There is no 6-month requirement for support. To claim your child, the child cannot have provided more than half of their own support. The custodial parent can take all of the credits, you can't split them - other than in one exception for parents living apart, see below. The other problem you have is that the child is not your child, he is her child. And she qualifies to claim her child as a dependent, which means you now do NOT qualify to claim the child (because the child can be claimed by someone else, see first link above). You can't claim head of household unless you have a qualifying person. She may not be able to claim Head of Household if she did not provide upkeep for the home where the child lived, so it sounds like neither of you qualifies for the head of household status. Your attorney and CPA should be able to provide you clarification, but for tax purposes, you both technically qualify as custodial parents since you all lived together for more than 6 months. But now that you are legally separated, she can claim her child. So, unless you have another dependent to qualify you for the HoH status, you can't use that filing status.
The exception to the general rule >> The custodial parent is the one who can claim all of the credits and head of the household status (if they otherwise qualify to do so). The custodial parent can give the other parent a signed form 8332 to give the other parent the right to claim the dependency and child tax credit. The custodial parent retains the right to claim EIC and child care credit as well as file as head of household if otherwise qualified. @ColinW1972
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