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Any time you are going through a divorce and there are children involved, it adds another layer to be aware of. This is even more true when the children are very young. They cannot yet express their needs, fears, wants, and anxieties well — or at all — and that can make it more difficult to be sure that the decisions you are making are what’s best for your children. However, knowing what issues may come up and how the courts deal with determining the best interests of children at this age and having strategies in place to navigate it all can help.

Rights of Babies and Toddlers

One of the first questions that parents have when they start going through a divorce is “what rights do my children have?” In the case of very young children, they obviously won’t be given specific say in the matter by the courts. This is because they may not even be verbal enough to communicate their preferences, but even if they can, they clearly are not mature enough and do not understand enough about what’s going on and the implications to have any part in the decision-making process.

However, your children do have the right to be properly taken care of and loved and to have a positive, interactive relationship with both parents. The courts generally try to do everything they can to keep both parents involved in the child’s life as much as possible. However, the most important thing from the court’s perspective is the best interests of the child.

Specific Issues Regarding Babies and Toddlers

How divorce affects the children and what issues will need to be addressed and worked out depends heavily on how old the children are. In the case of babies and toddlers, there are some specific issues that come along with this age that you may need to talk about with the other parent and explicitly state in the parenting plan of your divorce agreement. We’ve covered a few of the most common scenarios below to help you get started.

Babies Currently Breastfeeding

Trying to figure out a custody plan and visitation schedule if your baby is still nursing can be very difficult. While some mothers can pump if the baby is going to be away for a short time, some babies refuse to take a bottle and long separations between the mother and child can interfere with milk supply. Some states do have special considerations for custody and visitation if a child is still breastfeeding, and you may also be able to point to previous court decisions in your state that show that the breastfeeding relationship is an important factor in determining custody and visitation.

Long-Distance Custody Schedules

It’s not unusual for one parent to want to make a long-range move back to family or for a better career opportunity after a divorce. In these cases, the traditional way of handling it is to designate one parent as the primary custodian and the other parent gets extended visitation in the summers and over most holidays. But this doesn’t work as well when the child is very young. An 18-month-old, for instance, may experience severe distress at being separated from his primary caregiver to go spend the summer with the other parent whom he hasn’t seen in 6 months. Babies and toddlers don’t have the developed sense of time and relationships that older children do, and this is important to consider when making decisions.

Separation Anxiety

A very common developmental milestone in babies and toddlers is separation anxiety. This can start as early as 5 months or so, but most parents notice it starting to happen more often around 9 months of age. Separation anxiety can last a few years, so it’s something to be aware of as you figure out the best custody schedule for your family and how you’re going to handle helping your child transition from one household to another. Separation anxiety is very normal and is seen in nearly all children, but how it’s handled through a divorce and moving between households can make a big difference in how quickly your child moves through it and what further issues may crop up later.

How to Make It Work

When it comes to coming up with the best custody and visitation plan for babies and toddlers, things work best if both parents can set aside their differences to focus on what’s best for the children. Mediation can be a powerful tool to help parents figure out reasonable compromises that are suitable for both sides and help them avoid the more divisive process of going through a divorce trial. Below, we’ve provided three strategies to help you get started creating a plan that works for everyone involved.

Put the Focus on the Kids

Divorces don’t usually happen because everyone likes each other and gets along well. It can be very difficult to separate out your personal feelings about the other parent and the circumstances that brought about the end of the relationship, but it’s very important to try. One of the best gifts you can give your children is to at least be civil with their other parent. Even very young children can pick up on and be affected by the tension and negative emotions that happen when the parents can’t get along.

While it may seem like you’re soon not going to have to deal with the other parent very much, this just isn’t true. There will be many events and special days in the years to come, including holidays, first days of school, birthday parties, high school graduations, weddings and the birth of your grandchildren. As much as possible, try to keep the big picture in mind and remember that what you do and say now is setting the stage for decades of interactions in the future.

If you are still in the midst of the divorce process and there are disagreements over the financial aspects, try to keep those separate from anything to do with the children. Even child support shouldn’t factor in to how often and under what circumstances either parent sees the children. These are separate matters, and the more you can keep them that way the better.

