Weekend contact, what to do?

I am trying my hardest to be reasonable with my children''s dad, he is seeing the kids a few times this week to try and build some bridges with them, and hopefully this will continue but weekend access, even after court is proving difficult.

He is supposed to have access every other weekend and each time he either comes up with an excuse not to have them, or gets a babysitter for the whole of one of the days, my problem is he has now let me know again that he can''t have them overnight on his coming weekend but can pick them up on the Saturday morning and drop them off in the early evening doing the same on Sunday, or he can get a babysitter, the kids have said that they feel that their dad doesn''t want them around because he''s always getting babysitters i have tried to reassure them but I don''t know what to do for the best as the kids don''t want to come home they want to spend their time with their dad, but he won''t be there.

Do you know why he won''t be there in the evening? Is he working? And how old are your children?

As RubyTuesday points out, there may be a real good reason. If not, your first priority is the kids. It may be you have to rein back contact for a while

Speaking personally, I cannot wait to see my kids and fought tooth-and-nail to have overnight contact every two weeks.

Actually, I was trying to establish some facts

The children are 8,10 and 12 he doesn''t work and refuses to say why he won''t be there, and I don''t really want to push it if I''m honest as I don''t want him to say he can''t see them at all.

hi emma

I think your in a difficult situation really.

I know most of the dads on here would chew their own arm off for hassle free weekend contact.

It seems that he maybe has a girlfriend who he needs to see on a saturday night, that obviously should not be put before your children but some men think with their, you know what i mean

Did he take you to court for a contact order or was it your suggestion?

Its not fair for them to be left with babysitters.

Maybe try and have a chat with him and explain how the kids feel about him letting them down all the time.

I went through a similar situation with my ex a while back and in the end I got so annoyed with him letting our daughter down that I lost it and told him to just leave us alone if he cant be a reliable dad then its not fair on my daughter. I didnt answer the phone for a week and to be honest, hes been reliable about contact ever since. Think it scared him a bit. obviously not everyone would agree with my approach but it worked and I was sick of seeing my daughter upset.

Maybe he knows that you are scared to push it and as such is doing as he please regarding contact?

Hi sleepybird,

I can only think he''s seeing someone in which case it''s a shame he''s putting them before his time with his kids.

Ironically, he took me to court last week for regular weekend access, although he was already getting it, he wanted it in a court order, but he''s still for the past 4 weekends that he was to have the kids he''s either not had them or halved the time. The judge decided that because of the problems it''s causing the kids a section 7 has to be done and ordered interim fortnightly contact, and within the first week he''s mucking it up, this is why it''s so difficult!

Chatting unfortunately isn''t an option, but we do communicate via email etc freely, I can only try, he''s not too good at seeing things from a different perspective from past experience, but I can only try..

Your right about him knowing about me being scared to push it, but iv got to think about my kids, not him, which is why I don''t.