Communicating about medical issues - what's the norm?

[Aimees11]

Ok so first time poster here & apologise if this is long as think it's important I try and summarise everything.
I've been with my partner 4 years, lived together 2.5 and he has a DD (7) whom he has every other weekend for 4 nights. At the start of our relationship communication with his ex was at breaking point. He would receive multiple messages a day sometimes totally unrelated to their DD, phone calls if he didn't reply to her message within 30 minutes, stating things like 'I'm the mother of your child and you will pick up the phone to me'. He had tried numerous times politely asking her to only message if really important about their shared daughter and he began ignoring messages. In the end she took this to mediation (not entirely sure reasons as to why) but it was basically agreed that they only communicate via email moving forwards, unless an emergency which warrants a phone call and a contact schedule was officially agreed in writing. Partner was really happy with the outcome and the last 2 years have been pretty much smooth sailing. She did also meet someone fairly soon after so not sure if this had anything to do with it too (I imagine so!). His daughter would come round and say stuff like she had been to the doctors for this & that and had her eyes tested etc etc and my partner was never told about this. He didn't say anything at the time as tbh I don't think he wanted to rock the boat. I do feel that she was almost doing this deliberately as if to say 'you don't want contact therefore you won't have any'. Who knows really...
Anyways, roll on last week and he received an email from his ex a few hours prior to pick up, stating that pick up would have to be from her house & not school as normal as DD was unwell. At the pick up, she handed him some medication for DD and said that she had been at the walk-in centre 4 days ago as she had a very high temp. This was obviously news to my partner as he wasn't aware of any of this or the fact she had been off school all week.
My partner is obviously not happy with this, but equally doesn't know what to do? Does one go back to mediation to get this sorted? What do people here do about medical issues & communicating? Thank you!

Request same day notification of any health issues. If she doesn’t respond, he should make notes of dates and details and go back to court.

If he wants to be notified about every eye test, dental check, world book day, school presentation, headache etc, he probably shouldn't have told her to stop messaging him in the first place. Does he offer to take his daughter for eye tests, dental checks etc?

@blackbeardsballsack I can’t see where he said she can’t message him. It just says communication is via email. Perhaps if he was advised of the need for an eye test etc, he could do his share of appointments.

Oh, does he not realise that children need routine health appointments and so didn't think to ask?

He should be talking to his daughter between visits and know more about her life. The fact he doesn’t know she has been home sick for four days means he doesn’t reach out much to his daughter.

It doesn’t seem as though he wants to be very involved so I am not sure what his motivation is for knowing about her appointments or that she is home from school sick. These aren’t emergencies. They are just part of everyday parenting, something he doesn’t do. And he went back to mediation job to say he only wanted to know about emergencies.

If he wanted to be involved then using a shared parenting software program that has the capacity both for messages and a calendar etc would be ideal. However I suggest leaving it alone at this point as he is a pretty detached parent and doesn’t need the additional information.

I agree with @blackbeardsballsack , you’re basically putting her in an impossible situation. Either he wants the detail or he doesn’t. The only caveat would be if the condition is life limiting or life-threatening in some way and regular appointments are part of the treatment and adjustments to medication or other treatments are made. Then he needs updating but for routine appointments or childhood illness, do you really need the detail? How would it have I,proved the care of his child to know 4 days ago she had a high temperature? What would he have done with that information?

Mum can’t win can she. her dad needs to give her the medicine as directed and crack on. Not sure why you needed to post about this, it’s for the parents to discuss surely?

Why does he need to know of ordinary health things? I don't think I informed my ex of every little thing DCs had. Bigger, unusual stuff yes, but things like an ear infection, no. There wasn't anything he would have been able to do about those and no need for him to do anything.

Stepmum here. If it’s something run of the mill, like an eye test or general illness id say dad doesn’t need informing and can be updated when the child visits. If it’s something more serious and required a hospital appointment, potential future operation, A&E visit or if it was something liable to affect members of the other household then dad should be informed in between visits.

