To not want my baby to stay with his dad overnight

[Bunny44]

My baby is a year old and has never met his dad as he left me when I was pregnant for someone else and moved to the US afterwards. We've been in touch but it's not been very consistent especially on his side. He says he loves his son but he's only done a handfull of video calls with him and not provided anything financially. I often question why either of us bother and I've kept it to only responding when he reaches out.

Now I'm going to the US for work next month and I mentioned this to him and he suggested I brought my son and let him look after him while I'm working. However he lives in New York and the event is in Florida. I was tentative but I'm still breastfeeding and co-sleeping so I thought well this way if he takes him in the daytime I can carry on breastfeeding and co-sleeping at night.

However when I said this to my ex, he was annoyed and he said Florida is too far and he expected me to drop our son off in New York and leave him there for 4 or 5 days and then pick him up on the way back. He said he wants quality time with him including overnight and that I'm being unreasonable to deny him this as his parent. That I need to stop breastfeeding and it's not hard.

I'm assuming I'm not unreasonable, but just want to sanity check. Although he's his dad, he chose to leave and my son doesn't know him. I think my son would be distraught if I just left him with essentially a stranger even if he is his dad. I thought it was a big deal to leave him with him in the daytime as it was. I don't want to be accused of being the sort of mum who keeps my child from his father, but I thought offering him to either meet us in Florida or to stop in New York on the way there (so they could meet with my supervision) is very reasonable, especially given his lack of effort thusfar. I'm not saying never but now I think my son is too young and his father a stranger to him.

My ex is not a US citizen and can't travel out of the US currently to do with visas. He claims he has parental rights but he's not on the birth certificate and my son has my name. Presumably he can't exert rights over my son there as a non-US citizen. His partner has always seemed extremely hostile and has openly said negative things about the existance of our son throughout my pregnancy and thereafter which have gotten back to me.

I know people leave young babies with ex's and their partners all the time and I'd love to facilitate a relationship with his dad but AIBU to think his expectations are unreasonable?

Absolutely not. Think about what might happen if he disappears with him! Overnights are a no no when breast feeding anyway!

I would file for CMS/Maintenance. He sounds awful. Why let him do what he wants? It’s his problem if he’s has gone somewhere else.
Id take your parents with you. I couldn’t be apart for that long from such a young baby.

And if he's an asylum seeker without papers in the US, there's the outside possibility they get refused asylum while your child is with them, detained for removal and off your child goes to social services.

They are in a precarious position - and your child would be in an even more precarious position.

@Bunny44

I'm in the US. Parental 'rules' vary from state to state. But he is 'domiciled' in New York state so that state's rules would apply. Assuming that he is not on the birth certificate, you have not signed a legal document acknowledging him as the father, and there has been no court order establishing paternity he has no legal rights over the child.

Only for a US citizen. He's not a US citizen. If he tried for parental rights he'd be obligated to pay me CMS which he also doesn't want.

If you're saying that because he's not a US citizen that he can't pursue paternity through the US courts, you are dead wrong. Even if he is here illegally, he can still file for paternity. In fact, he could actually have gotten an order 'in absentia', but he would have had to have the birth certificate and told a whole shit load of lies to do so. And a paternity order in the US does not mean an obligation to pay child support (as it's termed in the US), that would be a separate court order. Technically the UK & US have a 'reciprocal agreement' to enforce child support orders, but it's nearly impossible to get one state's local child support agency to enforce an order from another US state, let alone a foreign country.

But just for your own peace of mind, I would tell him that the work thing has been cancelled and you are no longer going to Florida. Then just go and return quietly. Least said, soonest mended.

He's without papers in the US like many Latinos. Didn't want to mention it as I didn't want to derail the conversation and feel like many Brits don't really understand about the situation over there as its very different to the UK.

Plan for the worst. Kid becomes sick, dad delays going to emerg because he's not got papers, kid gets sicker. Finally they get to emerg, SW called because kid is sicker than he should be. Foreign child with undocumented dad? Kid is going to foster care.

I think Latinos have a hell of a time. I love Central America. the increasingly hostile environment puts your child in danger. And dad could choose to go to Guatemala with him through some other route, weirder things have happened.

They're from South America. He racked up debts there trying to start a business last year, so is particularly keen not to go back. He seems to love living in the US. In his country they really struggled economically whereas in the US as an undocumented migrant it's hard but they can afford rent, food, new clothes and a car (his dream after having a son).

But yes I already said he couldn't stay with him before because of their immigration status and access to health care.

If you want to stop breastfeeding then the trip away might be a good motivation to do it.

If you aren't ready to stop then either try to figure out pumping so you can maintain your supply where you're gone, or tell your employer that as a single mother of a breastfed baby you're not in a position to do long business trips abroad just yet.

This.

He is either utterly clueless or utterly uncaring and only thinking of his own wishes not the wellbeing of the child.

