Visitations Before Court Order is Established

My question involves a child custody case from the State of Utah.
My daughter is 8 months old. Her father and I are currently separated. We are in the process of getting a divorce and establishing custody. He is demanding he gets overnight visitations. I breastfeed so she is not able to be away from me for more than 6 hours. Can I keep her from him? I do not trust him. We have had issues on the past, such as when she comes home she is filthy with a dirty diaper, very bad diaper rash, he won't feed her the specific food I send, she has came home smelling of marihuana smoke, and so on. What could happen if I keep her from him until the custody arrangement is finalized?

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Quoting Msf

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My question involves a child custody case from the State of Utah.
My daughter is 8 months old. Her father and I are currently separated. We are in the process of getting a divorce and establishing custody. He is demanding he gets overnight visitations. I breastfeed so she is not able to be away from me for more than 6 hours. Can I keep her from him? I do not trust him. We have had issues on the past, such as when she comes home she is filthy with a dirty diaper, very bad diaper rash, he won't feed her the specific food I send, she has came home smelling of marihuana smoke, and so on. What could happen if I keep her from him until the custody arrangement is finalized?

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I wouldn't recommend completely denying him access. That will just damage your credibility with the court.

I let him see her 3 days a week for 6 hour periods. He is demanding overnights. Can I deny that?

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Quoting Msf

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I let him see her 3 days a week for 6 hour periods. He is demanding overnights. Can I deny that?

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Since he is getting to see her for a decent amount of time, three days a week, you probably would not get dinged for refusing overnights. However, if he is aware of his legal rights at all, he could just keep her overnight and there is nothing that you could do about it. His legal rights are equal to yours.

Well that is terrifying. Thank you.

Food = non issue. Unless there is a specific requirement based upon a medical need, he's allowed to feed her what he wants.

Change the child's diaper, put some barrier cream there, and move on.

I disagree with LL's response. I believe that there's a significant chance of you getting slapped down in court for refusing to allow Dad overnights. Nothing you have said here would justify no overnights.

So don't play those games. He's going to get regular visitation - and overnights - anyway ...why not accept that and work with it?

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Quoting Dogmatique

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Food = non issue. Unless there is a specific requirement based upon a medical need, he's allowed to feed her what he wants.

Change the child's diaper, put some barrier cream there, and move on.

I disagree with LL's response. I believe that there's a significant chance of you getting slapped down in court for refusing to allow Dad overnights. Nothing you have said here would justify no overnights.

So don't play those games. He's going to get regular visitation - and overnights - anyway ...why not accept that and work with it?

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I honestly disagree with the "slapped down" part. I agree that he is going to get overnights anyway, but I think that 3 days a weeks for 6 hours a visit is not going to be viewed so negatively by a judge that she would get "slapped down". I think its more likely to be viewed as her trying to do what she thinks is best for the child, even if she didn't quite hit the mark, in the eyes of some judges, and might not be considered negatively at all in the eyes of some others.