What is reasonable contact with baby from father who left when I was pregnant?

[patchouligirl]

Hi All

My ex-partner left me when I found out I was pregnant, saying that he had been planning to leave me sooner or later anyway. Ouch!

I didn't believe that the father leaving me was a good enough reason not to have the baby and have gone ahead with the pregnancy as a single mum. I am only five months but wanted to ask if anyone had any ideas about what reasonable contact the father could expect to have with our child, given that he hasn't lived with us and won't have developed that bond.

My ex-partner has suggested that he would like to have the child every other weekend. I intend to breastfeed my baby and understand that I could probably hold off handing our child over to him for perhaps a year?

I do want my child to have a relationship with their father and understand that my feelings of rejection and heartbreak might be clouding my judgment here. I don't know of anyone in real life who has found themselves in this situation and thought you might be able to help?

Any advice would be much appreciated

I agree with you to some sort. I can't really go into too much details as everything will end up in court. I don't wish to give away anything that could be used against me.

Unfortunately for me my ex is a control freak who feels everything should be done his way and doesn't give two shits about anyone else apart from him. It's always to benefit him. Throughout my pregnancy I have been harassed via emails and letters from solicitors with his demands. Nothing about maintenance mind. When he left me, he wasn't interested in anything. He wanted me to get rid. I didn't and then he has a change of heart so it's OK to harass me with threatening letters about his rights. What about my rights as a scared 1st time pregnant woman on her own?

My family don't live here I didn't have any support. Why is it ok for him to change his mind but I can't? No, it's not.

Maybe one day I'll meet someone decent. Until then he/she can look at their uncles or grandad if they need a father figure.

Hi pachouligirl.

I know this is not what you asked but I would advise you to consider the effects on having your ex-partner on your childbirth certificate. I have recently separated from ex-partner and because he has parental responsability which means that he is in DD childbirth certificate I cannot go to live with my family in Spain unless I go to court and ask for sole parental responsability which I wouldn't get it as the judge will consider DD best interest and ex-partner is a lovely dad (at least for the time being). We never married but things would have been completely diferent if he wouldn't have been in the childbirht certificate.

Not sure what you intend to do or the option you may have as well as I am not sure where you can find this information but I just thought that it is something you may want to think about it and consider.

Also wanted to mention about breastfeeding. I have have stopped breastfeeding DD now 23 months old 5 weeks ago and even it is difficult at first because both of you are learning, and I men both of you, you can do it if you really want it. There are a lot of people who believes that if the baby breastfeed to often it is because your milk is not good. I can asure you that ths is not true. DD breastfed for the first 2 months every 1 and a half hour and there was not a problem with my milk. If you can get all the support available from any breastfeeding group close to where you live. You can really do it and it is the best experience you will ever have in your live and once you know how to do it it is very easy.

Good luck and hope everything goes well

Latemates while I sympathise with men who want more contact with their babies, the needs of the baby have to come first. A breastfed newborn has to be with Mum and there is lots of research showing breast is best if it's possible. I wasnt for me.

It is very difficult for a baby to go from breast to bottle and bottle to breast so on a practical level mum needs to be the main carer, it's natures fault no one elses.

Of course the decision could be made for Dad's sake to bottle feed from the go so they could have more time with the baby but that is not putting baby first so I'd hope most wouldn't be so selfish.

To answer the OP about how often, I'd be saying a couple of hours a couple of days a week if it suits you, more if you can but frequent and short contact is the way forward. Full weekends for a breast fed baby just shows your ex doesn't have a clue.

"Does the same count for mothers who walk away from fathers then"

Fathers don?t carry the baby so no, it is NOT the same. Father walks away from baby in the mother and I don?t know any mother to be that leaves her partner or husband. Does anybody know such a woman? :))))

VioletV
Sorry to hear about your situation, reminds me of myself few months ago.
Men come and go but you have to live with yourself. You?ve done the right choice and you will have a baby and small happy family and he will have to explain what an ass he is all his life. Hope it helps :)

I?ve had friends to support me throughout the pregnancy ? I?m sure you have them too, don?t be shy or embarrassed to ask. I?ve learned that people are only happy to help.

