Baby Visitation Question - What to expect?

[askray]

I'm the single father of a 4 month old daughter.  I am being taken to court by my x-gf for child support, (I've paid her all along, she just got angry with me about something unrelated and decided to file), so I want to get a visitation agreement/order at the same time as when my child support amount is set.

I was wondering what to expect for reasonable visitation at 6 months old if I've seen her regularly?

I live about an hour away from her by car and her mother uses that as an excuse not to allow her to have overnights at my house.  She hasn't been to my house once because of that.

Also, she feels that my daughter is too young to have overnight visistation.

My attorney seems to think the distance isn't an issue and no child is too young to be parented by a father so we see no reason why every-other-weekend at my house isn't reasonable.  Any advice?

[gipsy]

My situation was very different < I never lived with the mother < And I saw the child when he was   11 months old , I had to file a parenting plan , The mother made up all kinds of stories about me ,
  However In My situation , Wich IS DIFFERENT , I got like two hours supervised visits twice a week . Then it moved too , two weekday visits and one every other weekend over night at the age of eighteen months ,
 My best input is : as hard as it is during all this , Make your visits the best quality time you can , and make it special bonding time with your child , It was slightly difficult as a man to learn to play peek a boo etc with a infant , But their smile and giggling is well worth it ,
  You may wind up with obstacles if the mother tries to be difficult , Don't be surprised , If you are self employed don't even try this with out a statement from your book keeper showing your NET income in a statement ,
   It sounds like your atty is all right , try to get a parenting plan that has summers and holidays etc all laid out for the future , And I also get one weekday visit , if you don't address the future . As in my GAL recomendation was ,
  At eighteen months father should get . Every other weekend , One day a week : summer vacation and holidays , However this never made it into the parenting plan as a progressive plan and it costed me money to go to court again to enforce the Recomendation of the GAL. Talk to your atty about a plan that encompasses the future ,
  This too me is not so bad if you spend your time with the child , Many people including my self feel ripped off by this arrangement , However I have talked to many regularly married couples ,And dads usually arent spending much more than EOW , And the holidays and vacation with the kids , It would be nice to see my son every night , But Again I make my time good with him, And it is a bit concentrated , But he loves me and i love him , And its Not a terrible situation , Your better off  paying through child support any way then she can't say you didn't pay her , As you will now have to prove past child support if she lies about it , .

[askray]

Thanks for the advice.

I have a feeling the x-gf is going to ask for supervised visitation at her house.  Unfortunately for me when I visit with my daughter, my x is constantly giving me a hard time, putting me down.  The few times I am allowed to change my daughter's diapers, she tells me I do it all wrong and makes fun of me for it, without showing or telling me what she considers the right way.

Also, when I visit with my daughter and she is crying because she is hungry, my x won't let me feed her, saying that the baby cries because I don't know how to be a good parent to her and she won't let me feed her.

I'm constantly put down by her and she goes out of her way to give me a hard time about everything.

Now she is starting to make up stories about me.  For example, she says I forced her not to go on welfare after she gave birth.  Not the case, I simply said if we can avoid welfare, we should.

How do I have quality time with my daughter when I am dealing with this crap!  How do I develop a bond with her if I'm not allowed to feed her when she's hungry?  How will my daughter ever feel comfortable with my parenting skills if I'm not even allowed to practice them?

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to deal with an unreasonable mother who demands supervised visitation and pulls this crap?  Would it be realistic to have someone 'independant' supervise me with my daughter if the court finds that supervised visitation needs to occur?

Also, what is this supervised visitation anyway?  Apparently, because I'm a man, I'm not capable of parenting my daughter without someone there to supervise me?  What the hell is the difference if she is 6 months old or 6 years old if I'm capable of being a good parent?  BTW, I've already taken a parenting and infant CPR class, I just hope the court accepts it if the x-gf asks that I take one.

[TPK]

I would ask for overnights right now. In my situation, a Judge was prepared to give me Fri 5pm to Sun 5pm when daughter was just 8 months old.

Supervised visitation is only necessary when a parent has been abusive to a child, to the other parent, drug use etc. If none of the above apply to you then I'd fight against any supervised visits.

There is a chance that Judge could use the excuse that you have to get to know the child again and maybe overnights isn't something to start right away with. Judges are all different, it's hard to predict which way they'll go.

