should dad contribute to childcare costs?

Hi all..looking for opinions here or some advice from someone in the know.

I have just gone full time and have been promoted and so as a result stbex and I are now on similar salaries..he still earns a wee bit more than me but not much. He pays me the very basic maintenance of £308 per month (he earns over 40k) and has the kids 2 nights per week.
I know he's not being overly generous with his maintenance but Im glad he's at least paying it!
My question though is this..up until now my child tax credits have covered the cost of the part timee childcare whilst I worked so I havent made an issue at all of who pays childcare costs.
BUT..now that Ive gone full time and my salary has increased, my child tax credit goes down to £10 a week!..yet child care costs have gone up to £80 per week! Given ex and I earn roughly the same..is it fair therefore that I cough up all the childcare costs? should he be contributing in some way? My feeling is that he should be paying some of the childcare costs too rather than it all coming out of my salary!..if I wasnt around..he'd have to pay full whack himself!
thoughts?

my stbx and I earn roughly same (about 16-17k- although he has a self employed income on top of that), I won't take any money off him, he hasn't offered, and I pay all childcare (£700 a mth),

Anyway, personally, I prefer not to take a penny off him. I would rather struggle by myself if it is a chore to him to put his hand in his pocket for his kids.

I really do not know the answer to this but in my circumstances I have soley paid childcare costs since 1997 and continued to do so when my xtb left in Sept 04.
This was mentioned at FDR but I don't know if that means he should have contributed or not.
Sorry, not much help, but I just had to manage. Even if he should have contributed he will never be made to repay.
I will watch this post as I too would love to know the answer.

Hi Living again

He could say if you hadn't been promoted and now working full time he wouldn't have to pay more! One thing that makes it hard to comment properly is you don't say how much better off you will be as a result of the promotion.

If it were me I would offer to pay something towards childcare, but would probably not pay half as I would feel that I am not getting the benefit of seeing the children more than 2 days a week

Steve

Hi guys....thanks for your replies so far. Steve, their dad could see the kids much more often than he does..in fact I would have tried to help him all I could to enable him to do shared care...but he says he cant because of his work...even though he can schedule his own timetable!!
He lives 5 mins away and has the kids over a 4 night block every fortnight. Its a wee bone of contention between us that he DOESNT see the kids more often..he's kinda busy fostering his social life though and life with his new girlfriend
sven...my ex was PUSHING me to go full time! lol...he's been pushing me to work full time even when we were married and kids were babies! He's aberdonian He reckoned that it was very unfair that I only worked 28 hours and he worked full time...so now that I've gone full time..he'd better not have an issue with it!!! lol
Keep posting thoughts peeps

here's a thought...he takes them Thursday evening through to the monday morning once fortnightly. I would say it would be fair to ask him therefore to pay his own childcare costs for every second thursay/friday?? would that seem reasonable?

Hi Living

In my opinion as a father, if he can have them more than 2 days a week. He should do so. I have my 2 over half the time and manage to work full time. I think it boils down to whether he wants time with his children, or time with his new woman!

Obviously if he did have them more then the childcare costs you incur would go down....but he might say that he should pay less child maintenance so you may be no better off!

On the working full time point it is interesting as my STBX feels I should pay her more money even though she works about 20 hours a week to my 40, I have the children over half the time, and I pay over the CSA level of child maintenance. I wish she would go full time and stop bugging me! I would expect your stbx to feel the same!

Steve