Communication between my DP and his ex is email only or phone call for emergencies. Custody is 50/50. Neither notify each other is DSD is sick or has been to the doctor. The only information that is shared is if DSD is off nursery that day and pick up is from home. Or at switch over, "DSD has an ear infection, here's her antibiotics".

What use is it him knowing DD is off school if it doesn't affect his day? Unless she's in hospital or has broken a limb etc he doesn't need to know. In an ideal world people would co-parent nicely and communicate but some parents can't manage that so need-to-know basis is best.

And can I ask who is informing the mum 'of the need' for an eye test?

Sounds like the dad of this child is pretty clueless. He's either an involved parent or he isn't. Not on his terms

This is tricky and I understand your frustrations but understand why mum hasn't communicated- she's been told not to and has gone one from extreme to another. Default position is to see this as spiteful but she's probably just trying to avoid conflict, she might be busy, 'just getting on with it' and as co parents when you navigate this, there is no 'one size fits all' and you have to try to avoid assuming the worst.
I always think that you need to look at the situation in the most child centric way and stay positive - what's important here is the child, her coming to her dads and being looked after.. not catching the mum out on a technicality or an interpretation of an agreement. Nothing is black and white.

Perhaps Dad should communicate with Mum how he'd like her to, whilst DSD is with you for the next 4 days... daily updates by email about how she is. I'm sure Mum would want to know! And politely ask if she can do the same until she is better. Ask him to be honest with Mum and tell her that this situation has made him realise he doesn't know enough about how his DD is in X situations and could she update him.. rather than trying to scald her for not ... it's a hard pill to swallow but this feels like it's his fault even if it came to it because of Mums communication in the early days... who knows why things were so acrimonious then.. hurt.. anger.. it sounds like time has healed this and Mum is getting on with it.

Some posters have clearly not read the OP.
This man was previously being harassed by his ex and in mediation it was agreed to communicate via email only, and then only on matters relating to their daughter, phone call if an emergency.
It was not agreed to only contact him in an emergency or only contact him if he needed to take immediate action personally.
In this particular scenario, communication between my DH and his ex might go along lines of "took DD for emergency docs appointment today, she's got a prescription and is off school, might not be ready to go back on Monday, will confirm if contact going ahead as normal".
So then DH would know that the planned trip bungee jumping should be rescheduled, to check and make sure we have Calpol or whatever in, and to start prepping in case he needs to take a day or two off work or even WFH after the weekend to look after DSD if she comes but still isn't well enough to go back to school.
Similarly, when DSD has fallen ill on his time he has let his ex know what was going on, even though he didn't need her to personally take any immediate action, because that's is his childs mother and not some random person.
At no point would I expect a 7 year old child to be in charge of letting appropriate people know her current medical status to prove that she has a relationship with them 🙄

Either you are the mum or your children don’t have split parents as your responses are clueless / obtusely unhelpful.

@Aimees11 my partner used to get the endless phone calls and emails too which also went from harassment (which is not effective co-parenting) to zero (also not effective). it’s now slightly better through a lot of patience and tongue biting in his side - there’s more comms but he has to put up with her tone of being the perfect parent and him being entirely useless. It gets him down but at least he’s not navigating in the dark as much as he was when his daughter was little.
I would suggest that he formally writes to ask to be notified, giving examples. While at 7, your DSD is old enough to update him on some stuff like being sick, she cannot be expected to accurately relay the results of a medical appointment. Plus, if he knows she’s sick he can call her and let her know she’s top of his thoughts - I think that’s super important.

My DH and his ex have in their parenting plan to send each other an update of any appointments/medications. It's important in case something happens later. Eg. DSC hurt her toe and ended up in out of hours - she needed a follow up appointment during the other parents time. Similarly if child is not at school they text each other as they are both responsible for their child's education. It works well if both parties are actively involved but I can see why if one partner just has contact every other weekend and doesn't really get involved with school holidays or appointments it might grate a bit.