I think we should open another thread :)

Zkate .... Sorry your post makes no sense... Can you clarify please.

I have also been in a similar situation - my XP left me when I was 8 months pregnant and our daughter is now 9.5 months old.

He was there for the birth (even though things were pretty difficult between us) and saw her fairly regularly at my place for the first couple of months - maybe 3 times a week. then hardly at all for a couple of months due to a big row and also each of us being away for long spells. Now we have an arrangement where he sees her more or less once a week, always at my place, or he picks her up from the nursery and brings her home to mine (or spends a couple of hours with her at mine and then takes her in). It's not a lot, but I feel it's OK for now.

Soon she will start to go to his place for an hour or two and eventually (I guess from 18 months or so, perhaps even later) I'd be OK with her staying overnight. She's only gradually getting used to him as contact is not that frequent.

None of it is ideal but she is a really happy baby and the worst of the emotional fallout is over for me - but I do find it hard to have to keep seeing him because it has somehow kept hope alive that we might get back together (and he has periodically raised this possibility, though it never materialises). It has made our split much harder to get over.

He is now with someone else and this makes the prospect of the baby staying over at his even more painful for me - but on the other hand I'm looking forward to going out in the evenings without having to worry about child care!

Relations between us have been pretty toxic at times - he is volatile - and i have worked hard to keep things amicable even though I find his behaviour quite unacceptable at times (took paternity leave as holiday to spend with his new girlfriend; threatened to cut off contact with DD; won't contribute financially etc.). Now things are relatively friendly between us.

Last thing I wanted to share is: I also felt totally ashamed about my situation and I covered it up for ages - I didn't let on to most people until months after the birth - only a few close friends and family knew.

But now I feel fine about it (apart from occasional blips) and the baby is such a joy, I am having lots of fun with her. I really hope you will too. xx

PS work around breastfeeding, don't let him interrupt it. It's important and it's perfectly possible for him to see the baby without cutting into it.

I don't think it's necessarily ridiculous for newborns to spend extended time with the other parent if both parents agree that's what they want - but I would find it ridiculous for a father to demand that from a mother (I certainly would never have agreed to let my XP take our baby for a whole day let alone a weekend when she was little).

hi, my ex left me two weeks before i found out i was pregnant and responded to the pregnancy by telling me he was immigrating, only reappeared after baby was born. its hard to leave your own feelings aside, but at this point i think its natural they are the way they are, all mixed up, hurt and angry etc...
but thats not to say they will always feel like that, its such a cliche but time does help. my little one is three now and its been a long road. but your feelings will become more clear and settle in time.
remember you are pregnant so even though it easy for me to say, take your time, try perhaps not to feel as if you have to make all these decisions now. allow yourself some time to heal, relax and engage with the pregnancy. i didnt do that and i will never have another pregnancy and it makes me sad and i feel that loss, i just felt so tortured and in pain and worried throughout the whole pregnancy. so try to push some of the 'stuff' out and just make more space for you and baby. you will never have this pregnancy again.
in relation to the future, and this is only my opinion, dont feel as if you have to decide now, as you said your feelings are all a bit mixed up, you are pregnant also, so dont put pressure on yourself to decide how things will or wont work in the future when the future hasnt arrived yet, and a baby can change so many things. may be just plan for the first steps, the first few weeks, and review it from there?
the other thing is that as you are aware of how all these feelings can become muddled and watnt to do the right thing and be a good parent and do whatever is right for your child, chances are thats exactly what will happen - whatever it is you decide.

Sure it makes no sense! :D There?s no woman in the world that got pregnant and said ?ok darling, I was gonna leave you anyway as I don?t love you so good buy, get out of my house, let me pay for all myself, don?t try to contact me or send me any money. I don?t need any support and children will be happy not to have a good father.

