Britney Spears made her first court appearance in the custody battle with ex-husband Kevin Federline on Thursday, pleading with a Los Angeles judge to be granted more time with her two sons.
Spears lost custody of the children -- Sean Preston, two, and Jayden James, one -- in a bombshell court decision last week after Federline's lawyers had argued she was unfit to care for the children.
Reports said Federline was awarded custody after Spears failed to undergo random drug testing as had been ordered by the court in an earlier ruling.
On Thursday Spears appeared before Commissioner Scott Gordon for the first time, seeking to be allowed overnight visitation rights with the two boys, at a behind-closed-doors hearing.
Spears, 25, later left the court house through a scrum of photographers and camera crews after being granted one overnight stay with her children per week.
Both Spears and Federline must appear in court together at a further hearing on October 26, Los Angeles Superior Court spokesman Allan Parachini said.
Although the ruling was effective immediately, both sides had not agreed on who the monitor for the overnight stays would be or when the first visit would take place, Parachini told AFP.
Spears filed for divorce last year from Federline, a former back-up dancer and aspiring rap singer, and has rarely been out of the tabloid headlines since -- especially following her downward spiral that landed her in a rehabilitation center in February.
The loss of custody dealt a fresh blow to Spears' image as she attempts to rebuild her sagging career ahead of the October 30 release of her first album in four years.
Spears shot to superstardom in late 1998, with her smash-hit debut album "Baby One More Time," which she followed with another chart-topping success the following year, "Oops! ... I Did It Again."
According to Time magazine, Spears has sold over 76 million records worldwide, and her 31 million albums sold in the US make her the eighth best-selling female artist in US music history.