Sons Ex wont let him have access to his baby

[LolaJ82]

My son, who is only 19 has had a baby with his ex girlfriend. Its all turned messy and as usual hes asked me to sort things out. They are refusing to speak to each other and I am now the go between, to make matters worse, I don't/didnt know this girl, and before she had my grandson I had met her maybe twice 🤦‍♀️

My son and I fought like cat and dog over this as its apparent that his money (even though he is only 19, he has a really good job) was the main driver, to the point where the baby and the girl wanted for nothing, which for the baby is rightly so.

The issue that we have now is, the baby is 6 weeks old, and my son has seen him approx 4 times. The girl is refusing us access, unless its with her, in her house. Now my son, wants to be a good father, and eventually wants 50/50 access to the child, with him staying with us half of the time, now I know that is a way off, he is a new born after all, however, all we are asking for is a few hours at the weekend, to bring him to our home, so that my son can bond with him, and learn how to be a good dad, without the awkwardness of having to sit in her house, with her watching his every move.

So my long winded question is, AIBU to ask for the baby to come to us for a few hours on a weekend?

It's very early days and you need to take a step back @LolaJ82 . I think it is reasonable that contact starts off with the mum there. It is really important to gain the trust of your grandson's mum and to be respectful of her.

Keep your opinions about how you think she was as a girlfriend out of it, I think that is prompting you to behave in a disrespectful way.

Your son and the mum need to sort this out between them, at the moment, I think you are at risk of jeopardising his relationship with his child.

She's carried and birthed his baby.

He can cope with some awkwardness.

He wasnt awkward making a baby with her.

And if there is awkwardness sitting in someone else's house, why should it be hers after months of discomfort.

I'm sure you mean well but your role here is supporting your son with his decisions, not fixing his life.

I know someone who did similar- footballer but lower grade. Wasn’t with the mum. Started demanding access on his own when the baby was VERY young. I can’t remember exactly what age but it was probably similar to your grandson.

Mum refused that but he was welcome to see the baby at her house. His whole family got their backs up, the relationship totally broke down and it all ended up in court by the time the baby was only 10 months old.

The Dad hadn’t seen the baby for most of its life at that point, due to the breakdown in the early days. He then had to have staged contact over many months, to build up to having the child EOW and one night in the week.

The relationship between the parents is still really poor because of what happened.

Sorry OP. 6 weeks is too young. He needs to suck it up for a few more months and see the child 2-3 times a week at hers to build the relationship. Be supportive then at 6 months raise the issue again. If she refuses go to court at that point.

6 weeks is far too early for a baby to leave its mother.

Sorry but he's not being refused access to his child. He's putting his own needs first and being incredibly stubborn, demanding that he only sees child on his terms. For this, he will suffer. The baby is 6 weeks old. Of course he shouldn't be away from his mother. YABVU.

Did he cheat? Is he paying ? Is he a drug and drinkers given his age? Has he got a new gf? Is this just you wanting time with baby why can't he be at her house

The baby is barely halfway through the fourth trimester. They literally don’t know they are a separate entity from their mother yet. Mum will also undoubtedly be experiencing hormonal surges still.

Unless absolutely unavoidable, baby shouldn’t be separated from mum for at least another 6wks (maybe double that), for any length of time. And believe me, trying to force the issue is a fast track route to turning this into an absolute shit show, with possible actual refusal of access, and potential court proceedings.

Be gentle, see baby at mum’s whenever she will allow, treat mum with kindness and respect, and build a proper co-parenting/family relationship. Oh, and encourage your son to grow the fuck up and stop refusing to interact with his ex when he doesn’t get what he wants and making mummy do his dirty work!

I will go against the grain here and say that a few (2-3) hours away from mum to spend time with dad once a week isn’t unreasonable at all.
Yes the baby is very young, and I would have found it very hard to be apart my little ones when they were so tiny, but he is the baby’s dad, he has a right to spend time with his baby without supervision and feeling uncomfortable.
But there isn’t much you can do right now if she isn’t willing to allow that.
Just keep turning up and being there for the baby (both physically and financially)showing that you are willing to do whatever it takes to see him because if you do eventually need to go to court for 50/50 access, it will go in your son’s favour.

I suppose you put yourself in her shoes and ask why should she have to negotiate with you. Your son is an adult. He needs to deal with his own mess. He needs to cope with it being awkward and go over there so the baby can get to know him and so he can learn about the baby's routine. When he is more up to speed then he can negotiate more access away from the home. Him asking you to sort this is not a good sign.

agreed but he’s refusing to do this at her house and instead trying to insist on taking baby away to be with strangers. I’m sure the baby’s mother would appreciate his assistance at her house in the evenings so she could catch a break- problem is he only wants to see the baby on his terms.

baby is so so young. I would probably have left baby with my own mother for a couple hours tops. No way would I have handed them over to people I barely knew. Baby needs to be with its mother.

I would be desperately worried about your son harming the baby. I imagine many mothers would have this worry - there are too many incidents of the young inexperienced father getting frustrated and harming the child to not worry about this possibility. So I would understand anyone being concerned.

Legally, I imagine she’d have to let him have the baby unsupervised.

If he’s choosing to argue with her, he’s not doing himself any favours. He needs to do the home visits and be nice as pie. He needs to do this to help build trust and build towards having the child unsupervised. Again, I wouldn’t let my baby go willingly to anyone that I didn’t trust completely. An angry person is not someone I trust with my baby.

Not strangers - his FATHER!

Six weeks? YABU. She’s not refusing him access, it sounds like she’s giving access at her home, which at this point is absolutely fine. He needs to continue to do that regularly, working up to short walks out to the park ect at maybe three months. I wouldn’t expect “a few hours” until six months at least, and overnights around one.

