Sharing custody is generally a necessary consequences of divorce when there are dependent children involved. Negotiating shared custody can be relatively simple with older children who require minimal parental supervision. Younger children often require more careful consideration.
If parents decide to divorce or separate while one spouse is pregnant or immediately after the birth of a child, they have to negotiate an arrangement to share custody of an infant. There are several important considerations they need to keep in mind to establish a plan that actually works for the family.
Who will be the primary caregiver?
Infants lack a sense of object permanence. When someone leaves their line of sight, the infant does not realize that the person continues to exist. It can, therefore, be very traumatic for a baby to face prolonged separation from the parent they have bonded to as their primary caregiver. Parents may need to negotiate about who intends to fill that role and may need to allocate the vast majority of parenting time to that adult.
Does the baby receive formula or breastmilk?
Most pediatricians agree that a fed baby is a healthy baby. They do not like to play the game where people pit breastfeeding mothers against parents who formula feed. That being said, if a new mother commits to breastfeeding, continuing to do so can be beneficial for her and the child. Overnight parenting time could disrupt her milk supply and reduce the benefits derived from breastfeeding by both the mother and the infant. Parenting time with a non-nursing parent may need to remain relatively short for as long as a child continues to nurse.
Are there other children to accommodate?
In some families, there are older children and an infant. The parents may need to establish two separate sets of custody plans. Doing so allows the older children to spend plenty of time with the parent who is not the primary caregiver of the infant. The parent who does not act as the primary caregiver to the infant might take the other children overnight and spend a little bit of time bonding with their infant child before pick up and after dropping off the children.
Frequent, short parenting time sessions are often better than longer parenting time stretches and overnight stays while a child is still quite young. As children mature, the duration of parenting time can gradually increase. By the time they are in middle school or high school, parents could potentially split or alternate weeks without disrupting the parent-child bond.
Creating a working custody arrangement for an infant requires careful consideration. Parents who think about what their children truly need can work to establish arrangements that work well for their families.