If you only get a few hours like twice a week with no overnights I'd tell thu Judge that the other parent is interfering with you while in her house and that you'd like to take daughter somewhere else instead. Or, the Judge can order the other parent to not be present at her house while you're doing your parenting time.

If you have a relative or friend nearby to take child to, that would be ideal. You can take child to their house and not be bothered by the other parent.

Bottom line here is......ask for MORE than what you want and if necessary settle for less. Worked for me.

Good luck to you.

TPK

[CustodyIQ]

Hi there,

First, keep in mind that you should be asking for MORE than you'd be satisfied getting.  It doesn't have to be much more, but enough that you have room to compromise without being too upset.

Parents must look at parenting plans that are age-appropriate. In my opinion, a child under 12 months should not go more than 48 hours spending quality time with either parent. The first year is critical for developing strong bonds with the parent.

So, I disagree that the plan should solely be every-other-weekend.

I could see a parenting plan that starts with frequent contact for the first year. For example, having time with your child 2 to 3 hours on T-W-Th every week in mother's city, in addition to having child alternating weekends.  I suggest the mid-week periods to give you three-days-in-a-row of nice quality time (2-3 hours is actually plenty for this age), and it's short enough that you two can go to a park, a mall, a library, a restaurant, etc.  Plenty to do with your child for a couple hours.  It's not reasonable to have the kid shuttled back and forth between cities daily.

On the alternate weekends, have the receiving parent pick up (i.e., you go get her and bring her home, and then mom picks her up from your home at end of weekend).

If the parents are able to mirror bedtime routines, and would support a transfer of transitional and security objects (e.g., blanket(s), toy(s)), I don't think its necessarily traumatic for a very young child to have overnights in two homes. How many of us were put to bed by our grandparents when we were tiny? It certainly didn't break us.

Many folks new to the process don't contemplate that parenting plans can change as children grow. In mediation, or in court, you can propose a certain plan until the child turns 18 months, then a different plan through 3 years, then another plan. As the child grows, the child has greater object permanancy (i.e., knowing that mom doesn't just "disappear") for longer periods, and the parenting plan can reflect that.

Above all, don't agree to supervised visits.  You want to be able to enjoy your time with your daughter and build a bond with her that's independent of the mother's influence.  If mom is always around, your time with your daughter will really suck, and you won't be able to create that special, individual daddy bond.

Good luck.

[gipsy]

I can only answer as to what the court in Wash state did in My situation , And I think different things happen to different people
   Basically supervised visits were ordered because the mother made up allegations About me being abusive etc ,
  SOOOO the court ordered supervised visits , This was with a paid supervisor at $100 per hour , Make sure You tell the court the mother has to pay all ,or half because she is the one being difficult ,
  What supervised visits are here is , Some one prints a card and tells the court they are a supervisor , there is no qualification to be one < BUT what the supervisor will be likely to do is talk to the GAL or some other court entity , Soo Take heed ! in My case I had enough sense to be nice to them and they liked me , And did not like the mother, So if you are nice and don't go to the supervised visits with any thing on your mind except the happyness of your child < then you will come out with all good reports as I did , Some people go through this mad , I did ,But was civil enough that it worked out for me , And yes this is inhuman and like being treated like an animal that is a danger to your own child , But the fastest and best strategic way to get through this is be a good parent and be cool and they will like you and this will move on , Yes it will take months for it all to pan out ! But you lamer want to generate a bad report from any one , And believe me it is hard to get through this with out doing something to piss some one off , But practice Biteing you tounge when  the urge to blow up comes about and come back to these boards and vent , and get some input and get through it ,  
   And here they don't use Her , Or her family members For the supervised visits , Because that doesn't give you a chance to be with the child or for the child to bond with you because , The child will always go to her or the her family because of familiarity , SOo I have seen posted on here that Dads have had their mom or Aunt supervise etc if there is no money to pay a supervisor , SOOO Have some names ready for the court , And or maybe this could be worked out before court , But if you go to court with no Names of people for supervisors , And one does get appointed then you have no chioce to offer the court , And maybe your psycho will agree to some one in your family that knows her , But primarily , You can dissagree , And have the parenting class papers or what ever you have to show you took it filed and say there is no need for it , Matbe they won't even appoint one if you say she has been supervising when you go there , And the visits are good , She will say some BS , And then the court will decide , then go to your list of supervisors ,