Access rights to my son...Help!!

[lmoss]

Right, new member on here looking for some advice.
This could turn into a long post, so i'll keep to the facts.

I have son, who is 18 months old. He lives with his mother. The current access arrangement is that i go to her house to see him there 1 night a week after work and i get to have him with me, at my home every other saturday from 9am-3pm.

As a bit of background, me and my sons mother were never together and my son has always stayed with her alone from birth.

Whilst this is "regular access" i have constantly been pushing for more time with him, weekends, over nights etc since day 1, but this is as far as we have got.

She has recently told me that i can't see him on my next scheduled Saturday and, so far, has not given me an alternative date.

Does anyone think i'm unreasonable pushing for more access and if not what can i do to persuade her to increase it? i have researched all of this and it basically ends up going to court, which i'm desperately trying to avoid for both financial reasons and the threat of her stopping me seeing him in the interim period.

What are the reasons for not having him overnight yet? If you want him more - would she be willing for you to have him 9-3 on the sat and the sun 9-3 (so you get pretty much a weekend) and build it up from there?

Parents don't have rights as such, it's the child who has the right to a relationship with both parents. Unfortunately if you can't come to an agreement together the only other option would be to go to court.

I have a friend in a very similar situation (was never with the mother and similar ages child) and he took it to court and has his daughter 3 weekends a month (5pm Friday- 8pm Sunday) and 4 full weeks a year. Before going to court the childs mother would only agree to 3 hours on a Sunday....... Maybe it's what's needed

Maybe just the thought of going to court would be enough to bring them other round to your point of view.

Why doesn't she want DS to stay overnight with you? Are you set up to be able to have him? It seems very unreasonable that she won't let you and your son have more time together.

DS started staying with XP from about 18 months but had regular contact before.

I think you need to do certain things in order to ensure you get proper contact:

• be clear with her that access dates cannot be changed. Let her have this one but tell her if she does it again you will seek legal advice. I'm sure she won't want the stress.

• seek advice anyway from the CAB

• never renege on your access dates or CS payments as this may be brought up if you go to court.

-be firm. Avoid getting angry (although it's hard) don't give her ammunition. Just be firm that you will do what it takes to see your child.

• let her know that it's gonna be ok. Having him overnight will benefit her as a single mum because she will be glad of the break. I know that sounds a bit brown-nosey but as a former single mum, giving your child up overnight can be tough to do at first, but once I did it I saw I had nothing to worry about.

Good luck.

I wonder if you are going about it the wrong way..Maybe it is your wording but maybe if you are pushing maybe she is pushing back?

Maybe you could ask if you can sit down as adults and set out a plan of how to increase contact.

I can tell you as a parent who does all the care it is very hard to relinquish that control ..Even though you are DC's dad