telling my child’s dad to stop buying child toys every time he has him

[hairspray283]

For this post I’ll call my child “Teddy.”
Teddy’s dad has been very inconsistent in his life, and there has been emotional—and at times physical—abuse towards me, some of which happened in front of our child. Things escalated to the point that contact had to be stopped for Teddy’s safety. After going through court, he had supervised contact and is now allowed to have Teddy twice a week for a couple of hours.

The issue I’m having is that every single time he sees Teddy, he takes him to the city centre and buys him toys. Not just occasionally—literally every visit. We’re six weeks in and Teddy has come home with new toys every time. I tried to let it go, but it’s continued, so I mentioned that he doesn’t need to buy him something every time, especially with Christmas coming up.

My concern isn’t really the amount of toys, but the impact it’s having on Teddy’s behaviour. When I took him into a shop today, he became very unsettled, shouting “toys!” and when I said no—because he’d just had some from his dad—he completely melted down. He started slapping me and head-butting me because he now expects a toy every time he’s in a shop.

AIBU to bring this up again with his dad?

YANBU, I would mention that DS is getting violent when he doesn't get gifts every time you are out.

If ex still does it, I would tell him that he needs to keep the toys at his own place from now on.

Thank you, good idea.

Slapping and head butting is not ok and obviously some work needs to be done in that. You can’t remove every temptation from your child, so you have to practice teaching them how to control their frustration.

I wouldn’t bring up anything with his dad. Don’t engage, don’t let him know he’s got to you. You can’t stop him buying his child toys. Make sure the toys stay at his father’s house. He’ll soon get bored with all the clutter.

I would be careful how you approach this. How would you react if your ex started questioning how you do things? Also, havent you got 99% of the time with your child to deal with his behaviour so in fact have a much bigger influence over his actions. It sounds like your ex has 4 hours per week and he isnt that much of a father anyhow. Of course he is going to take route of least resistance and resort to buying gifts.

The best scenario is that the ex does curb his toy purchases but i would focus on your childs behaviour away from his father. Its a confusing time i expect. You child needs to know that regardless, the actions he is taking will have consequences.

thanks both, yeah good points thank you

It's a hard one as I get it as it is very frustrating the impact one parent getting all these things has on the other household as it creates expectations from the child to the parent who does not do the same that can not (and imo should not) be met but at the same time you can't control what your ex does. I don't think your ex will give a shit the impact it's having on your household.

What I would do personally is put the toys DS brings home away and every 4 weeks let him pick a favourite of what Dad has brought and let him have that one and give the rest to children who don't have much. If Dad takes an issue, which he might tell him from now on to keep to toys at his or accept this is what will be happening.

100% definitely as obviously like you said I can’t control what he does but my it is so frustrating, good ideas thank you