Step daughter and new born

[Worriedmom98]

Wanting peoples opinions, I have a 7 week old and my partner has a daughter to his ex partner who he pays plenty a month for - on our weekend to have her she’s come down with a sickness bug ( mother hadn’t informed us it was my step daughter that told us). I do not want me or my new born getting if can be prevented, with that my partner rang her and explained both of our worry’s this is the first time in 5 years we’ve ever had to do this, she proceeds to call him a sh*t dad and that we have to tell her ourselves “we don’t want her” and that she can’t believe we’re not having her. I understand she isn’t gonna be thrilled about our baby but do people not have any regard over a new borns health? she is now asking for an additional money of £20 to feed her for that evening meal and for meals the day after. I don’t want the argument but I also don’t want to put my new born at risk of a sickness bug if it can be prevented

Good god, I am sure a 15 year old can cope without seeing their dad for one time - what happens when they go on holiday, how do they 'maintain the relationship' then? What about when they go off to uni and never see either parents for weeks or months on end. We have these new-fangled things, they are called phones. You can even do video calling now!

You really don't get it. If she still has D and V she won't want to go out. And it is really contagious. Avoiding infection takes precedence over family dynamics here.

Have you never been laid low with it?

The father in the situation doesn’t get to abdicate the responsibility he has to his eldest child and her mother just because he had a new baby whose mum is worried about germs. He is a shit father to his daughter if he thinks it’s ok to let her down when he only sees her at weekends and he should be being extra sensitive to her feelings just now.

If he’s a shit father to one child he can be a shit father to the other.

Any lengths include refusing to care your sick child? I'm all for stopping the spread where possible but of being a parent is having to look after your children when their poorly. You can't just refuse to parent them when they have a bug

Put the feelings of the child first. New baby, step daughter pushed out.

If this was an older sister who lived with you, the older child would be at home. Families manage.

What about the vulnerable baby ? How do you think the 15 year old will feel if baby ends up seriously ill and in hospital. Wanting to protect someone vulnerable doesn’t make someone a shit dad

No it doesn’t. It’s not the same situation. The equivalent would be someone getting out of a sick bed and going to visit other people when they have an infectious virus.

What ifs aren’t relevant - the actual situation is in front of us. DD is sick with a D&V virus and OP rightly wants to protect her newborn from something that could potentially cause serious illness for them. DD doesn’t have to visit when she’s ill - she can just stay at home with her mum and swap weekends when she’s better. The fact that other families have to cope when they have multiple children is totally irrelevant - there is a sensible option here to practice good hygiene and prevent the spread of the virus. Suggesting it’s fine to expose a seven week old to the illness because other families have no choice is batshit.

No, I think there are plenty of ways of avoiding infection that do not involve DD seeing her father. Are there no GPs she could visit alongside DH? Could you isolate her in her bedroom if she is feeling really unwell?

Yeah, I've changed my mind actually and agree with you.

Not entirely relevant but if I were unwell I'd be wanting to stay with my mum anyways. Wonder if that's been taken into account?

How is a child wanting to see their father, on the only days they're allowed to see him, "ruling the roost"?
Part of being a parent is looking after your children when their poorly. Just because the Dad has made a new family shouldn't mean he can now opt out of the shit parts of parenting his elder child.

Day out?! And infect members of the public as well as the baby? You must be one of those who ignores the 48hr rule and sends your kid to school anyway taking out the rest of the class 🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️

I totally understand your worry op.
in my opinion if it’s going to cause bad blood between the exes then I’d have the daughter with you.

If it could be arranged in an amicable way then I’d say can she come over for longer as soon as she’s better.

Things must be bad if the cost of feeding a child is specified. Maybe the mum is really struggling. Or maybe you having a new baby is a big concern for her.

on balance and despite your valid worries about your baby, I would just have her over as normal and nurse her as any parent would. Baby may not catch it. Most of our worries are unfounded.

