Building up contact before holidays

My daughters father has said that he is planning on taking our daughter abroad for 8/9 nights during the summer holidays but the most he has ever had her for is 3 nights, twice in almost 3 years. Usually he has her for four, but sometimes just two, nights per month and has never taken me up on having extra contact during school holidays. Again, I have offered extra contact for June half-term and said that he needs to build up contact time before the summer holidays to make it easier on our daughter if he wants to take her away. However, he has just got back from a week long stag-do in Vegas and so says he can''t take any time off of work at the moment. He has said that his mum will have our daughter instead but she has mobility issues and I don''t feel like she would be physically able to do so properly. Furthermore, the idea of extra contact during June is for him to spend extra time with our daughter to prepare them both for holiday in the summer which he wouldn''t be doing if his mum cared for her as he works away and so wouldn''t see her in the evenings etc.

He also can''t collect her and so wants me to drive the 30 miles to take her to his mums house (three days after my baby is due) and drop her off but obviously I''m reluctant to make this agreement with it being so close to the baby being due as if the baby is late then I will be accused of blocking contact if I can''t take our daughter over. Any suggestions on how this one can be resolved?

The transportation issue makes him sound distinctly controlling. How old is your daughter? The younger she is, the more important the acclimatization would be.

To answer the part about the June half term, I would say no. You can''t do the travelling so close to your due date and in any case you don''t really want your daughter off staying with his mother when the baby is born - she will feel that she has been sent away. If she were with him it might be a different matter.

I dont'' think you should assume that as your ex mother in law has mobility problems that she wouldn''t be able to cope with your daughter, though. My mother has some problems getting around but she has always been fine looking after the children.

I don''t know what you do about building up contact before the holiday, if he''s not willing to do it. Are you sure he really does want to take her on holiday, or is he just trying to be difficult?

Best wishes,
Sadie

She''s four years old. I also said about feeling sent away to him seeing as his mother has never before looked after our daughter, and indeed hasn''t seen her for several months. He, of course, doesn''t accept that. I know that last time our daughter saw her grandmother she couldn''t walk at all (she has had several operations) but am not sure on her progress now as our daughter hasn''t seen her for so long and her father tells me it is none of my business. Our daughter really wants to go on an aeroplane and he is desperate to beat me to doing it so I think he doesn actually want to take her away, I just don''t know what to suggest if he won''t build up contact beforehand. As it is she doesn''t want to go for one/two nights on alternate weekends and even with the prospect of a holiday our daughter wouldn''t be keen at all. She spends the majority of time during contact with his girlfriends step-brother who I doubt would be going on the holiday.