Child Custody & Visitation Blog

As a divorced or separated parent, you want to make the best shared custody schedule for your child. You’re willing to put in the time and effort that it takes to make a good schedule, and you are willing to be the needs of your child first. So, what is the best schedule? Well, there really isn’t one right answer for everybody. The best shared custody schedule for your child depends very much on your situation and circumstances. You are the best judge of what schedule is right for your child, but here are some suggestions that you can follow that should help lead you to the schedule you want.

1. To begin the process of making your schedule, get a blank calendar. You can print one off of the computer, use Custody X Change, or get a regular calendar from the store (or use an old one).

2. You want to first come up with a repeating cycle of custody and visitation. As you begin to mark off the time, consider the following questions.

• What are the schedules of the parents and how can they arrange visitation/custody exchanges?
• What is the schedule of the child–is the child in school, have extra activities, in day care, etc?
• How close do you and the other parent live? Will transportation be easy to figure out or difficult?
• How easily does the child adjust to the parents’ homes? Is visitation possible at each parents’ house?
• What are the easiest transition times for the child to exchange for visitation?

3. You’ll first want to come up with the residence of the child. Some shared child custody schedules have the child live in both homes. However, a shared schedule doesn’t have to do this. The child can still have a primary home with frequent visitation to the other home.

4. Schedule out the visitation/custody that the parents will share. It is best if you can do this with the other parent.

5. If the child spends more time with one parent because of school, consider changing the schedule to favor the other parent during breaks and vacations.

6. Make a holiday schedule that is fair for each parent.

7. Decide the time that each parent is allowed to take the child on vacation.

8. Put in any special events in the schedule, and decide how you will make changes to the schedule as they are needed.

Do you want a custody schedule that gives each parent equal time with the children? Here are some 50/50 child custody schedule examples to consider.

Alternating Weeks

In this schedule, the parents simply alternate weeks of custody with the child. Of course, the parents can choose what day to exchange–this picture shows an exchange on Friday evening. This type of schedule works best if parents live close to each other and close to the child’s school or other activities. The advantage is that the child has a very stable schedule with few exchanges during the week. However, the child has to adjust weekly to a new living situation, and not all children are able to do this.

Variations: parents can add mid-week evening or overnight visits to the other parent if a week feels like too long of a stretch to not see the child. Parents can also choose to alternate custody every two weeks if that works better for them.

Splitting the Week in Half

In this schedule, the parents split the week in half and each parent has the child for half of the week. The parents can adjust the days and times to get the schedule they want. Again, with this schedule the parents both need to live close to the child’s school or other activities (if the child is old enough to go to school).

Variations: Parents can add an evening or afternoon visit to the other parent during any of the days.

2/2/5/5 Split Custody Schedule

This schedule gives one parent 2 days with the children and then the other parent 2 days with the children. Then, each parent has 5 days with the children. This is a lot of switching back and forth for the child–so it is helpful if the parents live close to each other and the child adapts well to each home.

Parents can adjust the days and times of exchanges so that they alternate weekends. They can also add afternoon or evening visits as they feel they are necessary.

3/3/4/4 Split Custody Schedule

This schedule is like the one above, except that the parents each have 3 days and then they each have 4. Some parents find great success with switching so often, and other parents find that it is too complicated for their children. You should base your custody schedule on what works best for your child.

Again, parents can switch the exchange days so that they have different days with the children–this schedule can be arranged so the parents alternate weekends.

Other Variations

The great thing about using Custody X Change (where all of the previous pictures are from) is that it is really easy to set up 50/50 child custody schedules. With the program, you can set up different custody and visitation schedules and see the exact timeshare percentage that each parent has with the children. This means you can add visitation and change the custody times so each parent really has fifty percent of the time with the children. You can also adjust holiday time and add vacation schedules to equal out the time. If you want to make a 50/50 schedule, you should download the software.

Setting up the holiday custody and visitation schedule is a very important part of your parenting time schedule. Children have a lot of memories and expectations that go along with holidays, and when parents separate or divorce the children can have great anxiety that their holidays will no longer be any fun. You need to make a schedule and be prepared to discuss it with your children. You should explain to them how the holiday schedule will work and reassure the children that holidays will still be special family time, but the child will celebrate the holiday differently than before. Here are some ideas for preparing your holiday schedule.