@Yousee Yes that's the sort of contact DH and his ex have.

Also very important both parties are updated if child has had a reaction to any medication

Exactly - did it ever occur to him to ask about those sorts of check ups? Or has he, to date, been relying on the other parent to do it without any input from him?

Also it's reasonable that mild illnesses that fall within one parents contact time are dealt with by that parent. If something doesn't require hospital attention, it's mild (as we've all been told repeatedly since start of the pandemic)

Also, if the DC is old enough to be at school, how come he's not in phone contact between visits? Surely DC would tell him stuff about what's happening at school (or not, if off for a lurgy)

So yes, I think the mother should have told him, but I also can see why she didn't as she'd been told to desist and this isn't an energency.

And I think he should be doing a heck of a lot more.

I'd never inform dad of routine appointments unless there was an ongoing treatment simply because its not necessary. He gets her eyes check as he works at an opticians.
I'll let him know if she's under the weather before contact aswell as any medication she's taken so that he doesn't give her too much calpol etc and so he can make a decision whether he comes to get her, sometimes it's not practical for things like D&V she needs to stay home so we'll reschedule.

We've only had a couple of A&E visits which turned out to be sprains not breaks, had it been serious I'd have let him know.

However, I expect the same, I don't need to know anything routine that happens at his, I just need to know about medication and if it was a hospital visit for a non life threatening emergency I'd expect him to get on with it and send me a message when it's sorted with any info I needed "DD hurt her arm playing rugby, took her to A&E - all is good. You'll want to top up on painkillers before she gets home. "

I read some of the posts on this thread and wondered if they would be different if it was a non-resident mother complaining about the father not telling her things like this.

At 7 a child is young and it's not fair to expect the child to tell her dad that she's been to the doctor etc.

When my DC were little I would tell their dad if they were ill enough to have been to the doctor, and would generally keep him appraised of anything significant like an eye test requiring glasses. Routine trip to dentist etc not so much. This was despite us having an awful relationship in which every time I texted him about anything I would get abuse. He's still their dad.

I think it's reasonable to ask for updates on medical issues. He should email and request same day email if there's illness.

We are blended on both sides. My ex h doesn't do anything as he lives in another city. He's not even emergency contact at school. They are teens now so will tell him themselves if they have been ill. Having said that, DS was so poorly a few weeks ago that he was unable to speak to his dad- I did call him and tell him then.

DH and ex have always communicated about medical issues both illness and appointments. His ex tends to do the routines and she works pt - also is currently on mat leave. DH does sometimes do dentist depending on contact days.
They always text if DSS has been ill even mild coughs etc. DH always found it hard to not be involved when DSS was poorly (stems from her limiting contact before the CAO was in place) so I have sympathy for your DP. It's tough to be away from your kids when they are ill.

The info is useful because both sides know when he's getting better or starting with something and can act accordingly. As a PP said, you might need to get medicine in or plan time off work if needed.

Bit of both. The routine stuff no- he has minimal input with his child, and his ex has to deal with all the day to day stuff. A GP visit- a bit 50/50 if the child isn't really 'that' unwell. But I think the 'right' thing to do would be to let the other parent know. School stuff- nope. Ask for your own information. If he's chosen to go low contact, you don't get to dictate that constant further with but higher when it suit you.

Either you are the mum or your children don’t have split parents as your responses are clueless / obtusely unhelpful.

Hmm, no. I'm just bored of men acting as if they are the line managers of women.

Either you are the mum or your children don’t have split parents as your responses are clueless / obtusely unhelpful

When you split, you are a parent on your own. You keep up to date with what is going on in your child's life and you don't blame the other parent for not keeping you informed. Your ex is not your secretary or gate keeper to your child's life.

Stop making g excuses for men who believe parenting is women's work. You don't melt into the ground by taking a child to the opticians or looking on the school website for term dates.