Should Family Time Be Spent Together with Infant After Break Up?

If you just broke up then you need to think about your child's needs right now. Go to court to get visitation and child support set by a court order. Don't depend on your ex's word on his involvement. If you get visitation set and he chooses not to participate then he can't claim you are withholding his child. If you get child support and he chooses not to give it then you can pursue having it withheld from his salary. You both need to have clear guidelines moving forward because whether you and your ex stay friends or not shouldn't impact your daughter's future.

It's hard to answer in great detail without knowing the reasons for the breakup and whether you've both made the decision to move on, or whether the desire (on the part of at least one person) to spend "family time" is based on wanting to get back together.

You worry that she will sense that things have changed? Of course they have changed! You have split up! Are you thinking you can hide that fact? But she's 10 months old - whatever happens over the next few years will be what she sees as "normal" and not what happened over the past few months. You can't hide the separation from her - it's the reality. So it's best if she spends time with each parent separately in both homes, with "Mommy time" and "Daddy time."

If you parents are both on the same page in terms of goals, discipline, values and more, great. It's nice if you can be in the same room for birthday parties, doctor appointments, preschool orientation, teacher conferences, recitals/concerts, and so on. If you can do the "exchanges" with cordiality and no drama, excellent. If you have an occasional dinner, and it works, that's great. But if your plan is to get together all the time to "coparent" and keep her from thinking that Daddy was just at work vs. living in his own place, that's a disaster in the making.

Coparenting doesn't mean being together all the time. It means agreeing on what your goals are for her, standing together for discipline, agreeing on religious upbringing and checking in on great moments and problems.

If you and he are not on the same page with all of this, get some family counseling so you can make the breakup much smoother in terms of your child. But coparenting fails when one person thinks it means something different from what the other one thinks.

Well since he's her father, he's going to get some Dad time with her as part of a custody arrangement.
That means he'll get time with her without you and you'll get time with her without him.
There is no need for you and your ex to spend time together - the relationship is over and you'll both be presumably moving on to other people sooner or later.
See a lawyer and get things like custody, child support, etc drawn up officially.
Your child will eventually meet your future boyfriends (hopefully not until the relationship is steady enough that he will become a family member in your lives) as well as your exes girlfriends.
Co parenting won't always be easy but you are connected through this child pretty much forever.

10 month old babies are self centered. As long as their needs are being met they will adjust fine to anything.

Hopefully your ex wants to remain friends and co-parent as well. Although you are both her family you are not a family any more. Sorry things didn't work out.

My BIL and his ex were able to do many things together with their daughter even after the break up and it has given my niece wonderful memories of her family all together, getting along and coparenting in a fair way that always keeps your child first will be wonderful for her. Of course time for each of you alone with her is important as well, he is still her father after all. Best of luck!

Sweetie, things have changed. She is going to sense that and honestly there is no way around that. I get that YOU want to remain friends and coparent, but it has to be on both sides. You need to speak with an attorney. You need to get visitations set up as well as child support. He needs to develop a routine with his daughter that doesn't involve you.

You mention family time. What exactly is that? Vacation, holidays, events? Not sure what you are looking for.

It sounds like you two are pretty young. It that is so, then I would not expect for your ex to keep up with his end of the co-parenting, as bad as that sounds. Young men who aren't willing to commit to a marriage usually don't take the commitment of parenting seriously.

You just cannot see the future where he is concerned. You obviously didn't think you two would be breaking up when you decided to have a child together. So what you need to do for your child is have a lawyer work on getting you child support. Your ex has probably promised you that he will help out. That is not enough.

Your daughter will be negatively affected if you two argue or fight in front of her. If this starts, stop expecting to have "family time" together. Your daughter will do fine with having you both with her separately.

Also, if you two are always together, you won't be able to get over having a relationship with him. So don't force too much family time together with him.

Welcome to mamapedia, K..

Family time is important for EVERY FAMILY. Just because you and your boyfriend (I'm assuming because you didn't say "divorced" - I'm going with young family, no marriage, and it's easy to walk away) aren't committed to each other - you should be committed to your child.

She's 10 months old. She will adapt and overcome. Stop worrying about things. Your stress is going to stress her out.

Here's my problem with this situation. You're trying to protect your daughter - but you didn't think about that BEFORE you had a baby and then broke up. The first year is the hardest. It's tough on ANY couple. But you're not committed and neither is he. Tell us what you mean about "spending time together" - if you expect him at the house every night until she goes to bed? WRONG. Tell us what you EXPECT - tell us what you believe as "spending time together"? Again if you expect him there every night until she goes to bed? You should work out your relationship and consider committing to each other.

Well, this is a hard situation for sure. Dad should have his own visitation time away from you. That completely stinks but this is his child too. He needs to spend as much dad time with the baby as you get to spend mom time.

I hope the judge figures this one out. I wouldn't want to have to deal with this one.

The way this is written makes me think (?) you're very young.

Are you on good terms with your ex? Can you hang out together with the baby and have it be respectful and pleasant? If so, all the power to you. If not, then don't.

Have you spoken to a lawyer?

What does ex want?

Baby at 10 months will adapt. My niece's husband is away for months at a time do to his work - baby is fine. Lots of love and support when he's not around. If I were you, I'd work on getting the support to make sure you can manage on your own. Hopefully he is supportive.

If you and your baby's father have split up amicably (meaning no continued arguments, fighting or anger toward each other) and can treat each other kindly, 'family time' would be great. If you both tend to bring out the worst in each other, I'd suggest supporting each other from afar. (In my book, this means each of you parenting independently and not bringing your daughter into your conflicts or saying disparaging things about the other.)

A lot of this depends on the willingness of *both* adults in the situation to respect each other and to behave like adults, especially around the child. This means calm transitions during pickup/drop off, being supportive of each other regarding sharing health information, and understanding that, just like in two-parent households, you are both going to parent differently. If two adults can be mature and come together in support of their child, that's a great asset. But if you don't get along, forcing 'family time' for the sake of it only brings conflict and upset to everyone's life. Ultimately, you want to most harmonious relationship with your child's father possible.