If you can be on good terms with other mum that’s worth a lot to all of you

Do you not care about the newborns health at all ?
some of the replies on this thread are so devoid of empathy I find it shocking.

Far too sensible for some here! Of course it is common sense to limit infection, and at 15, most would understand. Dad can arrange something extra once she’s better.

Without knowing anything of why these arrangements are as they are, or what proportion of the dads’ income that £300 represents. Typical MN.

A sick child with d and v needs to just stay where they are for their own comfort they don’t need to travel to anywhere else if it can be avoided ! She needs to be able to rest and use the bathroom. It’s also vital to protect a newborn as it can be extremely dangerous for a young baby to become dehydrated .

I think we’re trying to make the same point re the money thing. A lot of people have commenting and annoyed about the £300 thing and I agree it’s not enough hence saying “doesn’t touch the sides” but might be all he can afford - so to them - it is plenty as in literally plenty of his income. Although this is all speculation and none of us actually know what he earns.

Don’t agree that the physical time he has with DSC means there is a low level of involvement. Dad could FaceTime everyday for all we know. We don’t know logistics in terms of where families live geographically, hours worked, what their relationship is like. I haven’t said he’s a good dad - I said he sounds consistent but I don’t think based on what we’ve heard we can say he’s a bad one either. I have to admit I’m not in a blended family and perhaps there is more nuance to this so happy to be corrected if wrong.

OP states that DSC was the one that told them about the illness in first place but then DSC mother said they should tell her themselves that they don’t want her so it’s unclear if there was a discussion with her about the decision to not attend or not. I agree that it would be better to involve the 15 year old at this point and hope she understood and make plans to rearrange (which OP says they would be doing anyway) rather than it being a unilateral decision delivered to the ex partner.

Agree that it hasn’t been handled the best and have said in previous posts that there’s unnecessary inflammatory language on both sides and OP and partner need to work on better relationship with ex.

Ironic to be speaking of empathy while advocating a father to abandon his sick child. Siblings catch bugs, all you can do is practise good hand hygiene. If the elder child lived with OP would you be advocating for her to sleep in a shed?
The Dad having a new baby shouldn't trump his responsibilities to look after his preexisting children

Also if the little girl is sick she may need to be resting.

i really do get the worries around sickness- I would have been the same. But if the mum isn’t happy about keeping her then I think she needs to come to the dads and just hope not to pass on the sickness

What kind of mother would send her sick child away knowing how ill she is?
She should be tucked up in bed not sent off.
The father can make up the time.

You have a new baby, you’re allowed to have concerns and worries that’s completely fine.

His ex is probably just feeling a little triggered and off due to the fact you have a new baby with her ex and things are changing.

It will calm back down and everything will be ok.

So, to summarise. You want DD to get out of her sick bed and travel to her dad’s when she feels like shit, where she won’t engage with any of the family because she will be isolated to avoid spreading the infection. And for no other reason. Than ‘it’s his weekend’. How bloody pointless is that ? And no GP will allow anyone with a known infectious virus to visit the surgery.

As someone who worked as a children’s nurse I understand how quickly these bugs can spread and how hard it is to contain them. A 15 year old isn’t likely to be very unwell but a 7 week old can get extremely unwell with such bugs. It is common sense for the 15 year old to stay out of the house until better . It’s not “abandoning “ a sick child fgs . If my dh was away with my older child and got sick I wouldn’t want them to come to the house until better if they had somewhere else to stay if I had a newborn . Your comment “just because he made a new family” is full of malice and so uncaring for the health of a tiny baby.

This. With bells on. At last some compassion for a sick teenager being pushed out of a sick bed because it’s ‘dad’s turn’.

What kind of Father refuses to help care for his sick child? He has this child every other weekend so the 12 out of every 14 days the Mother is mothering yet the Dad can't cope with 2 days?
The child may want to be with her Father, quite an sexist assumption to suggest she would want to stay with her Mum just because she's poorly.