[Daba]

Hi, this is the first time I have posted here and after doing a search I didn't find much info on newborn baby-related custody and access issues.

My situation is this: I am currently pregnant and am no longer with the father of my unborn child, we never lived together, in fact we live in separate cities and I have not seen him in over three months now.

He has expressed a lot of interest in being involved in our child's life; something I think is wonderful and will definitely benefit our child. I would like to be supportive of his involvement, and hopefully we will be able to successfully co-parent. However, attempts to dialogue with him on how much time he wants to spend with our child after the birth usually start out reasonable, but end up being conversations about how we need to get back together, should move in with each other etc and then if we don't get back together how he is going to follow us around wherever we go (it can get pretty creepy). It would seem to me that he has not made a mental separation between his relationship with me and his potential relationship with our child.

So my questions are as follows- how much time should I offer him to spend with his child in the early months? Is there an amount that is considered fair ( I read that for older children then it is every second weekend and a night during the week that is the minimum, but I don't see this working with an infant) I plan on breast feeding and while I am willing to pump, my experience with pumping for previous children wasn't successful, so I need to be realistic. I don't mind him coming and spending time in my home, as long it is not seen as encouragement that we should get back together! And I do not wish for him to be there from dawn until dusk...I need a schedule, especially as I do not feel comfortable being around him.

Also, is there an accepted age for children to start doing over night visits, and how long should the visits be? I am assuming that he will want these, especially as he lives in a different city.And obviously, it would make my life less stressful as I do not wish to be spending loads of time with him.

I talked to one lawyer who said that unless we wanted to go infront of a judge, it was just something we would need to work out for ourselves.

So has anyone been in this situation? Or any opinions on what to do/what is normal would be appreciated.