Coparent taking extended trip

[cluelessFTMhere]

Hi all, my DS dad has dropped on me that in 6 weeks time he is taking an extended trip with his new partner. We have been split a year and 3 months and throughout the time he has been very inconsistent with his time with my son. He has dropped multiple days for different reasons such as nights out, festivals, 3 holidays last year. During December he missed quite a lot of time with our DS and then introduced him to his partner. The last few weeks I’ve been noticing changes in our DS, hes been more clingy than usual and has said he doesn’t want to go to his dads on a couple of occasions which isn’t usual behaviour.

The trip began as 2 weeks and a couple of days and is now 3 weeks with a 7 hour time difference, he’s saying he will FaceTime every night but I fear this is just going to cause more upset to our DS. How has anyone dealt with this kind of situation before? Has anyone got any advice on how best to help my DS through this time?

Reject the face time idea. Every night is too much pressure for a little one, and they will have nothing to say to each other if calling that frequently. Suggest once a week. My ex suggested that during covid and all it did was cause upset.

How old is your ds? Can you do a project together on where your ex is going? Talk about lions or kangaroos or whatever, look it up on a globe, try food from that place etc. Then they will have something to talk about when he gets home, it will give your ds some involvement and something to imagine. And can be a bit of fun.

You can't stop your ex going, or make him a half decent father but you can embrace the trip, use it as a learning experience for ds, and hope ds doesn't pick up on your anger, which will also cause distress.

I agree with daily FaceTime being too much. Once a week sounds about right.

Is he paying you through CMS @cluelessFTMhere?