Please help!!

I have a 1 year old child with a guy I was never married to. He just now started seeing the child. He doesn't do much for her but now he wants to take me to court for visitation rights.:mad: Can this happen? Especially knowing my child doesn't even know him and I have been trying to take her to see him, so I have made the effort. What do I do??

Sorry, nothing you can do... fathers have rights too. But he'll be made to support the child too, so relax. But as far as stopping him... you could try... but it would be very costly for you to do so. Besides, he is the father... you slept with him... you made your own bed... deal with it.

This should have been cleared up a year ago when the child was born.
First is he on the birth certificate, ( does not mean he does not have rights) but you can require him to do a DNA test to prove he is the father. But yes of course he can go to court and ask for visits, or even ask for joint custody, you can ask the court to have him do a parenting class, or perhaps supervised visits for the first few visits to get to know the child.

The issue is that the visit does not invovled "YOU" being there, he gets the child, you are not there. After a couple breaks up, often the one parent does not want the visit to invovled the other parent.

So what you want to do is work out the best visit that you can do, sounds like he does not want joint custody, so he is not asking for anything that he is not entitled to. And of course you get court to set the correct child support

No his name is not on the birth certificate

He could petition the Court for visitation, you would ask for support (2 different issues but it opens up the subject), Court would "probably" order DNA and you would go from there.

And, no, unless he's abusive to the child he's still the father and could be awarded visitation. Hopefully the Court will carefully monitor and supervise so your child is not frightened.

Since he is not on the birth certificate, paternity will be the first issue. As stated, the courts will probably order a DNA test and upon those results, add his name to the birth certificate.

Now with that out of the way...

He sure can take you to court for visitation. At which time, you add child support to be heard at the same time.

You need to voice your concern about the father-child relationship... or lack thereof.

My daughters father saw her a few times when she was first born then dropped out of her life for over a year. Then he decided to pop back in again. At that point she had no idea who he was. She screamed and cried anytime he came to the door... which then lead to her screaming and crying anytime ANY man came to the door... cable man, electric man etc.
I had kept a journal from the day my daughter was born and kept record of every time he came to see her and for how long, as well as all the times he said he was coming to see her and didn't.
My judge ended up ordering a "graduated visitation schedule". This means it didn't automatically order that my daughter spend every other weekend with him etc.
The goal was to first build a relationship.

My visitation order went something like this...

He was allowed to see her on Saturdays for 2 hours and I had to be there. This continued for a few months.
Then he was allowed to see her on Saturdays for 2 hours and Thursdays for 2 hours and I had to be there. That continued for a few months.
Then he was allowed to take her (without me) on Saturdays for 6 hours and on Thursdays for 2 hours. And that continued for a few months.
Then he was allowed one overnight visit a week, along with his Saturday hours. And that continued for a few months.
Then it went to the every other weekend typical order.

So as you can see... visitation was gradual. It was what was best for my daughter.

Good luck.