Healthy Divorce Parenting Plans for Infants

 Posted on November 14, 2018 in Child Custody

No age is too young for your divorce to emotionally affect your child. Infants do not understand divorce as a concept, but they notice changes in their routines and their parents’ emotions. Unlike older children, they cannot express how they feel in words, leaving them only their behavior. It is common for young children of divorce to become irritable, clingy, depressed, or anxious. Your parenting time is vital towards your young child’s development because he or she needs regular contact with both parents to develop bonds of support and trust.

Consistent Routines

Children form their attachments with their parents during infancy, and missing that stage of bonding can affect a child-parent relationship for the rest of their lives. A parenting schedule usually gives the children extended visits with each parent, but the frequency of bonding time is more important with infants that duration. Two hours every day or every other day may be sufficient bonding time for the non-primary parent. When creating a parenting plan for your infant, remember that:

• Your child needs your undivided attention and care during your parenting time;
• Your scheduled visits should be consistent and include familiar routines;
• Long visits are more appropriate when you see your child frequently; and
• An infant will become distressed if away from his or her primary caregiver for an extended period.

Breastfeeding

There is no law dictating whether a mother or father should be the primary parent of a child, but the mother receives a majority of the parenting time with an infant in most cases. A mother can use breastfeeding as one of the reasons that an infant should primarily live with her and that the father should not have long or overnight visits with the child. Breastfeeding is important for infants because it can:

• Provide sustenance for the child;
• Sooth a child who is teething; and
• Be part of a routine to calm a child before sleep.

Prematurely ending breastfeeding to fit a parenting schedule can traumatize a child, but mothers cannot use it as a reason to deny parenting time to fathers. The father may need to fit his parenting time around the mother’s breastfeeding schedule.

Contact a St. Charles Divorce Attorney

Your parenting schedule will become more equal between mother and father when your child is old enough to have extended visits away from his or her primary home. A Kane County divorce attorney at Goostree Law Group can help you create a parenting plan for a child of any age. Schedule a free consultation by calling 630-584-4800. 

Source:

https://www.fatherly.com/health-science/divorce-age-young-kids-bad/