Ex-husband wants 50/50 split of care of baby

[Kate896]

My husband and I have recently split. We have a 7 month old baby. He is currently in my care the majority of the time and my husband has him overnight 1 night per week.

I have asked for him to pay child maintenance but he has refused based on the fact that he wants care of a baby split 50/50.

He proposed that I go back to work full time and he looks after baby most of the time and I pay him child maintenance which of course I do not want. He said as a minimum he wants him 50/50.

What can I do? I know he is entitled to the care split equally but surely for a baby this young it's in the baby's best interests to be with his mother most of the time? How do I get him to pay child maintenance? I am on maternity for another 3 months.
Is it a case of going through the courts if we do not agree?

@Kite22

It is in a baby's best interests to have a secure and loving relationship with both parents. Not what you want to hear, but 50:50 seems very reasonable to me. Good to hear that your little one's Dad wants to be fully involved.

1000% this.

I always find the attitude of ‘mothers carried and birthed that child, they have the maternal urge to love and protect, care and soothe, men don’t’ very outdated and selfish.
Men can be just are doting of a parent, just as loving and caring.

50/50 should always be the standard because children deserve a equal relationship with both parents.

I think he’s punishing you, if cm was mandatory either way you’d have him as much as possible because he’d want his monies worth.

How’s he going to wfh with a baby 🙄

I'm pretty sure that courts don't like to grant 50/50 access to infants under the age of 1 especially when breastfeeding (which I know your not) and not that much over night stays either per week if any- someone may know better than me on this.

I would try little and often, I think you should to show willing go to mediation, it will look badly if you don't (legally)

Who gets child benefit plays a role too - push for this to be in your name as that's usually the RP parent and courts don't like to switch it around as a rule

Start the ball rolling on your CMS from him, also have a look at worst case re him asking for maintenance from you. I doubt it will be enough for him to give up working unless your a high high earner. The court will expect to hear that if he does get her full time (worse case) how will he look after baby. Him working from home with a baby won't be considered good enough especially because right now babies are fairly static. Little one won't be for long and that's not manageable re working from home.

If your returning to work find daycare/nursery and get her on waiting list (this will also help establish you as RP, same as doctors and dentist. Basically have a care plan nailed down and written out - and things established. Prove she and you have local support in forms of family and friends and roots. You need to show roots you are placing for your child

Look I know your not going to want to do this but just speaking from experience, most blokes say they want 50/50 but rarely end up doing it. We ended up with more like 70/30 as my ex found toddlers hard work.

I do however think it's in your best interest to let him have access to the child and show willing. I know it's so hard and fresh and painful and it's your baby 💐

Good luck op

Your baby didn’t sleep well at his? As has been said, and from all the other threads I have read, courts expect parents to work up to overnights. You don’t appear to have done this and it isn’t working for your baby.

You could counter by saying your baby is too young right now and overnights aren’t working and claim cms. But I’ve not been through this process. Can you get some legal advice?

Do not listen to the 50/50ers. This is not true for such a young child.

@user1467486752

I agree about the thread invasion, very strange 🤔

Here we go - how dare women think it’s ok to share custody…it must be an invasion. Seriously, these views are so toxic and outdated.

I also disagree with some of these comments, plenty of men bring up babies and children. He is an equal parent and equally entitled to be with his child.

You both need to work and you need to share custody. No court is going to say men shouldn’t look after young babies. Not one.

From what you say it sounds like he is trying to weasel out of paying any maintenance and/or trying to punish you

50/50 can work, but both parents need to be on the same page

I do also think you need to be going back to work full time as soon as possible

I have no issue with 50-50 where both parents were engaged and involved parents pre break up. Where they were not then yes I question their motives. An uninterested parent who did not pull their weight when partnered needs to own their inadequacies and accept that it is their child’s best interest to be mainly in the care of the person who has done the care all along.

@Rainbowqueeen

I have no issue with 50-50 where both parents were engaged and involved parents pre break up. Where they were not then yes I question their motives. An uninterested parent who did not pull their weight when partnered needs to own their inadequacies and accept that it is their child’s best interest to be mainly in the care of the person who has done the care all along.

I don’t agree, they need to accept they need to do more not say well I let her do more at the very beginning so I’m inadequate and she should do it. What an awful way to suggest people should parent.

I've done 50:50 with my ex since we split when ds was 2. Never had any issues and ds is nearly 12 now. It's great for our child to have an equal relationship with both parents.

@rainbowandglitter

I've done 50:50 with my ex since we split when ds was 2. Never had any issues and ds is nearly 12 now. It's great for our child to have an equal relationship with both parents.

Yes from age 2 I'd say 50/50 is ok. But my baby is 7 months old. Completely different.

We still would have done it if we'd split from 7 months tbh. I couldn't have faced taking my ex's son away from him the majority of the time. I wouldn't like it done to me so wouldn't have done it to him. Kids are more adaptable than you realise. I obviously don't know your ex though, my ex is the best dad so no issue there.

@Winebefore5

People standing op for fathers rights is suddenly “high jacked” or “invaded”. Maybe we understand that both parents are equally important, maybe we’ve seen the heartache, the trauma caused when parents are denied access to their children, maybe we don’t believe a father (or mother) should need to pay thousands in lawyers fees to see their child.