Set Flexible Schedules and Routines

You’ve probably heard that babies and toddlers do well with routines, and this is true, but being too rigid can make things more difficult. For example, if you have an every other weekend visitation, but the child is sick with a fever, it may make more sense for the child’s comfort to stay with the main custodial parent or for the other parent to visit at the child’s house instead of the parent’s. Being flexible and communicating with the other parent about what is going on with the child and being open to compromise as issues arise can keep things working well.

It also helps to be on the same page as much as possible with the children’s daily schedules and routines, such as meal times or bedtime routines. 2houses’ features like the information bank and journal let you share these things with the other parents without having to search through text or worry about forgetting important info. And it also provides a way to keep the other parent updated on how the child is doing when they are away from their house.

Plan to Revisit

A last thing to keep in mind when you are working on custody and visitation involving very young children is that things will change in the future — and more quickly than you think. When your child is ready to go to preschool, you will likely have to do another overhaul of the physical custody agreement, so it’s a good idea to just go ahead and plan to revisit the agreement every so many years or at specific milestones to ensure it’s still a good fit for the parents and the child. Some times to consider re-evaluation may be:

When a breastfeeding infant is weaned
At the start of preschool
At the start of kindergarten
Any time there are specific life changes happening such as playing competitive team sports in elementary school or getting a driver’s license at age 16

Scheduling these re-evaluations can give you and the other parent a chance to get out in front of any issues that may be coming up instead of just trying to react after conflicts or disagreements have already taken place. Knowing that things aren’t set in stone forever can also make it easier for parents to work toward compromise.

The bottom line is that what’s best for your children is what’s best for you when it comes to divorce, custody, and visitation. Open communication, trying to understand the other person’s perspective, and continuing to work as a team and a family even when there is no romantic relationship there are the keys to making it work.

No matter the reason for it or how amicable it might be, the end of a relationship is a major life change. If you have children involved, you will also have to figure out how not to just end the relations but how to transform it into a different kind that allows you to co-parent. And none of this is easy or intuitive for most people. During this time, it’s normal to experience all kinds of feelings and to sometimes feel like you are being flung from one mood to the next, going through both peaks and valleys as you navigate what your new normal looks like. Here are just a few of the common emotions you might be feeling as you move toward this next chapter of your life.

1. Grief

The end of a relationship is a loss, even if it was something that you wanted and initiated and that you knew would be a positive life change. And any loss brings grief. This is something that we accept when someone dies, but many people — usually those who haven’t been through a separation or divorce themselves — don’t understand what a loss the end of a relationship can be.

It’s not always only about the relationship itself, either. In some cases, yes, the other person has asked for a separation when you thought everything was going well and it’s not something that you want. But even if you were the one who decided it was time to move on, there is still the loss for what you had hoped and dreamed and what might have been if things would have worked out differently. And, often, this grief for what might have been is even stronger than the grief over the relationship itself.

Giving yourself permission to grieve fully and actually feel the loss and recognize it for what it is may be difficult, but it is one of the most helpful things you can do for yourself as far as really moving forward without the baggage of the past coming along with you.

2. Uncertainty

Many people who go through a separation find that once the decision has been made, they’re left with a feeling of “well, what now?” Oftentimes, so much energy and time (physically and mentally) go into deciding whether to try to salvage the relationship or move on from it officially that once that particular hurdle has been conquered, it’s not quite clear where to go from there.

If you’re feeling uncertain about what you want or where your life is going after a separation, you aren’t alone. When you’ve been in a relationship for a long time, your wants, needs, desires and preferences have all been intermingled with someone else’s, and it can take some time to start to sort out what’s yours at the end of it.

However, this can also be a great opportunity to rediscover passions, dreams or goals that you set aside or weren’t able to pursue fully because of your relationship. Maybe you want to move out to the country, downsize to a tiny home, go back to school or switch careers. Viewing this feeling of uncertainty as an opportunity to recalibrate your life instead of a negative emotion to be avoided can bring many positive things to your future and help facilitate your personal growth.

