I have a relative who recently (like 5 days ago) had a baby. The father of the baby is not a nice person. He is demanding that she give him up to three hours of visitation. He states that he will have to give him formula if she can't produce enough milk. I was wondering if there was anyone who knew of any legal precedent or had any experience with this issue. I would like to give her some good advice. We have already tried giving him up to 2 hours at the house, but he is demanding something else and states that he will send a sherriff to her house if she does not comply! Any advice would be great!
I forgot to add that they were married and are divorcing. They have another child who is older and has a custody agreement. The court did make a provision for the baby, but it was a "may" not a "will ". He has called the sheriff on her before with a false accusation in a restraining order. It was very bad and scared her where she feels like he can jus say anything and the cops will come. My thoughts are be aide he is nursing, I would be very disruptive to mess with his schedule.
It is not so much denying him time. She agrees that he should have the time with the child, but within the first week of life, breastfeeding can be very difficult. A pump is not the best alternative when a baby is there. In my opinion, he could at least give it a week or two until everyone has had a chance to recover. I do believe in the rights of fathers, but in this particular case, the father has not been very kind or helpful.
First, he has to prove he is the father with a paternity test. Without proper proof of being related to this child, he has no visitation rights to the child whatsoever. Get a paternity test.
Attorney, now. And she should call the cops herself to ask them for help as he is being abusive. Perhaps her doc should be involved. She should get as much info as possible.
* I am not a lawyer*
If your friend also lives in Michigan, according to the link below, which appears to be up to date, she doesn't have to give him any access to the child at all right now. Michigan appears to be a state where when a child is born to unwed parents, the mother automatically has custody until there is a court order that states otherwise. He will need to establish paternity in court and petition for visitation and that will take months. Tell her to not worry about letting him see the baby until she is served with papers. Right now, he has no legal grounds to the child.
During the proceedings to establish paternity, custody and visitation she will also ask for child support. Tell your friend to contact your state's child support agency to get started. They will send her paperwork to fill out and assign a case worker. Once all of the paperwork has been returned, the department that handles child support enforcement will file the case with court and request a hearing date. The father will be served with papers that notify him of the date and ask him for his financial information. Once all of that is returned, the state will establish a child support amount based on state guidelines and when they all go to court, they will do paternity/custody/child support/visitation all in one day.
If the visitation schedule is something that both parties agree to, it just gets approved and entered. If the parents can't agree, they will be referred to a mediator or other department to work out an agreement that will get submitted to court later.
We have managed our own custody and child support cases with using just the child support enforcement division resources, information available on line and info at the court clerk's office. We have not had to use attorneys. Because so many unwed parents struggle financially, courts tend to make it easy for people to manage these steps without hiring an attorney. If he has an attorney it would we wise for her to have one too but if she can't afford one, the child support office will assign an attorney anyway and they're usually good with getting everything done during that first court date.
He sounds like a real piece of work. There is a lot if information for unwed parents on line. Tell her to read up on her rights and to not let him bully her.
http://michiganlegalaid.org/library_client/resource.2005-...
http://www.michigan.gov/dhs/0,4562,7-###-###-####_61204_4...
Michigan's guidelines do consider whether or not an infant is nursing in establishing parenting time.
Hope that helps!
The sheriff won't take a newborn infant out of its mother's arms and give it to a man who has no papers from the court awarding him custody. There aren't even paternity test results yet proving that he's the father. He's just trying to scare her.
She needs to get a lawyer involved right away.
Dawn
Without a court order she doesn't even have to let him see the baby -food for thought
From what you have written, it doesn't sound like they are married or even "together". Does she have anything in writing already that states how long the father is allowed to have the baby? Does she have a lawyer she can consult with? He really sounds like he is just trying to scare her into complying with all the police talk, which is ridiculous. Or he thinks he can use the police to get what he thinks he is entitled to. Without a court order in place, I don't see what he thinks he can do by calling the cops. She should speak with a lawyer or a police officer herself, and then call his bluff - but no way would I hand a newborn over to him for any amount of time without supervision!
Are they married? Is he on the birth cert? She needs to talk to a lawyer.