If he really means to be a good father he needs to get over himself a bit and talk reasonably to her about a long term plan for working up to a fair 50:50, not one where he gets all the good bits nicely fitting around his job and she does all the hard work.

Does his right to have unsupervised access trump the baby’s developmental need at this stage to be either their main caregiver? Also having seen the baby only four times, he’s a stranger to that child. Unsupervised access in these circumstances would be utterly inappropriate and unnecessary .

Completely and utterly different leaving a baby downstairs or to go for a stroll with DH while you take a nap or a bath. Surely you can see that.

And if your DH took your weeks old baby to visit people without you I’d say that’s pretty unusual, unless you’re going to reveal that your MIL is an immediate neighbour or something and he was quickly in and out. Most mothers are breastfeeding at this stage.

biological father but stranger in effect since he hasn’t taken the opportunity to make himself familiar to the child at its mother house- he’d rather argue about unsupervised contact with a newborn

Try that argument infront of a judge and see how fast your shut down.
Best practice for the child (which judges generally follow) is under 3 months all contact is between baby and dad only at mothers home with her in another room and contact should be for an hour or two 2-3 times per week, then at 3-6 months slowly upping his time with dc initially still at mums progressing to a couple of hours out of the house, then at 6-18 months building up time away from mum until the baby spends all day with their dad and finally at 18 months-2 years there should be a progression to an overnight a week. Now when it comes to 50/50 he needs to forget about that as its not in his child's best interest ever, every study has found 50/50 is harmful to children as they need a permanent homebase and judges are beginning to listen to the research and even those who don't won't give 50/50 to an under5, the best he could hope for is 40%.
Now as for both his behaviour and yours and how that will look to a judge, your son is making unreasonable demands and when not getting what he wants refusing to see his child and getting his mum involved to try and bully her into doing what he wants which is not in the best interest of the child. You need to step away from this, tell your son how unreasonable he's being and to grow the fuck up because if he doesn't and keeps behaving the way he is he'll be lucky to get supervised visitation.
I do hope that your prince of a son is paying reasonable maintenence for his child regularly and learn to back off and remember that you have no right to access at all ever any access your son is granted is for him and his child and he should be doing all patenting until his dc is atleast a year old

He doesn’t have any rights. Parents don’t have “rights”, they have responsibilities. He is responsible for being there for his son, and providing for him.

It would have been a cold day in hell before I would have let anyone, my beloved husband included, take any of our 4 children away from me for 2-3hrs when they were 6wks old. And from anecdotal experience of all my friends and family, I wasn’t unusual in that.

Oh please, how is a couple of hours away from mum going to damage the baby’s developmental needs.
As if babies are permanently attached to mum.
Babies are left with other adults during this stage for a multitude of reasons and they turn out absolutely fine.
Stop being so dramatic!
New mums are allowed to have a break and a rest you know!
And why does a father need to be supervised?

It's absolutely normal for contact of a 6 seek old baby to be at the mothers hone swing the mother present. I your son needs to start with that and see the baby little and often. 2 hours 3 times a week is reasonable. No court is going to take a newborn from its mother. Its not in the babies best interests.

The baby’s father is a stranger to him, as is his grand mother. They need to work up to it. They do this through home visits.

You’re expecting a young mum to hand over her tiny baby to a young absent father and his mother for a few hours a week? Absolutely not!
First of all he needs to prove to her that he’s capable of looking after his child - without you there - before he should have independent care of the baby. You need to build up your relationship with the mum - how are you doing that? Are you taking the baby out for walks? Spending time at her house yourself offering practical help?
She has said no, has offered a very reasonable alternative and he now hasn’t choices. Accepts that sole care of his child will take time which will in turn help develop a positive relationship with the mum, or continues with the silent treatment sending you as his messenger and forever have a difficult relationship with his ex, and his child.

This does sound difficult all round op. Credit to your son for trying to do the right thing as he sees it and for supporting the baby. However, this child's parents are coming at this from different directions, which is perhaps understandable but will only cause conflict of they don't stop to appreciate the other view. He is thinking long term and what "should " happen, the mother is thinking what is best for the baby right now.

He is going to have to calm down and slow down. Softly softly is the way to go here, and the odds of achieving his long term goal of being an involved parent to a happy child will be greatly improved by building a relationship with the mother now. As pps have said, no new mother is going to be keen on being separated from her newborn, and of course they watch them like a hawk. If he went to her house as regularly as possible, and maybe let any little digs from her go in favour of concentrating on learning about the baby from her and from his own experience, then soon a relationship with the baby and the mother would be developing. That's the real aim, a calm co parenting relationship which benefits the child as he grows up, but that can't be forced. Any weight throwing by him now about 50/50 and overnights as a newborn is going quite rightly to make her very defensive and the whole thing will be harder.

My first baby I couldn't stand to be away from at all for at least the first three months. I really wasn't happy about it even at 6 months. You have clearly forgotten what it's like, especially for such a young woman - the hormones and the bonding is so strong. She and your son are not partners - I could just about face handing my baby to someone I had full trust with for a couple of hours, but someone I wasn't getting on with? Impossible.

You seem to think your son has "bought" the right to take the newborn from its mother by financially supporting it.

The baby isn't a package. It is a human being currently intensely bonded to the person who grew it in her womb for 9 months at great personal and physical cost. It doesn't even fully perceive that it and its mother are seperate beings. And you want to take it from her for a couple of hours to avoid your son feeling "discomfort"? What about her discomfort bearing and delivering the baby??? For god's sake woman she is probably still bleeding.

Give it a fucking rest. Your son can suck up a bit of discomfort until the child is older, FOR THE SAKE OF HIS CHILD. As a parent you should know that if he wants to do his job properly he'll have to put up with a bloody sight more than that.