Child access issues

[DoreenDay]

My partner cheated on me when I was pregnant and I am now looking to move away to be closer to my own family, let’s say around 1-2hours away.
What would be the reasonable assumption for the father to have the child over night? Every full weekend? Every other weekend? I work full time Monday-Friday. I won’t put my opinion so I don’t sway answers.

Are you pregnant or is the baby born and if so what age?

If you move after the baby is born generally it is the parent that moved that is expected to do all the travel, so worth keeping in mind.

When I went to court to establish contact when DD was a baby between her and her dad the court wanted short but frequent contact, starting at a contact centre and then building up to full days a couple of times a week with EOW starting from the age of 4 years and one evening each week.

However we lived close to each other, with distance involved I'd assume remote contact reading stories by zoom etc and a partial day at the weekend working u to a full day and then overnight.

Ideally dad should be coming by to visit for 30 minutes, 3-4 times a week to start. An overnight won’t be possible for a long time. If your child is going to have a good relationship with both parents, the two of you need to coordinate your living arrangements.

Baby is 5 months old and stays overnight one night a week at dads currently who lives in the same town. I’m now wanting to move close to two hours away to be with my family and he is demanding to have her every weekend Fri-sun. I will be working mom-Fri and don’t see how this would be fair.

Your baby is far too young to have such a long time away from you (it’s mother) and be with the father. I would suggest Dad visits Saturday or Sunday or both days and has the little one for 3-4 hours. Also Zoom contact during the week. If Dad’s not happy with that he’ll have to take the matter to Court.

The court will most likely go for little and often whilst your child is a baby, building up to longer periods and overnights. The court will frown on you removing your child from the little and often aspect of child access. You may have to do the travelling.
The advantage of court ordered access is that you will both know exactly where you are with regard to childcare and parental responsibility.

The one overnight a week you already have seems a lot (possibly to much?) for a 5 month old. Personally I would not have allowed overnight until they were at least 1, but it's established now so might be hard to go back.

I'd push to stay at 1 night a week now (either Saturday or Sunday) and look to move to full weekend every other week in a couple of years, which would be the same amount of time, but less travelling. As the one moving, it will be your responsibility to do the bulk of the travelling for drop off and pick up, so it might be worth considering if the benefit of family suport close by will offset the 4h round trip to drop baby off.

I was also left while pregnant so can empathize with your pain and situation, but in terms of courts and child arrangements no one cares that he broke your heart- it's brutal but true. These details need to be processed in therapy or with friends but don't impact the child contact and decisions about the time baby spends with him.

Did you put him on the birth certificate? If not you can pretty much do whatever you want (but please be moral).

The best approach is the he has short visits often. Much harder if you're two hours away.

If he currently only has her overnight once a week, why does he expect that you moving means he gets two nights a week?

Can you cope with him having her for two nights? Would baby be ok with that? If so then two nights every other weekend is the same as what he has now. To me baby is still a bit young for that.

Perhaps he could travel to visit and take baby out for the day near your new home one day each weekend (so baby isn't stuck in the car) and then the next weekend you drop baby at his eg on Friday and he takes her overnight for one night. Then review when baby is one.

Does he have any flexible working request possibility with work, eg maybe he could have an early finish one Monday a fortnight and he could come and spend the afternoon with baby on those days?

Yes as PP say it might be court ordered that you should travel, however, this guy does not support you mid week and your family will. You need support. He chose to leave while you're pregnant I don't see why he should have his cake and eat it and have an easy life when your life is so much harder with double the work. Your baby needs a happy well supported mum more than it needs a dad who isn't inconvenienced by travel time. After all your trauma I think you should put your support needs first.

You also need to be prepared that he will likely be able to deduct petrol or train ticket to visit baby from his child maintenance payments to you.

I would move quickly if you're definitely going to so that he can't block you with court.

In your position I would suggest keeping contact the same for now as so much else is changing- so one overnight per week. I’d offer to do all the travelling initially (as you’re the one who moved away) and for dad to visit on other days if he wants but with baby sleeping at yours.

Id then aim to review when baby is 3. At that point I’d aim to move to every other weekend Friday night - Monday morning with dad doing half the journeys which feels sustainable for school years.

Every other weekend and half of holidays is generally standard for involved dads.
Alternating holidays like Christmas and birthday each year.
If I were you I'd offer Christmas this year whilst the baby won't understand much and then you'll have next year.

Try to be as flexible as possible whilst making sure you're getting enough time, the better you can both end up getting along the easier it will be on all of you, especially the child.

May be worth suggesting doing a joint day out every couple of months too which in the long run includes future partners. It's nice for children's lives not to end up completely separate if at all possible.