“Again, the question is whether to increase the Respondent’s access. To my mind, the Applicant’s resistance to any increase at all appears to be, for whatever reason, punitive. While she has clearly convinced herself that she is the only one who can adequately for the child, that the Respondent is incapable of doing so, and that there can be no disruption to the current breastfeeding schedule, there is just no other way to explain or characterize her staunch intractable position. I appreciate the child is being breastfed – which is a factor I must consider (and weigh against the need to foster a loving relationship between the child and Respondent) – but the Applicant’s complaints otherwise ring hollow. On the breastfeeding issue specifically, I am aware of no case that stands for the proposition that it should overwhelm any other relevant factor. It is a factor, but one amongst many.
To the question of caring for young pre-school children generally, the authorities filed by the Respondent were most helpful. While Applicant counsel ably drew distinctions between those cases and the matter at hand, there are still several passages that have relevance to the issues I must grapple with. For example, in Huess v. Surkos, 2004 CarswellOnt 3517, at para. 30 Spence J. writes that:
30. I have referred to these cases in order to provide a sense of what direction the courts have taken in recent years in dealing with young, preschool children. What I glean from these cases are the following principles: First, it is important to maximize the contact between access parents and young children. Second, it is important that this contact be meaningful such that the relationship between them is allowed to flourish. Third, unless specific circumstances exist which point in a different direction, that contact should include regular overnight visits. And fourth, the overnights should be of sufficient duration and frequency to permit the relationship to flourish.
The Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench in Lygouriatis v. Gohm, 2006 CarswellOnt 448 takes a similar view, rejecting the idea that, in that case a three month old child, was not “ready” to spend overnight visits away from her primary residence. Wilson J. cites Joan Kelly and Michael Lamb’s work in “Using Child Development Research to Make Appropriate Custody and Access Decisions for Young Children” published originally in the Family and Conciliation Courts Review, where the authors write:
Such unnecessarily restrictive and prescriptive guidelines were not based on child development research and, thus, reflected an outdated view of parent-child relationships. Furthermore, such recommendations did not take into account the quality of the father-child or mother-child relationship, the nature of both parents’ involvement, or the child’s need to maintain and strengthen relationships with both parents after separation. Research and experience with infant day care, early preschool, and other stable caretaking arrangements indicate that infants and toddlers readily adapt to such transitions and also sleep well, once familiarized. Indeed, a child also thrives socially, emotionally, and cognitively if the caretaking arrangements are predictable and if parents are both sensitive to the child’s physical and developmental needs and emotionally available.
The evening and overnight periods (like extended days with nap times) with non-residential parents are especially important psychologically not only for infants but for toddlers and young children as well. Evening and overnight periods provide opportunities for crucial social interactions and nurturing activities, including bathing, soothing hurts and anxieties, bedtime rituals, comforting in the middle of the night, and the reassurance and security of snuggling in the morning after awakening, that 1 to 2 hour visits cannot provide. These everyday activities promote and maintain trust and confidence in the parents while deepening and strengthening child-parent attachments.”