You actually have some options when it comes to holidays. First, you and the other parent need to decide how you will share holiday time. You can choose to divide the day of the holiday between both parents, you can alternate important holidays, you can do a combination of both methods, and you can give both parents separate days to celebrate the same holiday. Here are some example holiday custody schedules.

Let’s say you and the other parent want to split the holiday time on the actually holiday. First, you want to make a list of all of the holidays that you want to share. Common shared holidays include Easter, July 4th, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Then you decide which parent has the child for the first half of the day and which parent has the child the second half of the day. You should also determine how the transportation will work on the holiday.

A slight variation of sharing the holiday is to give both parents a time to celebrate the holiday. For example, one parent can have the child on Christmas Eve, and the other parent has the child on Christmas day. One parent has the child on Thanksgiving day, and the other parent has them for the weekend following Thanksgiving. This can be a nice arrangement for the child because the child has time to settle in and actually enjoy the holiday.

Another holiday visitation schedule option is for you and the other parent to alternate the major holidays. In this case, you should make a list of all of the holidays you want to celebrate. The list can be extensive and include all holidays, or as few holidays as the you want. You and the other parent then go through and divide the holidays. You can agree to swap holidays every year so that they end up with a fair schedule. You can also choose a different method of alternating holidays–some parents create a new holiday schedule every year.

Remember that the holiday schedule should be made according to what is best for the child. Because of this, you may find that a combination of the above methods works best. Some of the holidays can be shared, and other holidays can be alternated. Determine what is best for your child and celebrate the holidays accordingly.

Custody X Change makes it easy to set up a holiday custody schedule. There is a Canadian, Australian, and US version of the software so you can set up a Canadian holiday custody schedule, Australian holiday custody schedule, or US holiday custody schedule. You can download a free trial of the software to see how it can help you assign holiday time.

Figuring out the child visitation schedule is tricky for any situation, but when one parent moves out of state it gets even more complicated. However, a parent moving out of state doesn’t mean a schedule can’t be figured out. Parents just need to be more creative in implementing visitation and contact between the children and parents.

Before moving out of state, a parent should assess the custody situation. If the parent who wants to move does not have custody of the children, they should discuss the move with the custodial parent. Determining a schedule will be much easier if both parents are on the same page about visitation. This means that the parent who wants to move needs to explain the necessity of the move to the other parent, along with explaining the desire to continue to see the child. In some cases, the parent may need to get permission from the court before moving. This is a good idea because it ensures that the parent will still have visitation rights.

If a custodial parent wants to move, they must get permission from the court and from the other parent. Because the custodial parent is most likely taking the child away from the parent, this can be more complicated. Again, the mother and father should discuss the necessity of the move and the benefits it will have for the children. The parent who is moving should ensure the other parent that they will still have visitation, and they should work together to make that happen.

Out of state child visitation schedules usually mean that the child visits the non-custodial parent less frequently for longer durations of time. A common arrangement is to have the children live with the custodial parent during the school year and visit the other parent during summers. If this long visit doesn’t work for the children (some children have activities during the summer, and older children sometimes get jobs) than the parents should work out a shorter vacation time to come and visit. Parents can also schedule longer visits during the breaks during the school year–like fall, Christmas, and spring break. This assumes that the child is old enough to travel alone.

Parents who live out of state can also visit the child in the child’s home state. This is a good idea when the parent’s traveling schedule is more flexible than the child’s. If this type of visit occurs, the parents need to work out where the visiting parent will stay, when they will see the children, etc.

Another option is to have the custodial parent and the child visit the state of the non-custodial parent. In this case, the custodial parent can have a vacation or break while the child visits with the other parent.

When determine out of state custody schedules, parents need to talk about how they will handle expenses. The parents need to decide how they will pay for the child to travel, the expense of the parents traveling, etc. This is an important issue to work out before visits start.

