Daughter missing dance classes

[C36M]

My 4 year old daughter has a dance class that she loves on a Saturday morning. She stays with her dad every other full weekend, every other Thursday overnight, and goes to his house every Tuesday for dinner. He usually takes our daughter to her dance class without any problems, but for the past few months he hasn’t been waking up in time to take her. So our daughter ends up disappointed, and I pay for the classes for nothing. These classes are £152 a term as they’re 1.5 hours worth of dance classes every Saturday. I want her to still be able to go, but he makes me feel like it’s a waste of money if he isn’t taking her. What (if anything) can be done

I guess everyone has different ideas of what is early. Our daughter gets bored so easily, that’s why she has a three extra curricular clubs a week, she gets restless if we try to have a lazy day. The clubs are only 3.5 hours in total a week though, which isn’t a lot really when there are 168 hours in a week.

When she’s a teenager I’m sure she’d love the weekends you’re suggesting. If she’s anything like my two older children she will want to be in bed until midday lol

*3 hours a week sorry, not 3.5 hours. 1.5 hours dance, 30 minutes swimming lesson, 1 hour at Rainbows

Any restlessness or boredom on his time can be managed by him

I know that, that’s why I’m going to try to see if she can just do dance on my weeks. Just a shame she can’t do something she loves if they say she can’t do alternate weeks

Isn’t he supposed to be spending quality time with her ?
But he’s asleep ??

I think this is the bigger issue.

She should spend Saturdays with you and he pays more maintenance to reflect ?

Sounds like he’s not fit for purpose.

Drop the dance maybe until she’s older and can wake to an alarm clock by herself then give her dad a shake.
OR
Drop the dance to every other week if you can?
Swimming is good. It can save a life so keep that up.

Shes quite a busy kid. Some downtime is good.
I’m an older mother, frankly I think (some) kids do far too much extra curricular in the week. They need chill time.

Yea...go into a court chatting that BS and the report back. I love a good laugh.

You seem to have a bee in your bonnet in every comment you make. You don’t sound very happy in yourself, are you ok?

The trouble is he is such a heavy sleeper. He loves her but he’s not very good at time keeping and breaks the court order quite often. I think like someone else said, it might be a good idea to leave dance until she’s old enough to get herself up and wake him up.

It’s just frustrating because before I signed her up to dance class, I asked him if he would be able to get her there every other week, and he said he would. If I knew he wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have signed her up. She knows what she is missing now and has made a lot of friends there, and bonded with the teachers 😕

Thank you, that’s a good idea 🙂

Honestly, I don't think it's ok for you to be scheduling activities when he's with her. I mean how would you feel if he booked her into a midweek club and expected you to facilitate it?

If something is on joint/alternating time, you both need to agree to facilitate, and be genuine ok with it, otherwise it's you controlling what they do on their time together.

I also agree with the majority here that your daughter needs some more downtime.

Thank you for your input, but if you read my comments, he fully agreed to take her every other weekend, we discussed this before I signed her up. Now she loves it, loves the children and teachers there. However, I now have to consider cancelling it because he’s not reliably taking her. He took her for a long time with no problems, it’s only recently he hasn’t been getting up to take her. I wouldn’t have signed her up if I knew he wouldn’t stick to it

She also has plenty of down time. Her activities only total 3 hours a week and she loves every one of them. Two of these activities (rainbows and dance) are term time only too. It’s like people think 4 year olds should just lay on the sofa all day or something?

You know most of us here either have 4 year olds or have had 4 year olds (I currently have a 4 year olds and an older child). People saying that she's doing too much are saying that in the full knowledge and experience of what 4 year olds are like.

It might not be too much if it wasnt for her time being divided between two houses, but that's not the situation you're in.

Some weeks she only has Monday evenings free during the week (and I'm assuming is in after school club/wraparound care) that day.

Whether it's too much or not, I think it's totally upto her dad how they spend their time together. It's a shame that he hasn't got her to dancing as agreed, but it sounds like it just didn't work with the slightly lighter lazier weekends they have.

It sounds like she isn’t getting enough sleep. 4 year olds don’t sleep in because they’re lazy.

Every 4 year old is different. I have three children 16, 12, and 4 and they have all been very different children. She doesn’t go to any afterschool clubs etc on a Monday. And yea/sleep overs at her dads aren’t activities

All three of my children have always slept in late, In your experience it may because your children are tired. Mine have just always loved their sleep

You think the comment I replied to was a sensible and reasonable contribution?
Really?
Because if you do that says plenty.

I would just stop the dance. She is only 4. Swimming and rainbows is enough. I have been through the whole gamut of swimming, brownies, guides, cubs, scouts, dance, gymnastics, judo, cricket, rugby, squash,tennis and music with my 3. They can't sustain everything. I let them try things, then stick with one or two. Save your money and don't make an issue of it. Before you know it you will be dealing with homework and reading practice, cake sales and costumes. Pick your battles.

What's even the point of asking in here if you're just going to argue with everything?

And no, sleepovers/dinners with her dad isn't an 'activity' but it's still something in her schedule which takes energy.

Sorry, I didn't see that you have older children. So you already know all that.

I’ve taken on board all of the useful advice on here and many messages ago I said I’ll be looking to cancel/reduce her dance to every other week.

some comments are just judgy and not useful

No I don’t

Thank you, I’m going to cancel dance or try to move it to every other weekend 🙂

Maybe you should let her do more of it through the week.