I (24F) am extremely concerned about how my ex (25M) and his girlfriend (24F of ~2 years) have been treating our child (3F).

In order:

she's not your child exclusively, she's the child of both of you. Using time outs to control crying over boundaries and food isn't a good idea, in any case (so fighting over doing that is futile - do either of you realize what it means to be 3? I think there's a kind of fail there - for both of you).

Your child's father is prone to yelling about stuff. He would have been like that whether you lived with him or not - but now, your daughter has to deal with him on her own because the two of you are no longer together. Yelling at a kid may really upset you or me - but the courts aren't going to care.

Potty training is a big mess for many, and both of you may find that arguing with each other about Judy isn't going to help her get trained. This is par for the course - and even parents who co-habit have similar problems. Yours are magnified by distance.

Try to make sure that Judy isn't the one who suffers, as opposed to what you are doing now.

Give up being furious. Rage and fury are two things all infants/kids understand - and you are producing some of that anger. Stop doing that. Seek therapy to help yourself stop feeling angry. You had a child with this man, he's not what you would have intellectually chosen for your baby daddy - but he is the dad of your baby. He's there to stay.

You are disagreeing about developmental stages and neither of you can ever prove yourselves to be right. He is doing what he's doing - he is what he is - and you chose to have a child with him (or mistakenly had a child with him).

He gets to decide what he thinks is appropriate (sadly, on this issue, I would side with you -but that is beside the point, I'm not your daughter's co-parent). Welcome to parenting. Divorce or not, the other parent gets a LOT of say about how the child is treated/raised while on their time.

You have given us no details to help you deal with your ex. If you want to turn him into the police of CPS for spanking, you can join the long line of people who do so. What happens next might be for your child's good - or not. Reddit really can't answer such questions.

You seem to write as if you think there's some future point at which it would be okay to spank her for potty training ("just turned three" - is this okay at 4 or 5 or 7?)

You have to go balls out and try and deny him custody (costs money, isn't easy, is part of parenting) or give your kid every out and every way of dealing with alternate parents. Because that's the situation you are in.

He's always going to be tougher on your joint child, most likely. Will he lose custody? Unlikely - you will have to fight tooth and nail.

Contact CPS and document - if it gets worse, you may have a case. Be aware that this is your first and foremost duty - to document. Secondly, you need to think about finding a very early childhood psychologist to whom to send your daughter so you can have a third party document. Thirdly, get a lawyer involved.

This is not just about relationships, it's about culture, law, psyche, etc.

/r/relationships Thread