Child law in UK - confused

[ItAlwaysPours]

I've been looking at child law in the UK and can't see anything so thought I would ask the Mumsnet infinite wisdom. At the moment we don't have defined residence order or anything - I have assumed residence of son (5) and he has regular contact with his Dad as part of a private agreement i set up when we separated.

The problem is that he is now picking and choosing when he has son with little or no notice which is causing major problems for me with work (he has him one night a week and one day a week during the holidays so that I can go into the office).

Is there any order that I can apply for that would make him legally responsible for the childcare element of his contact i.e. if he doesn't do it, he has to arrange alternative suitable childcare or is liable for the childcare costs involved rather than me having to pick up the pieces and cover the costs each time he lets me down?

there is nothing you can do regarding him paying childcare costs if he doesnt have him when he is supposed to but i would be stressing to him how important it is for you son to have regular consistent contact in respect of his emotional well being and suggest that if he cannot manage to keep to the contact you have now that you will reduce it as its very stressful and upsetting for a child when his father doesnt turn of for contact when he is expecting him. maybe the threat of reducing contact permanently may jolt him into being more responsible. however, there are going to be times when he has problems (genuine reasons).

perhaps you could sit down and draw up an agreement between you setting out what his contact is going to be

is he paying child maintenance? if so could this be put towards childcare?

Thanks, I suspected as much from what I had read :-(

We have an agreement on what his contact will be - he's just choosing to ignore it.

If it's genuine, then of course I don't mind and try to be as flexible as I can (trying my hardest to keep things at a civil level for my son's sake - he on the other hand doesn't care as he didn't with his daughter before (my stepdaughter))

To be honest, the feeling that I get is that he is trying to push my buttons to make me reduce the contact, so that he can play the victim again (woe is me, my evil ex won't let me see my son but I won't fight it (and in the longer term, why didn't you ever come and see me Dad? cos your mum wouldn't let you) - he did the same with his daughter (at the time it was me who fought for her and now we are seperated, it is me who still sees her) and I don't want to give him the easy way out this time (he did the same with our relationship in the end - nearly drove me to the point of needing a padded cell just so I would call it quits and he wouldnt have to).

There are wider issues to (obviously) like him allowing my son (5) to watch age inappropriate things/play age inappropriate games and highly disturbing (18 - GTA, Black ops, Alien, Saw) and I feel powerless to stop him without giving him exactly what he wants (and also have no evidence to go anything with it). I don't know where to draw the line, where to say that enough is enough as I have let so many things slide already because I understand that our parenting styles are very different and that I don't have a say in what he as a parent does.

Rant over. :-)

Thank you for your advice, guess I will just have to lump it for now

In a word no, I had to organise regular childcare and stick to it, then the dc saw dad at weekends.

The money to cover childcare came out my money and I did get soem maintenence so you could say it came through that.

In an ideal world both parents would work together and run a scheldual to work and care for there dc jointly - this though rarely happens though it can