Shared custody of an infant-coparents on good terms

[Anonymous]

Trying to figure out a developmentally appropriate custody schedule for a 4 month old baby onwards. We are not together (never married, no longer seeing each other when I found out I was pregnant) but we are on good terms. He has been involved since the baby was born, staying with me while I'm on leave from work and participating equally in baby care, so he's definitely just as capable of taking care of the baby as I am and I'm not breastfeeding so no concerns there.

Right now we are thinking that when I go back to work, he will take the baby for two week day over nights in a row because of work schedules and to give my family member who is watching the baby during the week while I'm at work a break. Then I would have the baby the rest of the time. This works great for the adults involved, but I'm wondering if this is developmentally appropriate for the baby. Does anyone have experience with this?

[Anonymous]

50/50 is fair. He should have the child instead of family members. Why should family members get the child over the father?

[Anonymous]

Talk to your pediatrician about this and not an anonymous board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:50/50 is fair. He should have the child instead of family members. Why should family members get the child over the father?

Family members are not getting the child "over" the father. A family member is watching the baby during hours when we would otherwise have to put the child in daycare, just like a family where the parents are married and/or living together and both of them work. Someone has to provide child care during those hours, for us it will be one of my parents. So calm down, no one in this situation is trying to deny the father equal access to his child.

I appreciate the other PP suggestion, we will discuss with our pediatrician (we've both been to every appointment together) at the two month check up and get her input.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:50/50 is fair. He should have the child instead of family members. Why should family members get the child over the father?

Her family member is the daycare. Presumably both parents have to work.

[Anonymous]

Your plan is fair, and should be ok for the baby. Back and forth is hard on babies, but I've done it and it was fine.

[Anonymous]

Recently had a very close family member go through this with a 5 month old. Partially due to nursing, but also partially due to personal preferences, they landed on:

- Mom has primary physical custody
- No overnights until the child is 4 (there are other children involved too that are older)
- Dad gets minimum of 4 "contact hours" during the week
- Dad gets Sundays from Noon to 8 PM

Once the child is four, will still be 4 hours during the week, Sundays 12 - 8, but also every other weekend from Friday night to Sunday night.

I thought that was pretty far on the extreme end, but the courts agreed to it. The parents live very close together and travel time is not an issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Recently had a very close family member go through this with a 5 month old. Partially due to nursing, but also partially due to personal preferences, they landed on:

- Mom has primary physical custody
- No overnights until the child is 4 (there are other children involved too that are older)
- Dad gets minimum of 4 "contact hours" during the week
- Dad gets Sundays from Noon to 8 PM

Once the child is four, will still be 4 hours during the week, Sundays 12 - 8, but also every other weekend from Friday night to Sunday night.

I thought that was pretty far on the extreme end, but the courts agreed to it. The parents live very close together and travel time is not an issue.

Whoa! That is really extreme as far as the father not having much time. One of the things I'm concerned about with our schedule is baby not having enough time with the father. Baby will have spent the first three months establishing a bond with both of us and I want to make sure that continues. Our work schedules make things a little difficult because I work 9-5 but he works an evening/late night schedule and we'll also be living about an hour apart. I'm considering also floating the idea of having him come over for a visit at my place one other weekday afternoon as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Talk to your pediatrician about this and not an anonymous board.

Why would a doctor discuss custody? Makes no sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Recently had a very close family member go through this with a 5 month old. Partially due to nursing, but also partially due to personal preferences, they landed on:

- Mom has primary physical custody
- No overnights until the child is 4 (there are other children involved too that are older)
- Dad gets minimum of 4 "contact hours" during the week
- Dad gets Sundays from Noon to 8 PM

Once the child is four, will still be 4 hours during the week, Sundays 12 - 8, but also every other weekend from Friday night to Sunday night.

I thought that was pretty far on the extreme end, but the courts agreed to it. The parents live very close together and travel time is not an issue.

