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Hi,
This is my first post so a big hello to everyone on this forum.
Basically me and my ex split up just before she gave birth to our daughter, i wont go through all the nitty gritty but contact has been sporadic and extremely difficult at the best of time. Now under court orders she must attend mediation. I was just wondering how much contact i can realistic ask for? So far when my ex lets me see out little one it's for two hours a month max, surely i am entitled more than that. If anyone has been in a similar position any advise or tips would be great.
Thanks
Kamal
Hi Kamal, firstly welcome to Dadtalk. I hope you will find being on the site helpful and informative.
I'm sorry that you and your partner split up. It sounds as though you've been going through a tough time. One or two hours a month contact seems woefully inadequate. Contact should be 'reasonable' but obviously this depends on what suits both the parents and the child and it does vary from family to family.
I hope that the mediation will help you to get a more formal contact arrangement in place that lets you see your daughter more regularly.
You may be interested in the following link
http://www.childrenslegalcentre.com/Legal+Advice/Child+law/contact/HowmuchcontactcanIhave
I hope this helps but it will be interesting to see what others have to say.
Thanks mikey, great link. Had a read trough it and downloaded the leaflet about contact which gave me a clear picture of what to expect.
Our mediation session is in a couple of days time followed by a direction hearing a few days after, I think it is more than reasonable to ask for four hours on a weekend with my daughter, which is not dictated by my ex. After all she has on two occasions allowed me to have her for a couple of hours unsupervised and there is no special circumstances in our case, our daughter is healthy and doesn't require any special attention and we can both look after her.
However recently she has reduced contact with my daughter to only a couple of hours when she feels like it (or when i am due to pay her maintenance at the end of each month), Its killing me only seeing my daughter for a few hours a month and not able to be there for her in terms of his development needs and to watch her grow. I am still continuing to provide financial support as i feel if i stop the only person who will suffer is our daughter.
Regards
K.
hi kieran,
Firstly as I've not long been through similar myself a few point's
Never give up ! no matter how mard things get, have a cry do whatever you need to to de-stress but remeber your kind of on trial now, only do things that noone else can find out about ! if mother finds out your drinking heavily or fighting ect ect she will use it against you !
I had contact in a contact center for 1 hour every fortnight via mother being reasonable, the courts gave me 2 hours a week in a contact center supervised so they could report back to court if I was able to care for my daughter
if I was you personaly I would reccomend you request 2 hours a week on alternavtive days saturday one week sunday the next that way you are not tieing mother down to an unreasonable time frame (ie every other week she can shop at the saturday market or similar) but also request that this time is to be altered as your daughter get's older, if you go straight in with a reasonable offer and she start's refusing or arguing then you have a better argument in court
unfortunalty when you hit court you have to now document your whole life, text's in and out, what happens on pick up and drop off, make sure you keep a note of all the times both in and out ect, if mother start's being unreasoable don't rise to it, simply get a note book write down anything important like your daughters feeding times nappy change's ect anything you think mother should know about your daughter while she's with you
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