The heartache from the Dad's or children? Did these Dad's put in the same effort when they were with the mother? I agree that children need a relationship with their Dad, when their Dad is a good Dad. But I've lost count of the amount of Dads I know that refuse to get up in the night, say go ask your Mum, leave school runs to Mums, life admin, wouldn't know the name of their kids teacher, have never read to them. Some refuse to even feed their children proper meals. I'm yet to meet a Mum like that. Although I don't deny there are some society is still set up to tell Dad's that their shit efforts are acceptable.

@rainbowandglitter

I've done 50:50 with my ex since we split when ds was 2. Never had any issues and ds is nearly 12 now. It's great for our child to have an equal relationship with both parents.

👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

@Rtmhwales

My friend has been doing 50/50 with baby's dad from very early on.. 3 months I want to say but I can't quite remember. Her DS is nearly 7 now and it seems to work really well. That being said they're not the least bit acrimonious and have handled it super well which is probably very important in stabalising their son.

DP has had his boys 50/50 since his divorce when they were 14 months and 3.5, again it's not been an issue. His was court ordered, his ex took him to court for a different split and lost. I live in a country where this is considered the norm though.

I'm not sure it's entirely fair to say baby has to stay with mum because she's provided most of the care in the first year. Men don't get the same opportunity with parental leave, and presumably he had to work to keep paying the bills while on leave. Both parents play a part.

How is he doing with the overnights already? Does he work? I'm not sure saying men want 50/50 to not pay maintenance is accurate either as surely the cost of the childcare they'll rack up is more than most CM calculations, based on mothers on here lamenting that the CM covers practically none of their real costs.

Actually in this country we have shared parental leave so a lot of men do get the same parental leave opportunities. Unsurprisingly though, most men don’t take advantage of this.

I think you need to work up to 50 - 50 but I'd snap his arm off to do this. You aren't going to get anything out of him via the CMS and you need to get back to work to provide for your dc. Agree in principle to 50 50 and start off with daytime visits and you doing overnight. He needs to commit as you need to get a job which fits in. Can you go back PT to your old job?

I think you are naturally worried about effect on your dc but they will be fine if with loving parents all the time.

I know 7mo is earlier than you wanted but I have many friends who did less as they were self employed and dc went to nursery or with dad or family from 3mo. Said dc are now very confident high achieving 11yos.

I would suggest trying to sit down and work out a contact schedule you can both work with ... yes he's likely to get 50/50 eventually and unless there's a huge salary discrepancy you should be expecting to pay 50/50 for your child so no maintenance payable

@worriedatthemoment

In a world where we want equality why can't non abusive men have 50/50 or even go for full custody? We say about being with one main caregiver but have no issues putting a child in nursery from 8-6 ? Of course as mums we want our children full time but we shouldn't be surprised that some men also want their children full time

This!

@NoMoreTractors

50/50 might not be traditionally the arrangement but it's more common now - many men choose to walk away without trying to get meaningful access to younger children, they probably weren't cut out to be dads hence splitting, but I know two men who fought, one has 50/50 (from about 9 months) and the other has majority custody with the mother have every Saturday to Sunday plus Wednesday evenings. Mediation is compulsory at first in most cases and at that stage it's possible to work out what works for your child(ren) mother's don't get automatic custody now

I think my opening shot would be 'you do realise that in the event of 50/50 care no-one pays anyone maintenance, don't you? I just wanted to clear that one up ahead of mediation, which is our next step. Happy for you to start the ball rolling on that.'

And then I'd just wait.

I'm not actually agin working up to 50/50 (though agree a 7 month old is too young), but you need to work out if this is a real desire for 50/50 or a dodge to avoid maintenance. The fact he thought you'd pay CMS for 50/50 care sits oddly with me.

50/50 is absolutely not normal for an 7 month old and the courts won't force it at all. A very young child needs a primary carer. Always do what is best for your baby, that is what is important not what either parent 'wants'.

But contact isn't about your feelings. It's about establishing good relationships between parents and children. To say that babies are lacking in emotional care if left with their father, is so wrong. You're in effect saying that stay at home fathers or widowers can't be as attached as working mothers. That's ridiculous. Mothers are happy to send their child to nursery for probably 9 / 10 hours of their baby's waking day whilst they work, seeing them mainly when they're asleep, so why are they not happy to send the child to their father's? You say that men can't soothe a baby like a woman. Who soothes your baby in a the nursery when you go back to work? Obviously nursery workers and they can be male and female.

Your XDH, is perfectly capable of soothing the baby back to sleep, its just that you've been there to step in at the earliest opportunity so he hasn't had to learn. On MN the attitude is the mother should have the baby in the early years and go to 50:50 later. Then when the father goes for 50:50 contact, MNers say that the mother has always been the primary caregiver and its not right that the father should get more than every other weekend. And then men become less attached to their children and women complain they're shit fathers.

It's not high-jacking a thread to stand up for fathers rights in the same way that I would stand up for mothers rights. Both parents are equally important for a child's development.

If he is self employed it will be easy for him to evidence that he is barely paid anything and easy for him to manipulate finances to deprive you - if he tends that way.

So you need to try to move on with better plans, such as your own career. In order to do that, having your baby with a living father is excellent in terms of childcare for you.

You need to be realistic. I’m not seeing that. And yes I’m a mother of three and also had 50:50 childcare from a young age.