Fortunately, the technology of the day allows people to stay connected even when they live far away from each other. A parent who moves out of state should utilize any means to stay in contact with the child. The parent should call regularly–even have a schedule of when to call, communicate over email, send letters, get a computer camera and talk online, send text messages, etc. This way the parent can still be involved with the child.

Custody X Change makes it easy to create your personal, customized child custody schedule. With Custody X Change, you can choose from a list of common repeating cycles, or you can create your own. After the schedule is applied to the year, you can look at the time-share percentage that each parent has so you know exactly how your visitation schedule will go in real life. Here is the way to make a custom repeating cycle of custody and visitation in Custody X Change.

If you click on the tab that says Repeating Cycle, this is what the screen looks like.

The first step is to pick which parent the child lives with. If you have a joint custody schedule, or if the child spends equal time with both parents, then pick yourself.

Next, choose the cycle type (under the default parenting plans). You can choose how many weeks your repeating cycle lasts. You can choose from one to ten weeks for your schedule. For this example, we’ll pick a a two week schedule with the father as the parent the child lives with.

Now, you can choose the start date and the time of exchanges. If you have different exchange times for every visitation, just use the default time and we’ll change it when we put in the visitation.

Next, you can put in any type of custody schedule that you want. You do this by clicking on the day that you want to change the custody and then clicking on the edge of the time to change the times.

After you put in the child visitation schedule, you can click on the Calendar tab to see how it looks when it’s applied to the year. You can also see the time-share percentage at the bottom of the screen so you know how much time each parent has with the children.

With this schedule, the mother has 50.14% and the father has 49.86%. If you don’t like the percentages, it’s easy to go back to the Repeating Cycle tab and tweak the schedule. You can experiment with as many options as you want until you find the perfect schedule for you and your child.

Parents who want equal time with their children should try a shared parenting arrangement. Shared parenting is another word for joint custody or co-parenting. Some of the previous posts cover examples and samples of different custody schedules. We’ll look at a few more of those in this post. These are some custody schedules that work with shared parenting.

1. 2/2/3 Custody Schedule. In this custody schedule, one parent has the child for two days, the other parent has the child for the next two days, and then the child goes back to the parent for a three day weekend. It ends up working out that each parent has two days with the child during the week and the parents alternate with a long weekend. Here is a calendar view to make it more clear.

You can see with this schedule that the parents have an equal amount of time with the children. It is a two week rotating schedule and it is usually a good arrangement if parents want to alternate weekends. There is more switching back and forth than a 3/3/4/4 and a 2/2/5/5 custody schedule. If the parents live close by and the child does all right with the changes then this arrangement may work very well for you.

2. Varations on Alternating Weeks. Alternating weeks of custody is the simpliest shared parenting schedule. However, the drawback of this schedule is that a parent doesn’t see the children for an entire week. To make this work, many parnets take the basic alternating week schedule and add some variations to it. A common thing to do is to add an evening visit during the week with the other parent.

You can see that the visit allows the other parent some time during the week with the other parent so it isn’t too long. You could also make this an overnight visit if you wanted.

This could also be labeled a 4/1/2 rotating schedule. You don’t really see that as a common term though–it’s easier to just think of it as alternating weeks of custody with an overnight visit.

The pattern that emerges with all of these schedules, is that to make a shared parenting arrangement, simply divide up a week or two week time period equally between the parents. Then you can have that be your repeating cycle. You can set up anything that works for you. Perhaps it works best for you to have the child live with one parent, but the other parent takes them after school and on Friday night. Experiment with some different custody calendars and see what looks good to you.

This is the final installment about the standard child custody schedule options–although we will have more posts in the future about joint custody schedules and other parenting plans. In fact, if you have a unique custody and visitation schedule that you have set up, let us know about it and we’ll do a post on it. It’d be great to find out any ideas the readers have about suggestions for setting up a schedule. Or, if you’d like to see some calendar views of a particular custody and visitation schedule or want us to look up some information on it let us know and we’ll do a post about it.

We’re going to look at three more examples today. Along with each example, the time-share percentage with each parent is included. Remember that this time-share is only for the repeating cycle and doesn’t take holidays, vacation time, and special events into account.

