I’m looking for some advice from parents with an ex who works shifts.
My ex and I have a child together. He works a rotating shift pattern of two nights, two days, then three days off. At the moment he gives me his rota each month with the days he’s available, and I choose from those when he has our child. He sees her for the day roughly once or twice a week, so I am her primary parent.
However, our child will be starting school in September, and my ex lives over an hour away. Because of the distance, overnight stays at his during the week won’t really be possible once school starts, so contact will likely need to be at weekends. The difficulty is that his shifts often fall on weekends too.
I’m wondering how other parents manage similar situations with shift-working ex-partners who live far away. Is it considered reasonable to ask him to use some annual leave so he can have our child, for example two weekends a month? Unfortunately it’s not an option for him to have contact at my home, as I’m not comfortable with that.
Any advice or experiences would be really appreciated.