Living apart together with a baby

[Fuzzyhippo]

I'm expecting in January and me and my partner of 7 years will continue to live 45 minutes apart with our parents due to financial and personal reasons which are out of my control. He's not the easiest person to communicate with as he takes a good few hours before he replies to texts or calls at times, so I'm trying to figure out how it'll work when I go into labor. Has anyone else done this and it's worked out well?

One of the sets of parents at my dc school do this. Seems to work. They live about 20 mins apart. I don't see any issue with it if everyone's happy. But I would get mightily pissed off if he did nothing and left me to it

I lived rurally as a child and the cows in the fields around our house loved to take a day trip out to our back garden

I would get someone else to be your birth partner op - would your parents be able to help or a friend?

That way, if your partner can get away, great, but you won't be left in a pickle.

Sorry for your losses

Surely he has a detailed plan on how he will be an equal parent? What has he planned? (Let me guess…) Who thought an uncontactable boyfriend 45mins away was a good idea to take you to hospital? That’s obviously not going to work. Is he not going to bother making himself available to drive you, or parent?

Sounds a complete shambles.

@Fuzzyhippo wishing you the absolute best for this pregnancy.

Living apart can work, but make sure you have confidence in yourself.

For the birth, are you living with relatives that you would feel comfortable accompanying you to the hospital and waiting with you if there was a wait to get hold of your partner ? If they would not be able to accompany you, ( e.g there own health etc, or you would just rather they didn't !) then please don't worry about heading in alone. Go to the maternity unit when medically advised, ( by taxi), do not wait around for your partner if he takes a while to respond. My friend had to give birth alone twice, ( childcare reasons, her and her partner are from abroad and she wanted him to stay with her SEN DC), and she said the midwives couldn't have been more brilliant with her.

Hopefully this is irrelevant and you will be able to get hold of him quickly, but just wanted to reassure you will be looked after well if for any reason you have to attend alone.

I also remember seeing your other thread about the horrific trouble you had getting a scan. Have you been referred/ seen by NHS Midwifery / scan now ?

Also, if you didn't want to attend hospital alone, would home birth be an option you'd consider ? ( The NHS would send two midwives out to your home). Wishing you all the best.

You need to make sure that you have a back up plan for getting to hospital. If nobody else can take you then you need to contact local taxi companies and find one who will be happy to take a labouring woman, even if you never need to use this you will at least be reads that you have a plan B.

How can there not be enough room for you to live with him? You would share a bedroom! And what happens when your child wants to stay with his dad? Is he just going to say there is no room?

He found time to be present for the conception.

I don’t think this set up is fair on your parents OP they shouldn’t have to be the second parent to a newborn your DP should be.

What is the plan for when he will parent, what happens if you have a colicky baby that screams through the night and a Partner who can’t be bothered to check his phone

I would be getting a deadline for the static caravan asap.

Also, @Fuzzyhippo , just wanted to add a few links you may find helpful as it sounds as if you have really been through the mill with previous pregnancies :(

Facebook group run by PANDA's, ( a charity for pregnant and postnatal women experiencing stress, anxiety, depression etc in pregnancy and with a baby, with a function to post anonymously if you'd prefer . I have found it helpful.

www.facebook.com/groups/PANDASClosedGroup

www.tommys.org/about-us/contact-us#:~:text=Get%20in%20touch%201%20Call%20us%20Office%20Tel.,Supporter%20care%20and%20communication%20...%205%20Complaints%20

Home start are also very good if you need some support, and you can self refer.

www.home-start.org.uk/Pages/Category/things-we-can-help-with

Best of luck x

If he wants to be involved with the baby, let him prove it. But he is not right for you. Deep down you know that, surely?

For your sake and your baby's sake, call it a day now. You don't need him. But your baby does need a mum who can see she is worth so much more than the absolute shit she is being given.

It’s brilliant! 🤣

Does he not have any capacity to organise help?

We live rurally, have farm with livestock, and an agricultural business. It’s entirely possible for us to be away last minute if we absolutely need to because we have some staff, but also friends and family we could call on very short notice if needs be to feed the animals any given night. To be fair, having young children is so much more difficult and unpredictable than going into labour so he’s going to have to sort out dealing with the uncertainty long term anyway.