1. Second, Fourth, and Fifth Weekends. This schedule is set up so the non-custodial parent has the second, fourth, and fifth weekend for visitation. This is a weekend that includes an overnight on Friday and Saturday with the visit ending Sunday evening. Here’s the calendar:

This schedule gives the custodial parent 84.32% and the non-custodial parent 15.68%. You can add little variations to this schedule if the non-custodial parent wants more visitation time. You could add an evening or overnight visit during the week or extend the weekend for an extra day. Whatever works for you.

2. First, Third and Alternating Fifth weekends. The non-custodial parent has visitation every first and third weekend. The parents then alternate the fifth weekends of any months. Basically this means that the non-custodial parent has the first and third weekend and every now and then gets an additional weekend (not every month has a fifth weekend, and the parent would only get every other one). The calendar looks like this:

This month the non-custodial parent has visitation on the fifth weekend. The next month with the fifth weekend would show the time going to the custodial parent. The custodial parent has a time-share percentage of 85.48% and the non-custodial has a time-share percentage of 14.52%.

3. Second, Fourth, and Alternating Fifth weekends. This is the same schedule as above, on the weekends change to the second and fourth weekend. This schedule looks like this:

The time-share percentage for this arrangement is 85.41% for the custodial parent and 14.59% for the non-custodial parent.

This wraps up our posts about the standard custody and visitation schedules. If you want to share a schedule that has worked for you, or if you want us to research and give samples of a schedule you’ve heard about leave a comment and let us know. Hopefully this can help you come up with the best parenting plan for you and your children.

We’re continuing to show examples and samples of common custody and vistitation schedules that people set up in their custody agreements and parenting plans. Hopefully you can look through these schedules and find one–or a combination of some–that can fit your needs and work for you and your child. Along with each schedule, the time-share percentage that each parent has with the child is provided. This is so you can see the actual time you’d have with the children if you set up your schedule that way. Note: the time-share percentage provided does not account for holiday, vacation, or special event time. It is only the time-share for the basic repeating cycle of custody.

1. Alternating extended weekends and one evening visit per week. The alternating extended weekends means the weekend goes through Monday (or can be started on Thursday night to include all of Friday). The non-custodial gets visitation every other weekend and one evening visit sometime during the week. A month of the schedule looks like this:

The length of the visit, of course, can be altered. This schedule is set up so the visit during the week is three hours. The weekend visits start on Friday night and go through until Monday evening. The time-share percentage for the custodial parent is 76.85% and the time-share percentage with the non-custodial parent is 23.15%. The great thing about Custody X Change is that you can experiment with different visitation times and lengths and see how that affects the time-share percentage. For example, if I go back to the schedule I just put in, but extend the evening visit for just two hours, the time-share for the non-custodial parent increases by more than a percent (24.34%). This may seem small, but it helps you to know that you’re getting more time with your child.

2. Alternating extended weekends with an overnight visit during the week. In this schedule, the non-custodial parent gets visitation every other weekend (for an extended period of time) and one overnight visit during the week. The calendar looks like this:

The time-share for the custodial parent is 64.38% and the time-share for the non-custodial parent is 35.62%.

3. First, Third, and Fifth weekends. The non-custodial parent has visitation on the first, third and fifth weekends. The weekend consists of an overnight on Friday and Saturday and an end time Sunday evening. This is the calendar:

This is more of a sole custody agreement with visitation for the other parent. The custodial parent has 84.38% of the time and the non-custodial parent has 15.62%. This could also be modified to the weekends being extended. If the visits are extended until Monday evening, the time-share changes to 76.71% with the custodial parent and 23.29% for the non-custodial parent.

It’s helpful for many parents to look at different ideas and then create a unique custody schedule that works for their parenting plan. This can allow you to make up an calendar that works for the children and both parents.

Okay, here’s the next part in a series of posts that explore some of the standard custody and visitation schedules that people set up. Hopefully you can look through these and see if any of them, or a combination of any of them, will fit for your parenting plan. I’m putting all of the plans in Custody X Change so we can get a calendar view of how the plan will look and so we can also see the time-share percentage that each parent has with that type of schedule. The time-share percentages that I give are only for the repeating cycle–holidays, vacation time, and special events aren’t taken into consideration. Using holidays, vacation time, and special events can alter your schedule to equal time if you want–so you can think about that for your own schedule if you like one of the schedules but don’t feel the time is equal. We’ll look at three more custody and visitation schedules.

