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Am I doing the right thing? (Child contact)

2 replies

Dragons12 · 04/04/2025 09:57

Hi, so I have a 2 year old daughter with a man who is now my ex. We broke up when she was 1 and contact has been sporadic for the first 8 months since breaking up. Initially started as once a week but then he would miss one week, miss two and the longest he missed was 6 weeks which was end of last year.

Fast forward mid Jan, he then declared he wanted a DNA test and would not see her until he got the results. Obviously furious but I agreed to it. He longed the process out and testing wasn’t done until February, and we got the results Mid March. He now claims he wants to go back to seeing her every week. I allowed him to come over this week, so she saw her dad for the first time since January. I prepped her before hand and said “daddy’s coming over soon”, which prior to January she would normally be excited about however her reaction was very different. As soon as he got here she burst into tears and ran away to hide in her bedroom. She told me she wanted him to go away. After a few mins of calming her down, she came into the front room to see him and she was happy after a while. However, she also wet herself. Which she hasn’t done since November. All in all, I think it was quite a big mix of emotions for her and she was very overwhelmed.

Her dad has said he wants to come same time again next week but Ive said to him I think it’s best we do every other week for a few months and build up to every week again. I would love nothing more for them to have a good relationship but unfortunately he’s the one who’s made that hard. I wanted to ask others what they think about this, am I harming her on insisting he builds contact up or am I harming her by not letting him see her every week? I feel like it’s a lose-lose situation tbh but I just want the best for her so willing to hear others opinions on this. Thank you.

OP posts:
mindutopia · 04/04/2025 13:47

I think what you’re doing sounds really sensible. She was upset (which is normal btw, children that age can do the same when their parents pick them up from nursery). It’s not that it was a bad traumatised upset, but it was emotional for her. It sounds sensible to do every other week and build it up. For her, but also realistically for you, because you’re the one who has to settle her after. If possible, I’d suggest lengthening the sessions first so they get the same amount of time as every week, more chance to actually do things together, but it’s not so disruptive.

Dragons12 · 04/04/2025 17:28

@mindutopia Thanks for the reassurance, I appreciate it. Definitely was emotional for her and I cried after he’d left and she’d gone to bed because I just felt so bad for her to see the effects of his absence. The advice about increasing time is helpful in theory, but isn’t really possible unless we do a weekend which I might suggest.

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