And, this is exactly why these Dad's have no bond or parenting abilities with these kids. Kids are not nursing till age 4, and mom can pump or baby can take formula. Mom will then complain Dad is a deadbeat and uninvolved when she set it up that way. In reality there is no point in Dad being involved for 4 hours a week. A stranger who babysits gets more time. Its all about money as the less time Dad has the more support he pays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Recently had a very close family member go through this with a 5 month old. Partially due to nursing, but also partially due to personal preferences, they landed on:

- Mom has primary physical custody
- No overnights until the child is 4 (there are other children involved too that are older)
- Dad gets minimum of 4 "contact hours" during the week
- Dad gets Sundays from Noon to 8 PM

Once the child is four, will still be 4 hours during the week, Sundays 12 - 8, but also every other weekend from Friday night to Sunday night.

I thought that was pretty far on the extreme end, but the courts agreed to it. The parents live very close together and travel time is not an issue.

Whoa! That is really extreme as far as the father not having much time. One of the things I'm concerned about with our schedule is baby not having enough time with the father. Baby will have spent the first three months establishing a bond with both of us and I want to make sure that continues. Our work schedules make things a little difficult because I work 9-5 but he works an evening/late night schedule and we'll also be living about an hour apart. I'm considering also floating the idea of having him come over for a visit at my place one other weekday afternoon as well.

He needs to make a child care plan when he's working so he can keep the baby more.

[Anonymous]

You need to talk to an expert. Most believe there needs to be a primary caregiver for an infant with no longterm overnights when that young.

The father can "bond" during daytime care, but you cannot both be primary caregivers. There is one and the infant needs to feel secure and not wrenched away midweek each week.

Talk to a developmental ped.

You are not being dev. appropriate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

And, this is exactly why these Dad's have no bond or parenting abilities with these kids. Kids are not nursing till age 4, and mom can pump or baby can take formula. Mom will then complain Dad is a deadbeat and uninvolved when she set it up that way. In reality there is no point in Dad being involved for 4 hours a week. A stranger who babysits gets more time. Its all about money as the less time Dad has the more support he pays.

In this case, I think it's about a hyper-attached mom more than it is about money, but I don't disagree with you. One of the older kids is a little over 3 and is still nursing a couple times a day. I don't have any issue with extended breastfeeding in theory, but in reality, in this particular situation, I really think it would have been better to start giving Dad overnights right away and made the age 2.5 or 3 for overnights instead of 4, even just so Dad got in the routine of doing overnights.

Back to OP, your heart sounds in the right place, so I think you'll find a solution -- that likely changes over time -- that will meet everyone's needs with the baby's being primary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Recently had a very close family member go through this with a 5 month old. Partially due to nursing, but also partially due to personal preferences, they landed on:

- Mom has primary physical custody
- No overnights until the child is 4 (there are other children involved too that are older)
- Dad gets minimum of 4 "contact hours" during the week
- Dad gets Sundays from Noon to 8 PM

Once the child is four, will still be 4 hours during the week, Sundays 12 - 8, but also every other weekend from Friday night to Sunday night.

I thought that was pretty far on the extreme end, but the courts agreed to it. The parents live very close together and travel time is not an issue.

Whoa! That is really extreme as far as the father not having much time. One of the things I'm concerned about with our schedule is baby not having enough time with the father. Baby will have spent the first three months establishing a bond with both of us and I want to make sure that continues. Our work schedules make things a little difficult because I work 9-5 but he works an evening/late night schedule and we'll also be living about an hour apart. I'm considering also floating the idea of having him come over for a visit at my place one other weekday afternoon as well.

Different poster, but I said up thread that your 2 nights sound fine.

With my child (who was 10mo at separation) we did every other weekend for dad - so that we both got weekend time - and then one night per week overnight with dad. The one night overnight ended up being on Thursdays, because it gave dad the same amount of time, but didn't add more transitions for the child, which were hard. Initially it was going to be Wednesday nights with dad, but then every other week the poor kid was going back firing every night or 2, Thursday nights solved that problem, then baby and dad got 3 day weekends, and it worked nicely.

This schedule may not have started until the child was 18 months, but it was a fantastic schedule that worked very well (I wish we could go back to it, but now we live far apart so it doesn't work).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Talk to your pediatrician about this and not an anonymous board.

Why would a doctor discuss custody? Makes no sense.

What makes no sense is your lack of reading comprehension. OP specifically asked whether "this [arrangement] is developmentally appropriate for the baby." Last time I checked, pediatricians are trained to be experts in what is developmentally appropriate for babies.