My child is cared for 50/50 between his dad and I. He is 4 and this has been the case since around Sept 2021 when his dad moved into his own place after living with his mum since we split in the April.
Our child has expressed many times that he wants 'daddy to pick me up once and mumny to pick me up twice' when I'm about to drop him at nursery.
Most recently we met for an appointment for our child. His dad bought him and I met them both there. After the appointment he was going to be dropped at nursery by dad. But when our child realised that a. He was going with daddy after and b. going to nursery - he had a meltdown and only wanted me, wanted to go to mummy's house, I said I was going to work, he then said he wanted to go to mummy's work.
I made a compromise and said that I would meet them at the nursery and be there when he went in. But he was incredibly upset at the nursery and I had to give him to the staff member whilst he was kicking and screaming.
Also to note that when he arrived with his dad at the appointment our child came to me, sat only with me and only interacted with me. It was like his dad wasn't even there to him.
I'm worried as my ex has been and possibly could continue to be psychologically abusive towards me, and I have concerns that he may be to my child or just may not communicate with him in the way a small child needs. His dad often reports 'bad behaviour' to me in an accusatory way, when the behaviour is normal preschooler behaviour.
I worry my child is going to be affected by this and is this why he clings to me when he has the choice of me or his dad.
Our child spends half his time with me, and it's just me in our house, and the other half he is at his dads who moved in his partner and her young child so our child had 2 rather different homes.
As his mum my gut feeling tells me that maybe he needs more consistency. We currently run on a fortnightly schedule where we swap the weekends and we swap the mon/tues and weds/thurs nights so it is very equal and we are only ever apart from him 2-3 days max.
Once he is in school I will insist on set days per week so that he knows where he's going to be each week and I can also manage my work to suit his needs.
Anyone got any thoughts?