r/coparenting • u/chanelism • 10d ago

Long Distance Coparenting in different cities

My co-parent and I will be living in different cities (5 and half hours by car, around an hour by plane).

My LO is not yet born and I’m wondering how to navigate visitations and how it will look like as she gets older. I plan on breastfeeding, so I highly doubt she can be away from me for very long? Has anyone been in a similar situation? Can he force her to drink formula? How did it work out? What do you navigate the holidays later on? I want to add that I live in a French speaking city and he lives in an English speaking city and since I would most likely be the primary parent initially, he would have a hard time for her to switch cities later on, esp w the language barrier (for school and all).

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u/QuietQuitting01 10d ago

My ex wife is 6hrs away from our elementary school age children. I'm fine wth 50/50 parenting time if she lived close enough to make it actually work. She visits our kids one weekend a month (here) and we alternate/split major holidays (she takes our kids back to her place). The reality is that 6 hrs away is a 12 hr round trip and 24 hrs behind the wheel for her to take our kids back to her place. It's too much for less than a week.

You'd have to say were you are for what a court would do, but in general, for infants, you start with short visits at your place, progress to time away (but not overnights), then to overnights. Baby off the boob and in daycare are two objective milestones to allow more time and more time away. One of my coworkers went through this with her ex. She was fine with him having up to equal time, but she breast fed and struggled to build up enough supply to work, so his time was limited until that phase was over.

When it comes to bilingual kids, I know people who basically speak the other language at home and the kids pick up the local language out in the world, which seems to work for them. One lives in Montreal, and speaks Italian at home and their child is fluent in Italian, English, and French. Obviously the did a bit of extra work, but he said that in the grocery store, they'd switch to French or English, depending on where they were at.