contact of 6 hours every sunday. other parent now requested overnight stays. I have been brought up to believe that young babies should stay with their main carers (overnight) until they are at least 12 months old.....

would like to hear as many opinions as possible please!!!

Totally depends on whether you trust the other parent and whether your baby is exclusively breastfed or not.

I let DS go to his dads O/N at that age and he was fine (his dad didn't have massive experience of babies) DS survived and what I don't know won't hurt me.

Oh and DS is now 9 and has a fab relationship with his dad

2 young at the mo

I wouldn't see it as an issue tbh IF the dad had seen him more than 6 hours once a fortnight, me and dp weren't living together when dd was born and she often stayed at his from a few weeks old to give me a break from the 8 hours of screaming per day (colic) BUT he saw her daily and did a lot of care etc

I like the way everyone is assuming the NR parent is the dad - wonder if answers would ne the same if the NRP is the mum?!

I assume the NR parent is the dad as only the resident parent's name is on the birth certificate.

Feckless arseholism is non-gender specific slightly so yes my answer would be the same.

Babies form very stong attachments to the person they are with constantly and making a baby go overnight to someone they hardly knew would be unfair IMO.

Oh yes, the same regardless of gender imo

what rita said, the mother would have HAD to have registered the baby as a father cant do so on his own unless they are married and the op doesnt make it sound like they are?

it doesnt matter whether it the mother or the father, the advice would be the same as in, spend MORE time with the baby and then build it up and work on forging a bond with the baby and THEN consider overnight visits.

I deliberately made no reference to gender in my post - makes not a bit of difference (though birth certificate comment means that it pretty much has to be the dad).

Think about it. This person has seen this baby ONCE A WEEK so far. Once a week. That isn't anywhere near enough for the baby to have any kind of bond with the person. To the baby, this isn't yet a parent. It's a person whose touch, smell, voice they HARDLY KNOW. It's a virtual stranger.

That's not what this very 'my rights, me me me' so-called parent wants to hear, but it's a fact, sadly.

To leave the baby overnight in the care of this parent would be distressing for the baby at every level, because not only would the baby not really know who they were (and would be mightily upset at the disappearance of the primary carer) the parent wouldn't - can't - really know the baby: their routine, their personality.

This parent needs to realise, and very quickly, that parenthood of such a small baby is nothing at all to do with RIGHTS and everything to do with RESPONSIBILITIES. Their behaviour so far (don't want to go on birth certificate, but do want to play dollies with baby) is downright shoddy. And doesn't inspire much confidence in the future, sadly.

I would consider it the RESPONSIBILITY of the parent with care (i.e. the one who knows the baby because they are the one there putting in the hours!) to refuse this needy request, IN THE INTERESTS OF THE BABY. It is in no way good parenting to hand a four-month old baby over to a person who is a stranger simply for the purposes of indulging them.

I imagine that the second parent won't like this at all, and shouts of 'It's just as much MY baby as yours' will ensue. But I'm afraid that that's simply not true. Let's go back to RESPONSIBILITIES not RIGHTS. Who here has the responsibility? Who is the one giving, not wanting to take, from this baby?

I would want to see a far higher level of committment to GIVING to this baby before I could take this parent seriously. The fact that they are even asking for overnights with a baby they see once a week is worrying enough and indicates that they have no perception of the baby's real needs - just their own. Until that changed, like I said, they could go take a hike!