To change dd's contact arrangements with her dad, or stop them completely

[ChangedMyNameInDecember]

First post in a long while, I know there is a lone parenting thread but posting here for traffic.
I'll try & keep it short.
Bit of background- Dc's father and I split over 2 years ago. He made little to no effort to see them until the beginning of this year, when he met his new gf, started to move on with his life and decided he wanted contact.
We agreed on every other weekend with ds6 staying over and dd3 coming home to me as she didn't want to sleep there.
Ds6 has a great relationship with his dad and really looks forward to seeing him....however my dd3 is often gets upset about going round.
Soooo.. He has been telling me for the last few weeks that he is entitled to have dd overnight and will be having her too from now on. I looked into it and it would appear he is correct as he has parental responsibility, so I stupidly agreed to let dd3 stay over tonight.
He came to pick her up and she started to cry, then scream. We couldn't reason with her. She hid herself behind the sofa and barricaded herself in. ExP said he was taking her and that was that.
My Dd3 was screaming for me and fighting him every step of the way. Begging me to help her, even as he was driving her off in his car.
He is now not answering my calls or messages so I have no idea how she is, or even where she is. I don't even know when ExP is bringing her back!
I feel like the absolute worst mum in the world. I have let her down and probably scared her for life.
So WIBU to say only DS6 can have contact from now on, and that DD3 can choose to stay with me if she wishes?
Any comments appreciated, I don't know what to do........

OP I’m sending you hugs. I can’t inagine how hard this must be for you. I think your DD father is out of line for not prioritising his DDs well-being. Hopefully he will have a wakeful night and not ask again.

Good point.... if it's reversed would you expect yours to just stay longer with dad..... or would you take her back kicking and screaming?

I agree with everyone else. You both need to put 110% effort into helping her with this and do it as quickly as possible. If the two of you can't help her with it then perhaps you both need some professional help to get her to that point. Does she have a special bag picked out with new fancy pajamas that might help excite her? Perhaps a special toy that she only has when she goes to dads. Tell her you are excited for her to go (and mean it).

I agree with Becotide, would you let your daughter live with her father and never stay with you if she went and decided she liked it there better? There is a reason we don't let three year olds make life decisions.

So if she's 3 and he chose to have no contact for about 2 years after the separation then he was basically a stranger to her when contact resumed? She probably wouldn't remember him after all that time and certainly needed time to adjust to having him around again. This is a lot of disruption for a young child and he seems much more concerned about his rights than her feelings. He should be rebuilding their relationship slowly. I would get legal advice on whether he can force overnights before she's ready.

Sorry OP I was cooking, yes, if she’s becoming distressed about overnights you can refuse those until she’s built up enough of a relationship with him to want to go. Stopping contact completely wouldn’t go down well with a court, but daytime contact instead of overnights if she’s becoming that distressed is completely reasonable and legal.

You shouldn't stop all contact. The courts can and will remove custody if you don't let ex see child/ren. You need legal advice. Has she come home? How is she?

Forgive me if I have misunderstood op but I think she has not come home...she may be extremely happy and quite happy to go in the future.

If she kicks and screams first day at school are you never going to take her again???

I appreciate this was difficult to watch but you do not even know yet if this is a problem so to be talking about stopping contact now is utterly ridiculous - if she was upset the whole time she was away you will need to work together to help her get over it.

But 5 mins of upset and then she gets over it and has a great time is far more likely. Many kids are like this at nursery/school and everyone would be telling them to stick with it.

He's finally messaged me. Apparently she's calmed down now - but I am "disgusting" for poisoning her mind against him.
Hopefully I can convince him to be a bit more understanding to her feelings in future and put a hold on the overnights for a while.
I will be contacting a solicitor to enquire about mediation ASAP.
I wouldn't stop all contact, I was distraught after she left and I wasn't thinking straight.
This is so much harder than I ever thought. We were a happy little family of 3 for a long time, It's a big adjustment now he's back.

Oh and just because he hasn't returned her doesn't mean she isn't kicking and screaming. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't bring her back if she was. He would see that as admitting defeat.

You can organise mediation without a solicitor, it's the compulsory step before court.

Google family mediation in your area. Arrange an initial meeting, they'll call him to arrange his session, then you can either meet with the mediator together or continue separately.

When things have calmed down, let him know that you think having an impartial third party to help you come to an agreement which suits everyone will be helpful, so it's a positive step and not a threat. You never know, if this visit has been awful for ex and the DC he might be happy to wait a bit before another overnight and phase it in. But if not then mediation might be useful for you both to see each other's perspectives.