You need to get court orders involved but without a court order he has just as much legal right to the child as she does.
I have never heard of a court falling for the nursing mom excuse. I say excuse because if you look at the effect it could also be used to take rights away from good fathers.
The best advice you can give her is get an attorney and work out visitation and child support.
She needs to get a lawyer and some kind of custody paperwork put on file. This is precedent. BUT, until this happens, I will give the advice that my personal lawyer told me.
A sherrif will not force her to hand over the baby with no legal documentation in place. This is one of the complications of children. TECHNICALLY neither parent has to give the child to the other parent when in their custody. If he is on the birth certificate, then if she gives the child to him, he does not have to bring the baby back and vice versa, until there is a custody order in place. With that being said, I don't believe there is any precedent for nursing moms that allow them all the time either. I have a fried who was nursing and the court still ordered her to 3 hour visits three days a week until the baby was 8 months old and then the baby got overnights, in spite of the fact that she was nursing. If she did not give the father enough breast milk for the time, then he had to give her formula and she had to deal with it.
With that said, she needs to get the COURT to make a custody/visitation decision as then he cannot demand anything different. Judges will take into consideration nursing mothers most of the time.
ADDED:
Whatever provisions were added for the baby she needs to follow, whether it says "may" or "will." He has a legal right to the baby then and he can order it be received and enforced. Just pump during the time without the baby. It's not THAT long to completely throw off the baby's schedule.
I am always surprised and saddened by the pure lack of respect for the Father's Rights by all these women on here, sheesh!
So these adult friends of yours are fighting over language now, as in 'The Mother "May" allow the Father to see the child X amount of time' or something to that affect? How lovely! Just think, once upon a time these same people loved each other enough to get married and make this sweet baby but now the Mother doesn't love the Father enough anymore to allow him to see HIS newborn baby for a whole 3 hours a day...how incredibly pathetic!
~If I were the Mother, I would allow the father to see his newborn child for the measly 3hrs a day he is asking for! There are such things called breast pumps these days, my goodness!!
As far as your opinion that it would be 'disruptive' to the baby's schedule? The baby is 5 days old...he doesn't even have a schedule yet and all the baby will do is eat and sleep!
How exactly does the fact that The Mother no longer loves the Father OR The Father no longer loves The Mother = The un-loved Parent no longer loves The Baby?? These posts always make me so sad for the children!!
Are they married. If not unless she signed a paternity affidavid (sp?) he doesn't have paternal rights to the child (it may be different in MI but that is the law in IN) I was not married to my husband when my son was born and we had to sign papers stating that we both reconized that he was the father.
He sounds like such a jerk. However, I live in IL and one time my child was sick and wanted to stay with me. Dad even said yes. Then the police came. Not fun. Tell her to call her lawyer right away.
She needs legal counsel. If there was legal representation in regards to the older child, that would be someone to turn to., If the husband is abusive, there are social services she could turn to.
Since I can't make heads or tails out of your last sentence, I can only advise getting legal counsel or social services. Supervised visits might be in order.
But so what if he has to give the baby formula? He isn't going to be there for the long haul anyway, so if he wants to feed the baby then feed it, but w/out stressing out the mom. She'll get back to nursing as soon as he leaves, so I can't see that's much of an issue.
They need to get an emergency hearing right now, if there is a court order she has to comply. He has a right to have his child without having to stay at her house. It is his child too no matter how distasteful anyone thinks it is. Since she is going through a divorce and he IS going to get visitation she may need to rethink the nursing and just start the baby on formula.
All divorces are hard. It's too bad they are going through this.
I pumped exclusively and it worked out great for us. Maybe your friend could try that. Then baby can spend time with Mommy & Daddy at different times. This way since your friend has another little one, its likely she will need help from a friend or family member and tehy can feed the baby while she spends time with the older one. Formula is not bad....she should consider the formula route and get baby used to a bottle or pumping
First, she needs to immediately have the temporary court order (the one in place while her divorce is pending) amended. It needs to specifically state the visitation arrangements for the newborn. Once that's in place, he can complain and make threats of calling the cops all he wants. Court order is court order. Take that first step and go from there. Good luck to her!