Fwiw, Dh is the most responsive of anyone I know, because he can never ignore his phone for too long for health and safety reasons, in case someone had a work injury, there was some sort of emergency, etc. You’ve made the decision to have a child together. He needs to sort life out to make sure he can be present, just like all of us do.

Not the same situation you are in. But I live separately from my child's dad.
Completely my choice and works fine for us. I like my space and being able to do what I like.
So it can work very well.

You live apart due to "financial reasons"...is this code for "so I can claim maximum benefits."

Funnily enough no.. I'm on PIP but neither of us plan on claiming any benefits. And even if we did I'm not sure if that's any of your business to judge considering how many people are struggling right now

Hi @Fuzzyhippo , I hope you ignore the rude comment upthread about claiming benefits - you are doing the best for your baby by claiming everything you are entitled to.

If you are living apart , Universal Credit will treat you as a single person for benefit purposes, ( even if you are in a long distance relationship), so I would strongly advise you to claim Universal Credit now. If you get the claim in place now, ( you will already be entitled to the basic allowance) , it will all be in place for them to add the additional child payment onto the claim once the baby is born.

If you think you may find it difficult to start the UC claim independently, Citizen's Advice have a free "help to claim " service which can help you get the claim in place.

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/contact-us/contact-us/help-to-claim/

Another reason to claim, is once your Universal Credit claim is in place, you are entitled to claim a £500.00 sure start maternity grant which should help you with baby equipment costs e.g. cot, bottles, nappies, clothes etc.

www.gov.uk/sure-start-maternity-grant

( Please be advised although the link says it is only payable for a first baby, you are entitled to claim if previous children are adopted/ not in your care/ have sadly died).

Good luck x

You live with your parents, won't they help get you to a hospital if needed? Or am I missing something, You've been together seven years, this is who he is, if you're looking for reliable/ responsible then you already know that he isn't. My advice is to never to rely on an unreliable person.

But if they lived together they would be entitled to less/no UC? It's bloody expensive to run two houses (and about to get a lot worse), nevermind the wider issue of extra pressure on housing availability by one family taking up two properties. I really don't think it's morally acceptable to claim UC as a single parent when you're a couple with kids together.

As for the OP, I think you should expect him to be a drop in dad at most. It doesn't sound like much of a relationship at all. I could never imagine starting a family with someone and not living together. You'll probably be on your knees trying to cope as a single parent while he's oblivious to real parenting.

If they lived together his income would be used to assess whether they were entitled to UC, ( it would be treated as a joint claim). I cannot comment on whether they would be entitled to UC if they lived together, as I do not know whether he works/ how much he earns, ( and of course thousands of households are legitimately entitled to UC if one or both parents earn).

But that is completely irrelevant. The OP is not living with him now, and has no choice in the matter. She cannot force him to live with her. She therefore needs to be encouraged and supported to claim the maximum benefits she is completely legally entitled to, to give her and the child the best chance.
Obviously if they move in together months/ years down the line, the OP can tell Universal Credit and have her claim reassessed.

But it's in now way immoral for the OP to claim what she's legally entitled to support her child when she isn't being properly or emotionally supported by the child's father.

I thought the comment about living apart and claiming maximum benefits was directed at carouselfish as it was a direct quote from her upthread.

It's unfortunate that you have chosen to have a baby with a man who can't even manage the most basic level of communication. This won't end well, I'm afraid. I hope you are prepared to be going this alone.

Regardless of whether it will work living worst etc, in relation to the labour question, surely he would be more attentive to looking out for your calls if he is the one driving you to hospital. It's not really very different to if you're partner was just at work and you needed to get hold of him (unless its at night of course). Also you don't need to rush to hospital and soon as your contractions start so you should have plenty of time. Raise this point with him and come up with a plan

I’m confused- so the guy can’t hear his phone ring? If not why not?

can he take it to the fields?

does he have a house phone?

what if his father is ill?

how comes they live on a farm and there’s no space?

Yes, sorry, my comments weren't aimed at Fuzzyhippo, who sounds basically like a single parent-to-be and certainly should claim whatever benefits she's eligible for.

I thought maybe it's best to mention that this was absolutely in no way a planned pregnancy. I had a termination booked but turns out I had missed the deadline by quite a few weeks so I have no choice but to continue. Because obviously this isn't a situation I would choose for myself or a baby. Although partner is very excited and is currently very involved with this pregnancy, he'll likely end up staying round mine more times than not