Don't hand your one year old baby to a man he's never met and hope to get him back five days later.

Make other arrangements for childcare (ideally pay for travel for a known babysitter to travel with you for the daytime childcare).

As your ex knows your plans leave the option open for him to travel to where you are and meet your son of course, but supervised by you at all times, in a child friendly restaurant at lunchtime followed by a walk together to the nearest playground in a park or something. It's unlikely he'll bother putting in the effort to meet his son properly in a way that is in your son's interests by the sound of it.

Without any paperwork he doesn't have any rights at all atm and would have to apply through the courts to get a paternity test and go from there to get any.

THis, the can't leave America thing sounds very suss. Been there and done it.

You were considering for EVEN ONE SECOND leaving your son in a foreign country with an illegal immigrant who has never seen him????? Given that he has no prespect of having parental rights and you wouldn't have him back if he was the last man in the owrld, why are you even still in contact? and yes, I'd be telling your employer that you can't do the trip at all.

He’s being an entitled prick and a bully, not thinking of your son at all but just about himself. Tell him to fuck off and come back when he’s grown up and learnt to think of others, not just himself.

He loves his son !! How???

Fuck that shit, there's no way I'd be leaving my son with him without me. So many things that can go wrong for you, its not worth the risk imo

So, were it not for the circumstance of you being on the same continent, he wouldn't be making any particular plans to see this baby?

And even when you are on the same continent, he's not prepared to take an internal flight to see this baby?

And, presumably, the idea is that you go about two thousand miles out of your way on a round trip to drop off and pick up this baby?

And in order for him to see this baby without leaving his apartment, he's telling you to stop breastfeeding this baby?

Which bit of all that do you think you're being unreasonable about?

I don't. It's just I know of lots of separated parents doing this sort of thing all the time because they have to so it seems the norm in some cases, but yes I think it's unreasonable of him and his expectations.

He can't come to the UK basically ever again though since he crossed the US border illegally, the UK have rules that would mean he can no longer visit the UK even as a tourist. Flying internally I think might also be problemetic for him too but I'm not sure. He could drive but it's around 24 hours. He said he would come to Florida but only if he could have him overnight. I think he was just being difficult though.

He messaged me again last night though saying he'd spoken to him mum and he'd misunderstood what I said and that yes it's normal for my baby not to do overnights yet when he doesn't know him. He was convinced before that that I was being deliberately difficult. Again I was on the point of just leaving it all together. Not sure if I can be bothered to accommodate him now though even with a visit as like you said surely he should be going out of his way within his means of doing so rather than making everything about him and what he wants.

Come on op, give your head a wobble.
You seem to the thriving on the drama of all this now!
If you've got any brain cells, you'll cut contact with this guy and get on with your life

This basically. You cannot trust this man, he has no fatherly qualities. Read up on the many many child abduction cases by a parent, you need a wake up call for ever considering this

OP you've written multiple threads about this, just forget about this man ever being meaningfully involved in your child's life. Move on. He has no interest in you or your child, you are both collateral damage to the love story of himself and his wife. At some point all this drama will start affecting your child if you don't stop it now.

The fact that he's in the US and undocumented, therefore being unable to make the effort to come back to the UK in order to facilitate a relationship with his son is a bit of red herring here - he chose to go to the US, he wasn't forced, he could have chosen to stay in the UK. Stop bending over backwards trying to facilitate a relationship between him and your son. The very most you should do is offer access to your son in the UK, especially at such a young age. If this deadbeat dad can't, or won't, take that up then that's on him and you can move forward with a clean conscience knowing that you absolutely have done everything to maintain the relationship. He buggered off to the US knowing that he had a child in the UK and knowing that by moving to another country undocumented it would make seeing his child impossible, he may well have a "better" life in the US but it's not as if he couldn't have had a decent life here too, it's not like he's gone to the US to escape an unsafe country.

Didn't want to go into the backstory but this isn't quite what happened. He is from a country that has considerable economic instablity and some consider to be unsafe. He wasn't living in the UK when he went to the US - he could only have stayed in the UK if we got married (original plan) but our relationship didn't work out. He didn't know before going to the US that this would mean he couldn't come to the UK thereafter. I don't think he really considered the wider implications other than they desperately needed money and had run out of option at home so like millions of others last year, went North.

But how about other separated parents who are doing this all the time? I don't get the difference? Is it just he's from another country? I know parents sharing parental responsibilities also between continents for various reasons.

If I said my ex was in another town in the UK and I didn't want him to go to him, surely you wouldn't claim he'd try and run off with him?

He still knew that he wouldn't be able to have a consistent relationship with his child. Does he pay any child support?

Just say no. Doesn't look like he can or will do much about it

Of course it's an INSANE suggestion. He is a stranger to your son!

@Bunny44 you know parents sharing responsibilities. That's great. This guy isn't a parent and doesn't have any responsibilities.