childs routine and behaviour

[babycc29x]

im in a rut at the moment, my little boy is 1 and a half, hes been in a set routine since he was 7 weeks old where he slept right through the night. On occassions (once every so often) were i went out he would stay with my dad in his house or with my brother and his partner in there house - he would still sleep through the night.

my sons dad came in to his life around 7/8 months, got granted 3 hours in court once a week and gradually built up to 6 hours. In november he wanted overnight - i felt my son wasnt ready for, as he only saw his dad a handful of times. courts granted it he got basically 2 overnights one in decemeber, and one in january - everytime my son comes back his routine is all over the place he wakes up with his dad - i know this is apparently normal for children being in strange places, but when my son comes back to me the first 2 times he is waking up durning the night with myself up to 5 times a night! this lasted a week.

we went back to court he wanted 2 overnights a month which i said no to. i wanted 1 a month so that i could get him back into a routine without any hassell and it could cointinue and gradually build it up. court granted 1 every, 3 weeks! i explained my sons routine but the court werent for budging. my lawyer said document the times and how many times he wakes up. he been for one over night this month so far, my son had woke up every night, again upto 5 times and this is going into the 3rd week.

my head is absoultley fried, ive tried everything to get him back into his routine. ive kept his before bedtime routine and his bedtime the same :( but nothing is working at all.

my sons behaviour is absoultley dreadful as well, bringing him up he was a great little boy and really content, he does and says funny things - like " aye and no" hes picked it up when he hears me talking, i laugh when he says it because he know what it means, u ask him if he wants something to eat - no, something to drink - aye!! but i found out his grandparents on his dad side have been telling him off for this - "its not aye its yes!!" and he throws a tantrum. i havent said anything to her but i feel like i should i know its not something major but my son will learn in his own time hes just exploring words! i just leave him to say these words, aslong as hes not swearing i dont really care how he speaks! hes been brought up with manners i dont care if he will be common as muck, im not posh so i dont expect my son to be!
hes been hitting people since mid december as well, which im really not happy about and i dont know how he picked it up. put it this way he gave me a fat lip yesterday. Ive noticed when its just me and him he brings a teddy into my livingroom and starts battering it :-/! i informed his nursery when i noticed the hitting and told them if they ever see him hitting someone to tell him off, a few weeks later my older brother went into nursery to pick him up, and he got told oh he hit one of the girls, he got put in the naughty corner and told off.... this was really embarressing for myself. luckily my big brothers understanding, and knows what id do - he told my son off and made him say sorry to the little girl - my little boy went over to the girl he punch and gave her a kiss and a cuddle! which sorta put a smile back on my face...

i really dont know what to do if its even worth mentioning in court about my sons routine and behaviour, the behaviour part doesnt phase me much but its just how his behaviour has been changing the past few months, the routine does. i know his dads going to get his own way either way, i know court will end up telling me to deal with it. is it worth it?

Ah ok so your ds is one and a half. I know you have a routine but all children will have the ups and downs when it comes to sleeping and I appreciate it gets worse when he stays at his dads have you tried wrighting down his routine and the way you wish night time wakings to be handled and give it to your x also keep a copy and pass on to solicitor with your times of waking after visits, I understand you may not like your x and there may be good reason for this but as a good mom you need to help your x do things the way you need them to be done so that life at home is not disrupted to much and if that means sitting down with sand his parents and explaing you want things handled in a certain way then so be it and they should have respect enough to listen and implement that. As for nursery dc will pick up all sorts of things pussing biting ect maybe the next on a long list but don't fret so as they all go through this and much more and most parents understand as there ds have and will also, I can see you are good mum and you are doing right by keeping things as normal as possible via routine and discipline and that's all you can really do tbh so keep up your good work stop worrying so much and enjoy your lo x

It isn't necessarily all the fault of him having contact with his Dad.

Some of it is just toddler stage.

You can't really expect to impose your will on your ex - unfortunately the court will decide what contact he is to have, and as long as the court deems him to be a suitable person to have unsupervised contact you are going to have to just put up with it I'm afraid.

Loads of kids go through a biting/hitting phase at about a year and a half - I'm sure the nursery will have seen it all before - and I wouldn't worry too much about it.