How do you get used to your child having overnight contact with their dad?

[SantaFeSister]

End of court proceedings this week. 4 years.. DD is 6.

Ex only had supervised contact in a contact centre.

It will be built up over a period of time to become unsupervised with overnights starting in the Summer.

He eventually wants full EOW weekends overnights with an intervening mid week overnight.

DD has never been apart from me overnight.. I've been very positive about it and tried to talk about contact with her father as a positive thing. DD is naturally anxious about the change and the fact she will be away from me. She's never as much had a sleepover and currently she still comes into my bed every night. Her latest thing is she hates falling asleep in her room now and she wants me in my room with her whilst she falls asleep on a little mattress I have in her room. I'm OK with it as she tells me it makes her feel safe.

How do you cope with your child going to their dads got overnights when you miss them so much and they're going between houses?

DDs father is extremely abusive, he had 3.5 years of supervised contact in a contact centre which puts into context how nasty of a person he is.

DD enjoys seeing him at the contact centre but I am not sure how she'll respond to overnights etc.

I'm going to miss her so much.

Her dad's ultimate goal is shared care which is his want not what he thinks is best for DD.

I wish my kids father would have them overnight! I’m sure in time you will appreciate the time to yourself and maybe even look forward to it.

The night shes went away I tried to make it about getting some 'me' time and recharging, not just doing chores and worrying about her.
I go to Marks and Spencer and treat myself to my favourite foods.
Make plans with friends or even on my own for the cinema or theatre or find something good on TV, get a book and spend some uninterrupted time reading it

Don't under estimate DD transitioning back to being at yours, expect some poor behaviour as she's kept her stresses in When away from home. When DD came home when little I'd have a nice bubble bath waiting for her, even if it was the middle of the day as it was a great transition activity for her (also she used to come back smelling quite musty). Shed have as long as she liked in the bath and then dressed and sat together for some 1:1 reading or doing another quiet activity. Then she'd be fine.

With an abusive ex I don’t think you ever get used to overnight contact. Deep down your always on edge because you know from experience what kind of man he is.

You learn to just get on with it and you do hope they have a good time and sometimes they do have a good time. I always used to tell DS it was okay for us to miss each other because the reason we missed each other so much was because we love each other. He used to find that reassuring.

Personally after my experiences with DC. I would not be positive about your ex. Be neutral and matter of fact about him. This is something that came up during counselling sessions for my DC that being positive about him can actually break a child’s trust when they inevitably realise what kind of man he is for themselves. You don’t want to be dragged into that if you have covered for him or bigged him up.

This is a really helpful post re the child’s trust. We as mums are so scared of being accused of parental alienation it’s easy to go too far the other way.