AIBU or is my partners ex

[TheSunnyLemonShark]

Just to start, my bonus child has a full wardrobe at our house, coats, dresses loads of shoes at ours so wouldn’t go without.

So we have overnight visits every second weekend sat 1pm-sun6pm and her mum usually packs a little bag for her (completely unnecessary as she has everything she needs at ours anyway) ex refuses to return clothes from our house if she goes home in them meaning we always send her home in outfits from mums as nothing comes back that’s from our house.

my partners ex has started demanding that we wash the outfit from Saturday and dress bonus child in it on a Sunday for pick up as she doesn’t want to pack a bag for her anymore (leaving very little turn around to actually wash and dry it, 9pm bedtime and out the house for 10am Sunday for swimming lessons). We’ve always sent what she was sent in back home with her until last weekend when I forgot to pack her cardigan from the Saturday), bonus child is 5 and we have a 2 month old baby as well so it’s a little chaotic sometimes!)
we do all pickups and drop off (ex moved to a location 40 minutes away when they broke up) and it feels like my partners ex is just trying to make it more difficult.

I would have no issue washing the clothes and sending them back the next weekend I just think my partners ex is being unreasonable expecting the outfit to be washed and dried from Saturday night to Sunday. last thing I want to do it get the baby sorted get bonus child to bed then have to go stick on a wash at 8/9 a Saturday night and get it on the radiators and keep the heating on a decent temp overnight all because mum is demanding it be the same outfit she’s returned in.

AIBU if I refuse to do this?

It's really depressing she has such strict rules about clothes. The child is one person not two

Ah yes but she was replying to me where I referred to my bonus grandson who was a bonus when his mum married my son and not generic child connotations

I hate that term 🤢

why cant you change her immediately when she arrives?

save the clothes to go back on sunday morning?

if she insists on them being washed, a quick wash and tumble?!

this isnt a hill to die on

Well the OP's stepdaughter likes it and that's all that matters really at the end of the day isn't it

Thank you for the comic relief 😂😂😂

No I refer to her as my bonus child, my partner just says his daughter, she’s uncomfortable with me referring to her as my daughter so it’s habit now
You've only been in her life a couple of years and you are really just 'dads girlfriend' so I do not understand why you would ever have referred to her as YOUR daughter? In this context, where the child has had to tell you to stop, 'bonus child' seems a bit cringe 🤷‍♀️

Anyway, others have suggested good solutions. I think the best one is to send her home in whatever she is wearing at your house with the clothes she came in washed at your convenience and hung in her wardrobe. Next fortnight, you send her back in the first lot she came in and continue so you are only sending clothes from mums. That way, you're only losing one outfit and you can choose what to 'sacrifice'.
If the father is already going to court soon, it shouldn't matter what she thinks of this new arrangement with the clothes because it is a non issue. He spends such little time with his child, he really should have done something about this sooner so I'm glad he had a court date now. Maybe he could address the travel as well if it's all on one parent.
He really needs to not be so passive

Why should the OP or her partner facilitate the mother's deliberate awkwardness regarding clothes, access etc.? He should be keeping a comprehensive record of all the difficulties the mother places on his daughter's relationship with him for spiteful reasons, including to do her share of picking up or dropping off, so that when he does want to increase access through the courts he can show the problems the mother had created.

This.

Hopefully you will be going for 50/50 OP?

And if not, why not?

I can see two options:

1. Change her into “your” clothes when you pick her up, she wears your clothes the whole time she is in your care (multiple outfits if she gets dirty), then change her back into mum’s clothes on drop off.
2. She wears mum’s clothes on Saturday, your clothes on Sunday. You hold onto mum’s clothes and wash them during the week. Then next time she comes over you send her back on Sunday wearing mum’s outfit that you’ve washed. Again, wash the Saturday outfit during the week and put her back in it the next Sunday. I know you said mum wants her clothes returned but what can she do? If you are doing drop offs and you simply don’t have the clothes with you there’s nothing she can do. Just say you’re washing it and will send it back the following week.

If she’s wearing a jacket that came from your house just make sure she takes it off when she gets out of the car before she walks into her mum’s house.
I don’t see how this could be used against you by a lawyer. As long as the child is appropriately clothed the specifics really don’t matter.

Change her as soon as she arrives then put a wash on, you can plan that as part of your own washing routine so you have a load to go on anyway. Then you have over 24 hours to get it dry and change her back into it before she goes home.

It all sounds very petty, if it was me I would change the clothes on pick up to the you own, and then just put her back in then for drop off the next day, then there is no switch over, it shouldn't be necessary to do this, but apparently it is too her.

Think she is just being awkward for the sake of it.

Easy! Get "bonus child" to change into "your" clothes when she gets to yours and pack mums clothes away. It's really not difficult.
But then it's not hard for you partner to have his child for more than 60 hours a month but he clearly doesn't want to because he's got a shiny new 6 month old toy!

I said in my post that if the OP doesn't want to do it then don't do it

Get her to change as soon as she arrives into one of her outfits from your place.
If ex’s clothes are clean, just put them away for the next day to return home.
If they’re already dirty, wash them at 1pm on arrival.

