I am feeling like I am going to have to put my foot down on something with the SD5. Let me explain my situation a little. The BF works third shift, so that requires him to be gone after 10pm during the week, and his sleep schedule is also backwards. He sleeps from about 9AM to about 4PM. So I have his daughter all day. I can't work, unless I can manage it between 4-9pm, in this economy forget about that. I can't go to school with how needy his daughter tends to be. (cannot self-entertain.)

Anyway, we have her for the entire school year, with the exclusion of Christmas and next summer. Her BM is demanding that we send her back for christmas. (Her mother lives almost 2,000 miles away.) This is going to involve my BF buying a round trip plane ticket for his daughter, and two for himself. Which of course her mother expects us to do on our dollar.

This summer she sent SD back two months before school started so she could "get settled". I happen to think this is a load of crap. If she wants us to pay several thousands of dollars in airfair to get her up there for christmas, is it really too much to ask that she keeps her all summer? I am preparing to go back to college to finish my degree, and being able to attend the summer session next year would be very helpful to me. No to mention the fact that this child is exhausting for me to watch, and I can't manage to do anything else with the situation what it is. Is it unreasonable for me to put my foot down, and say that seh either 1. needs to keep her for the entire summer, or 2. My BF needs to put her in daycare if BM insists on sending her back early again next year?

I really can't keep putting my education on hold to be a build-in babysitter. I feel terrible that I am not working at the moment, but with the situation what it is I don't have the time, unless he wants to put her in daycare. School is starting is less than three weeks so this year is about to resolve itself. I just don't think I will be up to this same situation next year. I would like to finish my degree as soon as possible, and I don't feel that I should have to put that on hold to function as a daycare provider.

Am I totally out of line here?