What is a good contact arrangement that keeps the kids close to their dad?

[abearcalledpaddington]

Hi, i posted not long ago about an argument i had with my now exdh. The thread had some helpful comments on it and some not so helpful, but i thought i would ask for advice again on here as there's not really anyone i know in real life that is in my situation.

Firstly, even though dh has been quite a prick to me, he is a good dad and the kids adore him, i want them to see him as often as possible.He wants to see them as much as he can too, and our arrangement so far has seen us both spend lots of time with them, but i feel like its too all over the place and the kids are back and forth a lot.I am quite happy to do this and be friendly and so is he.

At the moment it is like this

Monday- daytime with me, evening and overnight at dads

Tuesday-all day and overnight with me

Wednesday- daytime with me, evening and overnight at dads

Thursday-all day and overnight with me

Friday- same as mon and weds

Sat- dad drops them at mine at noon, rest of the day and overnight with me.

Sun-dad picks them up at noon, take them back to his for rest of day and overnight.

Dh is happy with this arrangement and would rather it not change, the kids haven't said they want it to change but they do occasionally moan as i guess sometimes they just want to stay in one place. I had never questioned it until some people on here said it wasn't good for the kids to be dragged between houses every other day... and there is a lot of "whos house are we at today mummy" .

Does anyone have any suggestions for ways we could do it better?

I suggested one night in the week and then weekends but he said that wasn't enough. My friend suggested instead of him having them at his he should come to mine and spend time with them and put them to bed, so they still see him but they are disturbed as much.

I just feel they need some consistency.

Also its worth mentioning they are home educated so when i say they are with me all day, i do mean all day!SO even though he has them more nights than me at the moment i still see them a lot more.

TIA X

Has he passed his test now?

Im not sure we will be able to change it, i haver started taking two of them swimming on a thursday night and he takes two others on a sunday morning, also two have karate (we have 5 in total so cant take them to things like swimming all together as theirs too many of them)

If we change it these kinds of things will stop. One thing that has been good since he left is that we have done more on our own with just one or two of the children, things like theatre shows and swimming.

Hmm will have to rethink it.

No, i am driving him about most of the time or he is getting the train

He has got a theory booked though.

Also can i just ask, he is working away in another country for 3 days in a couple of weeks, he does this every 2 or 3 months.

Yesterday he said "i get back on thursday night, i will take the day off and have them all day friday, because i wont be able to have them friday night (the day he has them) because i am going to watch the football"

I said no, it was his day to have them and he cant just switch his days around because of the football, he acted like this was really unreasonable but didnt make a big deal out of it.If he wants to take the day off and have them then fine but i dont like the way he just presumed it would be fine.

Am i being petty by saying no?

Personally I think yes. If he had given you no notice or very little notice then I would agree with you, but I often switch the weekend night with my ex if something suits either of us better.

It's the way he words it isn't it "I wont be able to have them because of the football" is very presumptive that his social needs come before yours.. and also that he is more of a babysitter than a parent with responsibility.

If he said "Would you mind if?" then that is different and it would be petty to say no. I can't believe people aren't raised to know how to ask for favours.

This is an issue I'm grappling with too as I desperately want dd to have as close a bond with both parents as possible. I think as you home educate and your weekdays are like weekends as you say, you have more options available than most. You could have the children during the week and their dad at weekends, or you could do chunks of time each with you taking the kids for 'school' when he is at work, then they go back to him for the evening. I think I'd favour the you for the week, him for the weekend option. I would go for that if I were at home with dd in the week.

I have mentioned the weekend thing and he said he would but he watches the football on a Saturday when its on and that's the only thing he actually does that isn't work or look after the kids so i think that's fair enough really.

We are going to keep it as it is at the moment i think,we have started doing swimming, taking two each on a Wednesday and Thursday night so the kids get a bit of time where they're not all together which they like every now and again, which is nice for the older ones as the younger two can be hard work sometimes.That sounds like it makes it more confusing which it does on paper but they have been looking forward to those nights where its just the boys/girls/no babies.

I have also sorted some solo days out,checked with ex to see if he can look after the others and we have trips to a science show,dinosaur zoo,brighton museum, the harry potter place and a sushi bar coming up over the next month so they are looking forward to that!(they chose those themselves :-) )

Exh owns a medium sized business (employs about 800 + people last time i checked) and is hoping to sell his shares in a couple of year so it will switch around again, we will probably go full 50/50

I have been very good this week, i haven't let him hang around and i feel like i have detached from him, im starting to feel positive about the future and getting a bit of me back.