My husband went through court with his ex, not over this specific arrangement but they have a child arrangements order.
just suggest to her that she picks SD up for when she needs her due to the time you guys will be landing back! Don’t put anything else forward, she has chose to book it for the same day or day after if I’m correct? She is not acting in her daughters best interests here, it looks like she’s competing and doing tit for tat to the extreme!
as for the people on here saying “tiredness is a shitty excuse” have you not seen the signs on the motorway before advising people to avoid driving when tired?
How in earth is it in the best interests of a 5yr old to drive when having jet lag and being completely exhausted especially when arriving home early hours, how is this in the best interests of the child?
you lot may think I’m over exaggerating, but the road signs are there for a reason and it is extremely dangerous to drive when feeling tired, simple as, you could potentially cause a crash! Why? Because the mum can’t get off her arse to pick her daughter up herself? Shocking.
I don’t think you’ll have any worries in court personally, they’ll see her as being unreasonable expecting your DP to drive out of the way on extreme tiredness just to drop her off whether it be early hours or 10.30am. It’s not unreasonable for you to suggest due to the long flight and delays etc that she is more then welcome to pick her daughter up at 10.30 if need be or if she doesn’t mind if she hasn’t booked the holiday (if this is the case the Courts don’t take well to people who lie btw) then yes suggest dropping her off at around 6pm.
also just a heads up! The police don’t get involved with these scenarios either, my husbands ex called them round enough times out of spite, they will simply compete a welfare check to just check the child is safe etc, they will see she’s sleeping! And fine and they will just report back to mum to say she’s fine! And probably advise her to seek legal advice, that’s it..
she will also have to provide proof of her holiday to the courts to be granted any sort of order, I know this from experience with other bits such as the child arrangements order, if she is making demands for the child to be returned due to another holiday the courts will need to see dates/times etc so they can make a decision (if no compromise has been met) of what would be the best arrangement for the child.
if she doesn’t agree or start being reasonable, the judge will in the end make the decision not her, the power will be out of everyone’s hands!
good luck xx