Normal contact arrangements for 3 year old?

[Blackandwhitecat3]

ExH (history of DV) currently has 3 year old Friday evening to Sunday evening every two weeks and holiday contact is gradually stepping up to one week (two weeks in the summer). Contact is currently defined in a court order.

ExH has just asked to increase weekend contact to Monday morning (dropping off at childcare) but has given no reason. I believe he is gradually trying to step up contact to 50% for when current financial maintenance arrangements end and revert to CSA amounts (when DS is in Year 4).

What are "normal" contact arrangements for a 3 year old? 5 year old? he starts school next year and I wouldn't want him to be going to school not from home until he is well settled.

Also am still bf and clearly this will impact on that (though I know this won't stand up in a court of law).

Thanks for your posts.

My boys were 1 and 2 when me and the ex split and he has them 50/50 but we co parent pretty well and live locally to one another. Because of your relationship I would say every other weekend, plus one week night a week and half of the school holidays.

Does your ex live reasonably close to school? If he currently has 2/14 nights, 3/14 nights isn't loads more.

In answer to your question, every other weekend, one weeknight during the week he doesn't see Dad and half of school holidays (don't forget half term) is standard.

There isn't a standard for contact but EOW and one night during the week every week is common. I agree, at that age BF is unlikely to hold any weight.

A court looks at what's best for the child, as you know, so build any arguments around that. An increase from 2 nights per fortnight is likely to be granted by a court. You just have to work out how that would best happen.

I don't personally feel 50:50 is beneficial to children, unless children are older when the parents split and have an equal relationship with both parents before the split.

ExH lives the other side of the county so it would be a long commute to school on a Monday for DS. Not really in his best interests to be doing that each fortnight, especially as I work FT on a Monday and so he's got to last until 5.30/6pm.

I don't think it's in DS's best interests to not see his mother from Friday afternoon until Monday afternoon regularly, but a court won't see it that way .

And impossible to explain to a court that ExH's motivation is to reduce his maintenance payments as much as possible - if I tried to, I would just get labelled a demon mother who wants to drive the father away from the child

Why would he have to pay maintenance if he spends 50% of the time with his son? Why is it important he pays maintenance? He's going to have to buy food and clothes for him anyway.

EOW wouldn't be enough for you of course it's not enough for most dads.

" I don't think it's in DS's best interests to not see his mother from Friday afternoon until Monday afternoon regularly, but a court won't see it that way sad. "

Is it your DS's best interest to not see his FATHER for a full week?

I would agree the b/feeding will be ignored at 3.

How far away is he.. you say the other side of the county.

If he is going for 50/50 he would need to be close enough for reasonable travel to school.

If he is abusive he is likely about control which Guest275 will ignore.

Or maybe he actually loves his son and wants to be more than just every other weekend dad. But of course you don't care about that, Starlight.

OP thinks her ex is doing this because he doesn't want to pay maintenance. So I asked her why is maintenance so important?? He's going to buy food and clothes to his son anyway.

Maybe it's OP who wants control. She wants to decide when her ex sees their son. And she wants to control how the maintenance money is spent. She doesn't want to lose control.

My ex lives 10 minutes from my home I have with dd.

At 5 dd's dad had access (court ordered) EOW Friday collect from school until Sunday 6pm then 1 overnight in the week.
He also has 7 full days in the 6 weeks holidays - split 1 week with me, 1 week with him, 1 week with me etc

When she was 6 he got EOW Friday - Monday morning & 1 overnight in the week.
However he now cannot drop dd or collect her from school so this is being changed currently