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Hello all,
Just looking for a little advice. Currently struggling to establish a relationship with my six month old son on account of his mother's implacable hostility. She seems to think that contact is just an opportunity to pin me to a time and place so that she can take aim and tell me what a terrible person I am.
Contested hearing upcoming and my witness statement will need to include a parenting plan to outline my proposals.
What would be generally considered as an acceptable form of incrementally increasing proposals in terms of from now to school age? Need to move the contact away from mum because she seems to only want to argue which doesn't provide an opportunity for proper contact.
I was thinking;
- Weekly 1hr contact centre supported contact for six weeks.
- Progressing to one afternoon a week unsupervised contact for six weeks.
- Progressing to one day a week unsupervised contact for twelve weeks.
- Progressing to one day with overnight a week until nursery age.
- Progressing to one night and half a day per week until pre-school/school age.
- Progressing to moving towards one overnight per week and alternate weekends/half of the holidays. In addition to whatever can be independently agreed on top of this to help with work commitments etc.
Does this seem unreasonable/unrealistic? What kind of awards have you chaps had in court with children of this age?
I am a novice, so trying to decide what's reasonable in the face of someone who would consider anything I propose unreasonable makes life very difficult. I guess i'm looking for a bit of direction/reassurance.
Thanks in advance,
Hi,
Your proposal sounds fair
Mine was something along the lines of.
6 weeks contact centre. (when court ended I was straight into unsuported you could try)
1 evening for tea 3 hours and every Saturday 4 hours until 12 months
Then 1 evening 3 hours and every Saturday for 8 hours until 18 months
Then from 18 months overnights with weekday visit
Also ask for holidays before s school, I made the mistake of only asking for a week in the summer (just got back he is 2 we had a great time) but am having to fight ex again for more time.
Also get alternate birthdays and Christmas Fathers day etc. Try and reiterate that small frequent visits are what is best for little one and that being forced to have contact with mother present is not healthy and is creating hostel environment, also stick to ages not nursery etc as this could cause confusion.
hi,
in my case it was 30 minutes every saturday. now 1 hour every other weekend. when baby reaches age 1 then a few hours, half/whole day at my place and then dropped back. from age 2 onwards, will look at overnights with my 2 older kids.
Try to build in school holidays, Christmas, School holidays and fathers day (and mothers day to be balanced) - it's a long term view, but if she sticks to it, could avoid the need to return to court later on.
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