Ever heard anything like that from a woman? I bet no. ever heard all that from a man? I bet yes

Yika

Why did you every feel ashamed???? He is the bastard that has to be castrated as minimum and YOU feel ashamed???
All our friends have turned their back on my ex, even those that have known him for much longer than I have. He didn?t have anywhere to live as far as I know when he left, nobody would help or food or their place to stay. Ask yourself WHY!
They cant be punished by the government law but they shall be punished by the people?s justice.

I?m not a believer but even I say that may God have mercy on their souls as there isn?t a person in the world that will ever sympathize with them.

Zkate, your living in cloud kookoo land if you really believe it is only men who behave badly.
There are women who do just want to get pregnant, there are women who do leave there partners, but usually they don't refuse the maintenance, and there are women who prevent their kids seeing the father no matter how good a dad he is. So your wrong there are women who are terrible out there and who walk away from nice blokes. Just as there are blokes who are terrible and walk away from nice women. Then there are those men and women that also walk away from their children through choice (not counting the ones who are prevented from a relationship with their children) and yes these type come in both sexes.
But walking away from a partner is not the same as walking away from the child. I am not saying this man is not a shit from walking away at this time but maybe he has his reasons and maybe OP is better off that he walked away straight away so that she knew the score rather then at a later date. And maybe he will not be a good father either but he doesn't have a chance to be without building relationship with child and the child is the one who misses out if things cannot be civil and amicable.
I think the OP is planning on the father being in the Childs life and I hope the father is equally accepting that both parents have key roles and responsibilities for this child and that he needs to step up and be a proper father.

zkate Sorry I have only just seen this now. I've friends but I've had "friends" who turned their backs on me and sided with him. (He's very manipulative and has it down to a fine art) He's managed to somehow twist everything and blame me for everything and he hasn't taken any responsibility whatsoever for this actions. He's not going on the BC, he's not having anything to do with my baby. Like I said earlier he made his choice and it's not my problem if he changes his mind. I wasn't able too! OH and Latemates, I don't want a single penny from my ex. I hope he chokes on his money.

VioletV

You'd have to go into hiding to stop your babies father from having anything to do with his child-is that what you're going to do?

It doesn't matter if he's not on the BC he can apply for
Parental responsibility.

violetV
yes, do not put him on the BC. this is something my mum warned me about and i stupidly didnt listen. Now i have an idiot ex, who does nothing for my daughter, gives me abuse and has 1/2 the legal rights over my daughter.

Truck, I'm not in the UK anymore... And the rules here are if we're not married or not living together, I get full PR and he doesn't. I don't have to have him on the BC. I may still end up in court over access. but I'll deal with that bridge when I get to it.

lady that sounds like a crap situation. If he doesn't do anything then why do you bother with his legal rights? I wouldn't give the tosspot the time of day. There must be something you can do? x

I'm sure someone has written this but if you don't put your DC's dads name on the BC he can just apply to court get a DNA test and have himself put on it. A costly exercise for you and makes you look unreasonable in the courts eyes. I don't mean to be awkward, just wanted you to know.

Newbabynewmum That's correct but that applies to UK law only.

Very hard to get an objective opinion on here as some posters are [understandably] absorbed by their own situations and tend to project.

OP. Yours is a hard situation, but i think you need to deal with it in the same way any other sensible PWC [parent with care] should.

Come to an amicable agreement with your childs father, from what you say about your relationship with him this is very much possible.

Every other weekend is fine, but for a newborn not so much. daily contact to build up a bond would be better and please dont exclude the babies dad from the birth certificate! he is still its dad regardless and its really not nice having that part blank on your BC.

Sorry yes I did mean to say that!

Hi patchouligirl ... Don't worry - trust your feelings. You sound like a reasonable person, who is committed to doing what you feel to be the 'right' thing.

