How much contact with ex regarding dc?

[Emboo19]

I’m trying to put some distance between me and my ex, so we can both move on properly (mostly him). No abuse or anything and he’s not difficult or argumentative, so don’t want to completely block him or anything.
But, despite telling him and him agreeing that we should reduce contact to essentials only. He still texts or phones a few times a day. It’s always about DD, but just how is she, how was nursery today.
My parents are doing handovers at the moment and I know they passed on all relevant info. But he only collected her at 4 and I’ve had two phone calls about a missing hat and eight messages about various things.

I struggle to ignore messages about DD, I’ll admit that and I don’t want to exclude him if he’s wanting to know things. But i think it’s far too much and I’m not sure how we find a balance or what a ‘normal’ level of contact is between seperated parents.

I did suggest a book to him, that we could write in and pass between us (like nursery use) but he said he thinks that’s really petty and silly, when we can just speak to each other or message. But then I get a message asking what she’s eaten today! I reply thinking maybe she’s got a upset tummy or something, but it’s just so he doesn’t cook her the same thing.

How often is he getting to have her / see her? It’s a massive change for an involved Dad to go from seeing DC every night after you get home to going to a few nights (if he’s lucky) or eow and one night if he gets the usual shafting.

Which is it in his case? If it’s the usual then he’s probably struggling to get used to it and IMO you should cut him some slack.

(I should declare here that I’m a Dad who was forced from 50:50 to eow so may be more than a bit one-sided)

If he's having to ask you what you've fed her over the day, then handovers aren't as detailed as they should be, in which case you need to provide your parents with a more detailed handover. It's not at all unreasonable to ask what she's been fed because he won't want to give her something similar!

I completely agree with op, cut him some slack. It sounds from your post that the decision to split was in your hands and that your ex didn't really want it or at least he's struggling more than you are right now. On top of that he's no longer seeing his little girl as often as he did, why wouldn't he ask you lots of questions about her day? He's right, a book is petty and silly, you're grown adults who brought a child into the world. If you don't like it, pass info on to your parents to tell him (although I find this a bit childish and unfair on your parents).

*agree with pp

We try to do detailed handovers. Varies though. Sometimes if a child is tired it needs to be quick. So there might be boring, DC1 hasnt eaten much today type texts after.

How long has it been? Your DD is clearly very young if still at nursery. I think it's good that he cares about her day to day life.

I try not to contact ex much when it would interrupt his time with DC but ex and I do have regular contact - often about mundane things, who has eaten what and who hasn't slept enough being the most common!. Sometimes one of us probably does texts too much and the other doesn't respond quicky and thats ok. Often whoever has DC might send a couple of photos.

It's such a huge adjustment and so sad at times. You say there is no abuse/nastiness. It seems a shame to try and make things more formal.
Are your parents doing handovers for practical reasons? Eg you are at work. It seems sad not to show DD you two can make this work.

I do know what you mean about it making it difficult to move on but I'm working on the basis that DC are young and making these early years of separation as easy as possible comes before moving on.

I try keeping the distance that DC need. Eg, if we have had time together, eg, Xmas or birthday I try not to for another while in case they get confused. They need to know we are separated. But I think they benefit from us being amicable otherwise.

I assume we will naturally find ourselves "more separated" as time goes on and they are older.

He sees her two nights through the week at my house Changedname (depending on Work) then he has her one day/night every weekend so he took her tonight and will bring her home tomorrow about 4/5pm. Next week he’ll take her Saturday and bring her home Sunday. She’s only 15 months and he wasn’t greatly involved when we were together, often worked away mom-fri so it’s not a massive change for him.

I’d be happy for him to have her more often if he wanted/could and up until recently we were getting on well, occasionally days out together, pretty flexible with him calling in or FaceTiming, even been away together.
But that’s caused other issues for us and he’s said he’s finding it really difficult us not being together. I’m not convinced his messaging is really about dd but a way of having contact.

He’d been told what she’d eaten (pasta) but wanted to know the type!

That’s exactly what I wanted Whatsnext but it doesn’t seem to work for us.

A 15 month old would care about having the same meal twice. This is absolutely about wanting to stay in contact with you. I think a book would be too formal and petty. I would tell him you find the frequent contact hard given that you're both coming to terms with a break up, ask him to think twice before sending, and warn him that you won't reply if it's conversational - and that you're letting him know that because you don't want to be rude, and you value a good coparenting relationship. Then back off on replying, even though it's hard.

I'd also maybe take the line that you trust his parenting and are happy for him to go his own way on his evenings. But only if that's genuine

That’s pretty much what I’ve said to him Ellisandra and he agreed!! Then I still get the messages and phone calls.

I’m torn as looking at his messages he’s not asking anything unreasonable. It reads like a Dad genuinely caring for his daughter and maybe just being a bit unsure about things. But my gut feeling is he’s doing it so we still feature in each other’s daily life and that makes it difficult not to slip into those old familiar habits, which I think we were doing before.