You and your spouse must work together to create your parenting plan. It must be as detailed as possible, with a breakdown of each specific holiday and how you will both care for the infant.
You can work together with an attorney to help you both create a suitable plan that works for both parties. A lawyer can also help you work through the unique factors your custody agreement will involve due to the young age of your infant. Once you have an agreement, you and your spouse must sign it and bring it to a judge.
The judge should sign off on it, then you will file it with the court to become a custody order. A custody arrangement involving an infant will be different from one involving older children.
Infants are needier than older kids, with concerns such as breastfeeding, waking up at nights, teething and diaper changes. If you are breastfeeding your child, for example, you may need to start pumping or switch to formula so you and your co-parent can both spend time with the baby. They bond with parents and other caregivers who hold, feed, soothe, play with, talk to and meet the needs of the baby.
A baby around 6 months old can recognize parents and caregivers and may start to have stranger anxiety. Stranger anxiety can last until the baby is a toddler. Babies have a limited capacity to remember, but they do have emotional memories. They will remember feeling frightened, and they can recognize anger and harsh words. Creating a plan and schedule on your own can feel overwhelming. You have to be sure to use airtight legal language and can't omit any required information.
The Custody X Change app takes the guesswork out of the equation. It walks you through each step of creating a parenting plan and helps you build a schedule piece by piece.
A parenting plan for an infant follows the same format and has all of the information as a basic parenting plan , but it is customized to fit the unique needs of a baby birth to 18 months. Any good parenting plan for an infant should provide for frequent contact with both parents, and the baby should not be away from either parent for more than a few days.
The best schedule for your baby will depend on the circumstances, but the following schedules tend to meet the needs of infants and parents alike:. The non-residential parent should have several visits a week with the baby, and the visits should give the parent opportunities to feed, bathe and soothe the baby, as well as play with him or her and put him or her to sleep.
As the non-residential parent becomes more competent with caregiver skills or more consistent with parenting time, their parenting time should increase. Overnight visits to the nonresidential parent can start when the baby is ready.
The parents can then implement one of the following custody schedules, which also offer endless possibilities for variations:. The baby spends a few hours with each parent on or around the holiday. You can increase the number of holidays in your schedule and the length of holiday time as your baby gets older. Every child has different needs, and every parenting situation is unique.
If you have questions about family law procedures, contact our accomplished and dedicated family law, divorce, and child custody lawyers by calling 4-TALKOV or contact us online for a free consultation with our experienced family law attorney, Colleen Talkov , who can guide you through the court process in a prompt and clear manner. Talkov Law Corp. Judges are more likely to approve a shared custody plan for a newborn that addresses the following:.
Schedules that allow both parents to share caretaking tasks i. Each case is different. Time spent with each parent enables bonding.
In addition to shared custody being good for a child, it is also beneficial for the parents arents can share the burdens and joys of raising their children. You should consider the assistance of a child custody lawyer. Creating a parenting plan that accommodates breastfeeding can be difficult but important when the mother desires to breastfeed. Millions of parents have successfully achieved an optimal schedule for themselves and their newborns.
It just takes patience and a willingness to focus on the needs of your newborn. Newborns typically need feeding every few hours. Some parents find it necessary to stipulate in the parenting plan if and when a child can use a bottle. In many cases, provisions for breastfeeding include the parents spending time together during some visitations or at least being near each other. In the past, mothers were often granted full custody of newborns. In more recent years, family courts have leaned towards giving both parents a fair shot at custody.
However, due to obvious genetic differences and the specific needs of a newborn, fathers can be at a disadvantage if they are filing for sole custody.
Learn more about the custodial rights of a married and unmarried father below. Married fathers have the same right to custody as mothers.
Divorcing parents typically share custody until the court makes a final ruling on child custody. Unmarried fathers who have not yet proven paternity, have no custodial rights. The process of proving paternity slightly differs from state to state, but there are many commonalities.
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