Refused access / neglect Help!

[DaisyJones6]

Following on from this thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/parenting/5017370-opinions-on-this-please-9-mo-feeding-nutrition?reply=133357887

My son’s ex partner is now refusing him access to their 8 month old baby. He’s worried as she’s not being properly looked after with her Mum too - very poor nutrition, fed rubbish, baby is extremely overweight (8 months old and weighs 15.1kg)

Given ultra processed food, along with constant milk, constant fruit juice in a bottle - she’s severely constipated and cannot even roll over yet. Drugs are grown at the house and they smoke cigarettes in the house also, even though the baby has had respiratory issues and has a nebuliser.

We just don’t know what to do first. People have mentioned social services to us, due to neglect and being “at risk” … others have said mediation for access, but if we choose that route, what happens about social services and the neglect?

We are at the very start of this journey and really would appreciate some advice if anyone has any.

She has refused access due to him saying she needs her milk cut down and that he questioned the baby’s weight.

Thank you.

If he has parental responsibility he needs to use it to protect his child.

Social services should not be involved when there is a parent with parental responsibility able to safely parent.

He will need to get legal advice/ go to court, but these threads always get advice to call social services, which is crazy advice for a parent with parental responsibility who has far more power than social services.

In the worst case scenario social services go to court to share parental responsibility to protect children. This dad already has that parental responsibility.

A dad unwilling to exert his parental responsibility despite safeguarding concerns is its own failure to protect concern.

Not saying this is the case with your partner op btw, just pointing out that parents need to use their parental responsibility to protect their children, not rely on social services who are already overstretched.

The baby’s diet sounds awful but there are some inconsistencies in your account:

She is denying access - but he spent last weekend with them? Has she since said he can’t see her again or what? Refusing to let a 9 month old baby be apart from its mother for a full week is not denying access and it would be very unusual for a court to support such a request.

Is there are new partner on the scene? It seems odd that your son and her broke up recently and only now, with an 8 month old, does she start growing drugs and smoking. Were drugs part of their lives together?

I’m not saying you have no cause for concern but when he goes into mediation or to court, he’d be better off being scrupulously accurate rather than inflating claims like “I’m being denied access to my baby!” - when he’s being denied the specific (and unsuitable) access he has requested but she has facilitated access at her address. Otherwise he is undermining his credibility and the potentially more serious points as to welfare may be assumed to be similarly exaggerated.

I also wonder whether your description of how he ended up 350 miles away from them and back near you is the whole picture and whether she was ever 100% happy with that decision and has done a 180. Maybe that is the situation but that is a big decision for her to take with a baby assuming she has friends and family where she is. Did he set up a home for them? What does that set up look like? Is it a flat? A house? Or is she expected to move in with you for weeks?

You are likely to get a very partisan account of things from your son. Did he have concerns about her care of the baby when they were still together?

Well intentioned post but I completely disagree. If health of baby is at risk or being neglected then this is the 1st, 2nd and 3rd priority. This is more important than any relationship with her.

sounds like she’s not one to keep a relationship with anyway

@LightDrizzle Hi, thanks for your message.

He had her last weekend, and last night asked about seeing her again and she’s now saying no. So, very recent.

The drugs in her house are her parents, they have been there since he first moved in. He only told us about it when they split up, as I think he knew that we wouldn’t approve.

He has a lovely loft apartment in a barn in a village about 15 min away from us. It really is lovely, countryside all around but with good transport links and a busy village.

When he first came down here to find the flat, she told him a couple of days later that she needed space - they didn’t speak for a couple of days but then things just seemed to carry on as normal with them, she then came down for a bit and said how happy she was.

I won’t ever know the full story I don’t think, but this is the information that I do know. I’m going to speak to him again tonight and broach the subject of him going up there and staying and seeing the baby during the day, taking her home to Mum at night. He can message her and see what she thinks about it. Yes perhaps a week was a lot, thinking about it .. time goes so fast with babies, he (and we) just don’t want to miss her growing up. Blink and they’re 16!

Both far too young to have had a child!

