Advice for toddler access please

[MissYeti]

I hope this is the right place to post this. Ex walked out last week and left me with 16 month old DS. We're now stuck in a battle of wills about how much access he should have to DS.

I suggested every other Saturday from 10-1 as DS doesn't sleep anywhere other than his cot and has his nap at 1 til 3 or so. As DS drops his nap then ex's access time can increase - I don't have an issue with that. Eventually he'll have him every other Saturday 10-7 so DS can come home for bed.

Would this arrangement be seen as acceptable by solicitors/courts/whatever? Ex has already agreed to it but I've had a shitty message from his mother who thinks he should have him every weekend.

Obviously a little way in the future DS will be in nursery/school and I don't want to set a precedent that ex gets all the fun times at the weekends while I get the slog of the every day school routine. I'd like a weekend too but I don't then want to take time away from my ex. I'm trying to find a good balance. Help?

@MissYeti no I didn't miss it .... I said what I said about every weekend because if napping is your main reason to limit the weekend contact it may not be a short-term set up. My youngest still naps & is more than double the age of your child. Something to consider anyway.

Mis Yeti, its really hard to trust someone else with your child, even his own father when you've been the main, and in many ways only care giver since they were born.

However, sont assume that your toddler will only cope with his current routine and yourself. Kids can struggle with anything out of their confort zone in their own environment but be absolutely fine in a different one

When my DS started nursery, he only slept being pushed back and forth in his pushchair. The nursery said that was absolutely fine but asked me if I'd mind them trying their cot bed just in case but assured me they wouldn't let him cry if he wasn't happy. I told them fine but that I'd tried and tried and he wouldn't so would t count on it. Sure enough, when I picked him up, he had fallen asleep right away in their cot!

Remember that what you do is for the benefit of your ds, not his dad, and however hard it might seem now, building a bond with his dad, whatever à crap partner he is, is the best thing you can do for your ds however hard and unfair it might seem.

Am I reading this right - the only person that is asking for more than 4 hours EOW is your PIL? Your ex isn't that bothered- he's had the opportunity to ask for and have more time in the week but isn't that bothered?

@Grambler that's what I was thinking too. All those saying the OP is being unreasonable seem to have missed that her ex has been offered more time, but been told he needs to arrange it himself. It's clearly too much effort for him. He's also agreed to the 3 hours every other weekend, it's his mum demanding more, not him.

To be honest it sounds like your ex isn't bothered too much about how often he's sees your son, @MissYeti

Maintain the offer of weekdays, and for now I think you either have to allow him 10-1 every Saturday or gradually build up his time every other weekend. He needs to make sure he has somewhere for your son to sleep while he's there to enable the move to overnights.

Off the back of this thread I've offered to up it to 10-4 every other Saturday with the intention of ex having DS 10-7 when DS doesn't wake up screaming during the night after he's seen his dad.

After that I'll look at ex having him all day Saturday, half day Sunday and then upping to have the night in between.

If he sees him during the week then that's fine, if not then at least he can't say I'm being unreasonable at the weekends. We'll see if he accepts that.