Not rocket science.

Why does this keep being suggested? Poor kid has to strip off as soon as she gets to their house??? Way to make her feel welcome. She's one kid her clothes should be moveable.

Kids that age couldn’t care less! She gets to wear her ‘special’ clothes at daddy’s house.

This sort of stuff shouldn’t become a thing when the much bigger issue of custody is being argued over. Don’t sweat the small, stupid nonsense. Focus on the bigger picture.

Likewise I hope the mother also keeps a comprehensive record such as how tried to make a big song and dance about how he only wanted to do pick up or drop off, but not both because it would be such a major inconvenience for him 🙄

I feel for the child having to change her clothes a soon as she gets to daddy's house. What if she wanted to wear that outfit? It's really rubbing it in that she's not living with a mum and dad in one house.

I would be refusing to pander to this shit from the mother however it played out.

The issue with situations like the OPs is that everyone should focus on the bloody child who is in this situation to make it bloody well work to make it as easier for her to have a proper relationship with both of her parents and stop damned well point scoring in the process, but, of course, that rarely happens.

OP the most sensible response to date is that you send SD home in one set from your house one time and then keep the set she came in to wash and pop her into to go home in the next time she comes and then rotate from there. Other alternative (and possibly the best) is to use your PJs at yours and then send her home in her clean PJs ready for bed the next time she comes and keep the set of clothes to wash so that you can rotate through them thereafter, whatever works.

Keep a coat, wellies, shoes that she might need for different occasions by all means, but you only need to hold a couple of others sets of clothes for changes at yours if she is doing things like messy play or might get something down herself. Then just change her before she goes home (which I hate the thought of as it just makes it so disjointed for her, but it’s the only way of working with what you have got and I guess at least PJs seems somewhat less weird as a change at the end of the day). A coat from yours can be handed over on doorstep as you drop off for you to take back with you if necessary.

As for your situation with time, etc., quite honestly it’s nobody else’s business and isn’t what you’ve asked. Each family will do what suits them by negotiation or what has been court ordered where one or both parties are simply unable to communicate effectively enough to deliver child centred parenting so just ignore all the vitriol and critique nobody knows the ins and outs of the situation enough to make judgement on any party involved is the bottom line!

Well done OP for talking to your SD about what she wants you to be called in her life, she is clearly a smart child and keeping lines of comms open with her as a step parent will be something that feeds into her relationship with you for the rest of her life. People forget it takes a village but shouldn’t underestimate how perceptive children really are!

Also as for those saying this is dads issue, some of us love our step children and are very happy to contribute to their lives in a positive fashion. Luckily we’ve always managed to work together with mum and stepdad in the main (although now it’s irrelevant him being 13 and wanting to wear the same football gear at all times that means we all have to get it washed overnight to travel everywhere being in both places for several days makes no difference 😂🙈).

we had full custody of my stepson when he was younger (he’s an adult now) he would go to his mums every fortnight and at first I would pack a bag for him but as time went on clothes wouldn’t come back or different clothes would come back ( older and younger siblings clothes a lot of the time) so we stopped sending clothes over and he would get changed when he got there into clothes he had there and would come home in the clothes he went in. This worked for years. I would just do as others suggest and get your stepdaughter changed as soon as she gets to urs then put they clothes back on on the Sunday. For all those saying why not leave it to dad to wash her clothes, I done everything for my step son exactly like I did with my other children, I never left anything to “his dad” 🙈 yous are a family

Sorry.

1. You're calling this child a bonus child it absolutely gives me the ick.
2. If you're dressing her in the everything she's got here, then wash the clothes she comes in, and return her in them clothes. What's the issue?

Just be kind cos it's not about the ex, you, your partner, it's about the child.

So much bitter criticism of the term "bonus child". It really isn't anyone else's business and needless harping on about it detracts from the help OP is asking for.

But this is Mumsnet where stepmothers are targets for abuse whenever they post. It gets tiresome in its predictability.

You have had some good advice, OP, ignore the whiners and take what is good.

We had the issue of the ex always sending in dirty or inappropriate for the weather clothes so we would just take clothes to pick up stop in some public toilets on the way back, change their clothes and then send them back exactly how they were received.. that way you don’t need to wash anything (although I used to wash the urine soaked footwear the younger one was wearing from potty training any way if we had them long enough for them to dry as they would stink even through a bag)

We always immediately got SS changed into our clothes as she sent him in clothes that were too small (7yo in 5yo clothes!) we also washed him because he was always grubby.

Like you we used to send him home in our clothes (i like children to look like they are cared for so they were NICE clothes) but never saw them again, so we just changed him into his mother’s clothes just before we drove him home. (We didn’t wash them, just took them off Friday evening and put them back on Sunday. Although we washed his pants and socks).

when she realised that she was no longer getting free expensive clothes she started dressing him in better clothes. 🙄

Just take them off of SD and put them back on when you take her own.

Keep the Saturday outfit, send her home in one of yours, then next time keep the Saturday outfit and send her home in the one from the previous Saturday. Worst case you lose one outfit however if your partner is only seeing her once every other week for just over 24 hours, the cost of one outfit isn't a big deal