Who is unreasonable here?

[Earpieced]

2 parents divorced. Small DC

Parent A has DC 60% of the week and parent B has 40%. Not court ordered, mutual agreement.

both work. Both have new partners. Parent A does not live with partner

Parent A does most school runs and day to day things.

Parent B misses the DC and likes to check on them and texts, calls and video calls Parent A daily. Parent B makes plans with the DC in parent A’s time. Parent B’s new partner does childcare while they are at work.

Parent A does not hear from the DC during parent B’s time and there are no calls.

Parent B took DC on holiday and offered to facilitate the DC to call Parent A, then forgot to call or text.

If parent A puts in boundaries with regard to contact in their time, is this unfair to parent B who has less time with the DC and misses them?

In a nutshell, parents should be free to call to speak to their kids if they want to imo.

The update from OP is brilliant. So much for the preceding assumptions 😅😅

Wonder if opinions will change about boundaries now that Parent A is Dad 🤔

It clearly states reasons why dad didn't call.

Apparently mum doesn't have this same courtesy or thoughtfulness though

Here’s how it works with my DSD9 who is in a 50/50 arrangement.
When she is at her mum’s her dad (my partner) generally rings her on her mums phone once a week. She may answer, she may not, she might call back later or not.
When DSD is at ours her mum never rings her with the exception of Christmas or birthday. It’s weird.
Very rarely she asks to ring her mum. If she’s not already in bed, then she rings her mum. If she’s in bed she’s put off to the next morning as her mum is very unpredictable and her dad doesn’t want to risk a phone call going wrong at that time.
So, based on what I observe, don’t wait for a call - make the calls. Show that you are interested and keep it light and loving.

It states reasons why the Dad doesn't think calling is the right thing to do, the mum clearly feels differently, just because dad states reasons doesn't mean those reasons are correct, if he wanted to speak to them why didn't he just call when he knows the mother doesn't have any issues calling her kids when they are with him so it shouldn't be a problem for her either the other way round.

Dad should just call if mum forgot, she is the one busy on holiday with the 2 kids so it's fair that it might slip her mind. Dad sounds like he is just putting "boundaries" in place to.be petty because the mum forgot to call

the current approach is not working. Dad should just call daily and if mUm says that’s not convenient say ok, let’s agree we will neither of us call daily on the others time. You can call once during their time wintme- why not Tuesdays?
The holiday thing is neither here nor there, given mum always calls on dads time perhaps she thought why should I get them to call him, can’t he dial the phone himself like I always do?

Yep.

What is best for the children?

Actually If pushed to guess which sex the Parents were originally I probably would have thought Parent A was the mother and B the father but in hindsight since you revealed it was the opposite it makes sense from reading other threads on here. It does usually seem to be the dads who expect the kids(facilitated by the mother) to contact him where as the mother usually just calls when she wants to speak to her kids.

*Not in ALL cases I know but generally speaking

As per my post above it’s the exact opposite in my experience. How do generalisations actually help?

Surely neither parent should make plans on the other parents time, and if either of the parents want to speak to the children on the other parents time then they should be the ones to make the call, subject to reasonable limits (e.g. one (answered) call daily or every other day - same rules for both parents).

No need to make it any more complicated than that.

I responded too rapidly - In fact it’s not quite the opposite. Here DSD’s Mother doesn’t expect dad to facilitate contact either, as far as I can tell.

Help what? It's just an observation I made from reading threads on here. I did specifically say not ALL cases bloody hell

when mum calls the DC they often lose interest but she won’t hang up the phone. The calls go on for a long time during the bed/dinner routine. Dad does not call in evenings because he knows it’s highly annoying at that time of day and will see them in a day or so.

Dad is not upset about the missed call on holiday but getting peeved at the expectation he is going to facilitate the long nightly calls.

He doesn't have to answer if it's not a good time

I have voted YANBU for the simple reason that Parent B refuses to give Parent A the same contact when DC is not in their care, for example, the video-calling and so forth.

I also voted YANBU due to the fact that when Parent B is out of the country with DC, Parent A has every right to be able to have contact with DC to check on DC’s well-being, so on and so forth.

My only suggestion here would be to apply for Mediation through the Services which I know is the last thing anybody wants to have to go through, especially since the private arrangement seems perfectly reasonable.

But Parent B is being unreasonable and Parent A (presuming that Parent A is the female parent) did not lay down and create DC by herself.

All of the above and the voting of YANBU is subject to the fact, of course, that OP is Parent A.

I feel OP might be Parent A's G/F

A boundary could be not picking up the calls if they are inconvenient to take or it’s a rushed evening with tired children? Is this unreasonable? Or is it better to ask directly please call less?

The calls are not for DC they don’t ask to call her. Just as they didn’t ask to call dad when they were on holiday having fun. If they did ask to call, dad would call mum for them. Dad has always facilitated extra time and all these calls but it is wearing thin and draining at times

I'm pretty sure OP is the partner of the dad, you can tell by how he can do no wrong in this situation.

Sorry meant to start that with I agree 😁

Great minds :p

I am a neutral party in that I am not a relative or partner. I see dad more than mum but I know them both. Dad asked me for my advice

I mean it sounds more like you would rather neither speak to the children on the others "time" which actually I don't think is that beneficial to the children at all. Yeah kids are kids, they don't have long attention spans generally speaking but I still think speaking to them most days when you're away from them as a parent is in their interest in the long run 💁