The singer - who is currently touring with the reunited girl group - had wanted to take eight-year-old Phoenix Chi around the globe with her.

But Jimmy Gulzar - who split from Mel in 2000 after a 14-month marriage - refused to change his visiting schedule with Phoenix, meaning she would not be able to go on the tour.

However, Judge Robert Schnider has ruled Phoenix should stay with her Mel as the traveling would be a wonderful experience for her.

The judge has now changed Jimmy's visiting dates but ordered that Phoenix must spend the whole of her ninth birthday, February 19, with her father.

The Spice Girls' tour finishes a week after that and from March, Phoenix will return to spending alternate weekends with Jimmy.

Mel - who also has an eight-month-old daughter, Angel Iris, by ex-lover Eddie Murphy - and her fellow bandmates, Victoria Beckham, Geri Halliwell and Emma Bunton, have all been taking their children to every show.

At their last London concert before Christmas, on December 18, all the children except for Geri's 19-month-old daughter Bluebell, accompanied their mothers on stage for a special performance of "Mama."

Victoria, who has three sons, Brooklyn, eight, Romeo, five, and two-year-old Cruz, said before the tour: "The only reason we are doing this is for our kids to see what we used to do. If they weren't with me, I wouldn't be on the tour."

Mel C is the only Spice Girl yet to become a mother.