3. Exhaustion

Emotional upheaval is tiring in and of itself, but a separation that involves becoming a new single parent and trying to navigate a new co-parenting relationship is downright exhausting. So, if you’re waking up feeling like you would just like to go back to bed or you stumble into bed at the end of the day thinking “this just isn’t possible,” you’re in good company.

You might still be reeling from the emotional aspect of the separation, and chances are, you’re suddenly faced with working, taking care of children, keeping the house in livable condition and dealing with all of your children’s emotions and feelings all at the same time and pretty much all by yourself. The good news is that this phase will pass, and you will make it through. However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t or shouldn’t do anything to ease the exhaustion while you’re in it.

Figure out what fills up your cup. Maybe it’s curling up with a new novel or a funny movie after the kids have gone to bed. Maybe it’s waking up early for a morning run in the peace and solitude of nature. Spend some time thinking about what makes you feel better and like you can handle the day, and then, purposefully carve out time for these activities — even if it means lowering your standards in other areas, such as keeping a perfectly clean house or cooking dinner from scratch every night.

4. Excitement

It may seem odd to say that someone might be excited about a separation, but the truth is that sometimes the end of a relationship is the best thing for everyone involved. It may have come after years of trying to make things work unsuccessfully, and finally being ready to move into that new chapter and accept that some things aren’t meant to be can bring a renewed energy with it. You’re able to better prioritize things in your life you may have put on the back burner, and it may feel like the whole world is fresh and new and full of possibilities.

This is healthy and a positive step forward, but you might encounter some people in your life who don’t feel the same way. For a long time, the end of a relationship was considered a failure and something to be ashamed for. However, we’ve come to realize the importance of mental health over meeting society’s expectations, and this stigma is slowly fading. If you encounter people who aren’t happy for you to be happy, respectfully remind them that you are in charge of your life and making the decisions that are best for you. If someone can’t be happy for you and supportive, you may have to put up some boundaries to maintain your mental health.

6. Relief

If you’ve been struggling in your relationship for a while or have felt like you weren’t moving in the direction for your life that you wanted, being free of it can be a welcome relief. It might feel like a huge weight has been taken off your shoulders. You no longer have to worry about meeting the expectations of your partner or dealing with the challenges of your relationship.

If you were in an abusive or toxic relationship, this feeling of relief may be even stronger. For many people, a separation means not having to walk on eggshells anymore, not having to deal with someone who has a substance abuse issue or just not having to worry anymore about what they’re doing wrong or why they aren’t enough to make the other person happy.

If you are feeling relief post-separation, take that as a sign that you made the right choice and that the relationship was no longer serving you or your mental health. However, that doesn’t mean that if you don’t feel relief, that doesn’t mean that anything is wrong. Everyone experiences emotions and processes life change differently, and for some, it can take quite a while before they have decompressed enough from the relationship traumas to be able to move forward into this space.

The Takeaway

While many people find that there are common threads to the separation and co-parenting experience and that they experience similar emotions, it’s also important to remember that everyone is unique. You may spend longer in the grief process than your best friend did, or maybe were heavy on the relief and didn’t really experience the exhaustion. Or maybe you experienced other emotions not covered on this list. And that’s OK. Because the separation process — and the emotions that come with it — isn’t a linear journey. Even after you feel like you have finished a certain stage and have moved on to the next, something could happen that could trigger a short relapse back into grief or anger or uncertainty, and this is normal. Remember not to try to compare your journey with your friend’s, brother’s or anyone else’s.

Whatever the case, the most important thing during this time is to be kind to yourself and to remember that you aren’t alone. Reaching out to friends, family members and other support persons when you start to feel overwhelmed with your emotions can be a healthy way to cope and can help you identify what you need to keep moving forward. There are many mental health professionals out there who specialize in helping those going through divorces or separations get through the process and move into the next stages as smoothly as possible.

Tag: Divorce

The Rights of Babies and Toddlers During the Divorce Process