I was in the same situation as you 4 years ago. My ex finally walked out on me 2 weeks before i had our daughter, after providing me with virtually no practical or emotional support while i was pregnant. I was distraught and still madly in love with him at the time.

But despite what some people around me thought, I wanted my daughter to have a good relationship with her dad- sounds like you do too. So to begin with, he saw her every day (at my house) and then after a few weeks, he saw her a few times a week. By the time she was 3 months, he was taking her out for short spells a few times a week. When she stopped breastfeeding - at about 9 months - he had her at his house for a few hours at the weekend and over time we built this up to a whole day. By aged 2 she was staying over night. She also had a tea time visit mid week. This way they never went more than 3 days without seeing each other. They have a close bond now (she's 4), which was not in the slightest bit hindered by delaying the overnight visits.

You're the mum and you know when its the right time to do it. Don't be pushed into it (or out of it!) by what everyone else says. Trust yourself and be strong!

Good luck!
x

VioletV I spoke to you on a pg thread under a different name a few months ago - we are going through similar things. I thought i'd pop by and say hello as I'm overdue and a bit :(

Latemates I read halfway through this thread and see you are attempting to quote research about single mother households. Unfortunately this will be extremely biased in socio-economic demography. I'm sure you are aware that less middle and upper class males walk out on their pregnant partners for example? If so you will understand that when it happens to the, thankfully relatively few of us who aren't already in a financial dire straight then the results of single parenthood can actually over acheive those of a family where the parent's do not see much of the children or are aruguing and thus causing unnecessary stress.

If you read any books about single motherhood through/by choice you will be able to find a multitude of statistics that will undoubtedly be the opposite to yours.

Like Violet I didn't have any choice - he left when he found out I wasn't carrying the boy he had hoped for. How you can say that not supporting and actually deliberately contributing stress to a pregnant lady doesn't mean the man isn't a good dad is quite contradictory. I am sure my XP doesn't actually see my bump as a real entity. I am the one who has been looking after it for 9.5 (sob!) months alone. He has been out getting drunk, seeing other women and generally carrying on as normal. At what point do you suggest he wakes up?

Oh and he also refuses to talk about maintenance ("i'll pay for the odd school uniform or whatever else as and when" ) and has no where to live because, although he is 31 he has never had to find a flat on his own before and "didn't realise how quickly they go in London" despite me sending him links etc, basically bending over backwards to try to get him secure before our DD gets here. Therefore I have prepared myself for the worst; i'll never get maintenance from him and he probably won't be interested in a couple of months. He's already said he'd rather live abroad and fully intends to take a transfer if at all possible. CSA only works if the father is in the country but I haven't even thought about this avenue. I've simply left the door open for him. He can be there and pay me 1/3rd of what the CSA would ask for and see her, or he can do what I fully expect him to, and bugger off.

Latemates - I hope you can see that men who leave us preggo's aren't exactly salt of the earth?

Hello All,

I thought I would update you on the recent developments.

After five months of separation my ex-partner called last week and says he's been a fool and that he was scared and selfish. We have met up and I have listened to his grovelling apologies and regrets.

I thought I would run back to him in a heartbeat and have spent months wanting this to happen. Now that it has I feel rather frozen, that he is a stranger to me. I don't know if I can ever trust him again and suspect that he'll run away next time he feels under pressure. I also feel that since I've seen what he is capable of doing I should protect my young 'un (who is still yet to arrive) and make sure he is never allowed to desert us in the future. On the other hand, I feel that I should offer him another chance as I was so keen to give my child a family unit with both parents at home.

Urgh.....confused

What do you want?

because for now, you're only pregnant and can emotionally do as you please with noimpact on the baby. It makes no difference whether the father is thereor not.

WhatI would suggest is dating. If you want to.

Ifhe puts his mind to it, he can be a very good father without being your partner - but he has to put his mind to it.

You can go beck to him or not go back to him, but you can't make his parenting decisions for him. He must make those himself.