@Letterasaurus Thank you so much for your helpful response ☺️

OP I suggest you write down everything your son has told you and put it in some order. Chronologically if possible.

Like @LightDrizzle says there are lots of discrepancies in his story.

So you need to ask him to fill in the gaps.

As a couple of posters have pointed out there isn't enough to get SS involved.

Oh and with drugs the Family Court ignores what they deem recreational use. So unless the other set of grandparents are raided by the police and convicted they aren't interested. Even then as the mother isn't involved they will allow her to find somewhere else to live.

The bar the Family Courts and SS have for parenting adequately is very low. This is unless SS are trying to prove something against you. However even then the Family Court will intervene.

Thank you @Reugny

Sorry, I got it wrong, this access denying mother allowed your son to take the baby 350 miles away for the weekend last weekend.

I think your son needs to think clearly about what his main concerns are and the most effective way to address them. At the moment it seems like a blunderbuss attack.

I think your phrasing of “drugs are grown in the house” was pretty disingenuous allowing us to assume the mother or a new partner had introduced drugs when it’s her parents; not a new thing; and was the situation when son lived there.

Your/ his current approach risks outside observers concluding he is antagonistic and out to blanket discredit the mother to gain custody so if there are real welfare concerns, focus on securing support for those.

So far the material facts from your posts appear to be:

The baby is overweight and has a very poor diet. - this is a cause for concern but unlikely to be seen as severe neglect. The mother will hopefully be offered support and education on nutrition.

There are smokers in the house, as there were when your son was living there. - not ideal but incredibly common and not something SS intervene in.

The grandparents, whose house they currently live in, grow weed, as they did when your son lived there. - Unless the baby’s mother is incapacitated by drug use or is neglecting her child through substance abuse then SS will not intervene.

The mother is refusing to move 350 miles away from her family and support network to live near where her former partner, the baby’s father, moved to.

The father has had access to the baby but irregularly due to the distance involved. The mother refused a request from baby’s father when he asked to take the baby away from her at Easter for a week 350 miles away but did agree to a weekend which took place last weekend. On that weekend, the father’s mother weighed the baby and accusations of neglect have been raised as a result and the baby’s mother is now refusing to allow the baby to go on future visits away from her.

I must add that it is unusual for 8 month old babies to spend weekends away from their mothers and courts do not normally give orders for such access. More frequent access for shorter periods building up to longer periods is judged to be better for the infant.

Christ. Poor baby. What hope do children born into this kind of situation have if what the previous poster says is true - recreational drug use ignored, awful diet just a flag for advice. The child weighs more than my enormous 3 year old and can't even roll over and that had been allowed to happen.

OP sounds like you need to go with your son for his next visit and see what these living arrangements are for yourself. Is your son a drug user too? I would be trying to get the whole story out of him as to why they broke up too. What was she like before. Post natal depression is terrible and if she has that she is being failed all over the place by the sounds of things. Is your son paying her child support because he should be.

15kgs at 8m.

The RCP growth charts show 15kgs is the 50th centile for a 3 year old. And 96th for 20m old.
To plot 15kgs at 8m is impossible.
So if the baby is seeing HV, GP etc then she is already getting the appropriate medical investigation as this is so unusual the chart doesn’t even cater for it.

What size clothing is she wearing?

This

I do not think there is any physical way an 8 month old could weigh 15kg.

there seems to be much more going on in this situation than has been posted, as others have pointed out. It's also not clear what the OP has actually witnessed for themselves and what has been reported on by the son.

@gotstones a quick internet search suggests that unfortunately babies can get that obese. It will be grotesquely obvious though so hopefully if a HV or GP does see the child, the mother will get guidance and support and the baby will be monitored.

@LightDrizzle ah I stand corrected, how very sad :(

As someone who works in safeguarding I would be concerned

• overweight baby with poor diet
• drugs grown in the house
• severe constipation
• smoking in the house when baby has diagnosed lung issues

you can raise an anonymous safeguarding referral through the local authorities- however it maybe pretty clear it will be from the dads family. Mediation would provide what outcome? If she has stopped contact just because the diet was questioned would she attend mediation?