Advice on “Co-Parent”

[Bee9328]

Hi all!

I am looking for some advice on how to deal with my daughters father.

We split a year and half ago due to him being verbally and emotionally abusive, our daughter is 3.

Since we have split he has always been extremely inconsistent with seeing her no matter how many times we have set days and times together etc but recently since around October he is seeing less and less of her and there seems to be an excuse every time now and he dosent tell me until maybe an hour before hes seeing her most of the time. So any plans i have always have to be cancelled etc all sorts of excuses, mental health, no money for petrol, too tired..🙃

I have been writing down days/ weeks he is not seeing her and it’s all adding up pretty quickly but the advice I want is that next week she is starting a new time with her nursery, from afternoons to mornings , he is not working and hasn’t been for a while and when I asked him going forward what would be the routine he said we would “figure it out” i explained I am not willing to wait in until 1/2 in the afternoon and waste the day for him not to show up as he does so frequently. My daughter will finish at half 10.

I guess my question is am I in the wrong for not waiting for him to maybe come for her on “his days” in the afternoon to which then I’d be extremely annoyed when he dosent show and I’ve wasted taking my daughter out somewhere. He could easily have her straight after school but he sleeps in all day to early afternoon every day so I know he simply cant be bothered to see her so early at half past 10.

I have told him he needs to tell
me if he planning on showing up to see her at half 10 and I won’t be chasing him as I have been previously and I also said if I hear nothing from him half hour before she finishes nursery I will just assume hes not coming and go about my day.

is this unreasonable?

we do not have a court order but this is something I certainly need to look into.

any advice is appreciated

You don't look into a court order, a court order tells you when to make her available to him. Whether he turns up for that time is neither here nor there.

If I were you I would take control and change the arranged times. "From now on Sally will be available to you 08:30-13:30 on X and Y days. If you do not turn up we will wait for 15 minutes and then get on with our day and you will have to wait until your next session to see her. This is in Sally's best interest as she needs consistency and you have missed x/x sessions with minimal notice in the last three months."

You have been reasonable, you have made her available a multiple days a week at times where he could have her outside (non) working hours. I would not be offering anything else unless he has a job and it needs changing to fit around that if I was able to not impact reliable childcare

Sorry looking into it i ment actually taking steps to implement a court order is what I need to find out about as it’s something I’ve never done before

Sorry I can’t seem to edit my post but what im trying to say is am I being unreasonable expecting him to have her straight from nursery at half 10 instead of waiting until 1/2 where he may show up or he might not? I just don’t want to waste the day when I know it’s more than likely he won’t come anyway!