Any advice on breakups and baby staying with mother?

My boyfriend and I have been dating and living together for almost 2 years. I don't work and I take care of the household needs and our 2 month old son. We planned on getting married so he works and I'm the "housewife". Now we are breaking up and both have agreed to assist each other until I can get an apartment and jobs to pay for me and the baby. He will continue to have our son on the weekend when he isn't working and I will have the baby the rest of the time. I want to apply for food stamps and other assistance but I don't want to have to file for child support. He takes care of both of us and wants to continue to do so with out the courts getting involved. What do I do about tax credits and so forth? Also, I'm exclusively breastfeeding and my son eats as much as I pump so I'm afraid I have to stop because now I have to go to work. What should I do? I haven't worked in over a year. The father and I want to do the best for our son and be civil with each other.
He has a good job working 6 to 6 roughly.Nights and weekends off. Also he and the child will have full coverage insurance after the baby's state insurance runs out.

It's a difficult time, and yet you two seem to working cooperatively. If you two can work together, and if he gives you support, you could actually write up your own agreement on what support he's going to give you and both sign it. It is better to have a written document, in case the relationship degrades to the point where he's not supporting his son financially, or if you ever have custody disagreements.

Just outline a plan... how often he'll have the baby, and that this can be adjusted as your schedule and his require... how much financial support he'll give you and how much he'll give the baby... and what portion of the baby's health care he'll pay... or if he'll cover the baby on his health insurance... things like that...

When you apply for food stamps, etc. do NOT tell them about the agreement or show it to them. That's just between the two of you. Each of you should keep an original, signed by both.

You only need to file for child support if he re negs on his offer to support the baby. That would be when your agreement might help.

If the baby lives with YOU, then you get to deduct the baby on your taxes. He may get to deduct the financial support he gives for the child... I know spousal support can be deducted for the man.

A year is not all that bad a time length to be out of the work force. Your best bet may be what you did before. You could also go to a temp agency and I think that as they send you out, they also test you to see where your strengths are so that might help ease you back into the work force.

On the nursing, I went back to work when my baby was 8 weeks old and expressed myself at work during breaks to be able to leave breast milk behind in bottles for my son. It worked for a while, but he got lazy as the nipples I got had such large holes, it was too much easier to suck from the bottle then to suckle from mommy. Some women succeed at nursing while working much longer than I did, so give it a try.

I commend you both on recognizing that your child needs you BOTH. If you two cannot make a life together, that's unfortunate, but your child will always need both of you. Your cooperating with each other and being civil instead of undermining and attacking each other is extremely important to your child's emotional health.