1. Alternating weekends and one evening visit a week. In this schedule, the child lives with custodial parent during the week and visits the non-custodial parent on alternating weekends and for one evening visit during the week. Here’s how the schedule looks when you apply it to a month:

For this arrangement, the custodial parent has 83.94% of the time with the child and the non-custodial parent has 16.06% of the time. This schedule is a common one for a situation where one parent has sole physical custody and the other parent gets visitation.

2. Alternating weekends and one overnight a week. This is similar to the schedule above, but the evening visit is an overnight visit. The non-custodial parent has visitation every other weekend and one overnight visit a week. It looks like this:

This gives the non-custodial parent a little more time than the previous schedule. The custodial parent has 71.34% of the time and the non-custodial parent has 28.66%.

3. Alternating extended weekends. In this arrangement the child spends every other weekend with the non-custodial parent but the weekends goes until Monday evening. On the calendar this is what it looks like:

The time-share percentage for the custodial parent is 78.63% and the time-share for the non-custodial parent is 21.37%.

All of these schedules could start on different days or be adapted to fit your needs. The evening or overnight visit could be on any day of the week. Or, you could add additional visits if you thought that would be best for your child. These basic templates can be helpful to get some ideas for your child custody schedule, but you shouldn’t feel like you have to fit your plan into one of these. One nice thing about Custody X Change is that it makes it really easy to play around with some options to see the various time-share percentage and calendar. Then you can come up with a really great schedule for everyone involved. We’ll look at a few more of the schedules in the next post.

There are some standard custody schedules that people use when they set up their parenting plans. Many times parents set up these plans and don’t realize the exact amount of time that they will have with their child. To help people get some ideas about how to set up a custody and visitation schedule and also how that schedule will divide the time between the parents, I’ve put some common plans into Custody X Change. This will show us how the plan looks in a calendar and also give us the time-share percentage for each parent. We’ll look at three plans today–this is the first part of a series of post and we’ll contine to look at samples of plans.

1. Custodial Parent has the children during the week, and a Non-Custodial Parent has the children on the weekends. This schedule is usually set up in a custody situation where one parent has custody and the other parent gets visitation. The calendar for this looks like this:

In this arrangement, the Custodial Parent has 71.51% of time with the child and the Non-Custodial Parent has 28.49% (this is the time-share percentage of the repeating cycle–there are no holidays or special events added). Parents who opt for this schedule, but want more equal time can use holidays, vacations, school breaks, and other special events to even out the time.

2. Alternating weeks of custody. This is a common joint custody agreement. The parents switch weeks of custody with the children. The calendar looks like this:

As you can see, the time with each parent is pretty even. The Custodial Parent has 50.14% and the Non-Custodial Parent has 49.86%. The differences in time are due to the starting date and the day of the week the schedule starts. Again, this doesn’t account for holidays, vacation or special events.

3. Non-Custodial Parent getting visitation on alternating weekends. This type of visitation schedule is a sole custody arrangement with visitation for the other parent. The parent who doesn’t have custody gets the children every other weekend. Here’s the calendar:

As you can see, there is a big difference in the amount of time that each parent has with the child. The Custodial Parent has 85.75% and the Non-Custodial Parent has 14.25%. A schedule like this might be set up in the school months when the child needs to spend the majority of time at one home. The summer schedule could be changed so the Non-Custodial Parent ends up with more time.

In the next post, we’ll continue to look at various custody and visitation schedules and the time-share percentages that accompany them. Hopefully this will give you an idea of what kind of arrangement you want to set up.

Parents who want to make a joint custody arrangement work have to come up with a good schedule for their children. If you want the children to have equal time with both parents there are a number of options you can choose. The mother and father can alternate weeks of custody or they can alternate every two weeks. If that seems too long without seeing the child, you may want to look into a 2/2/5/5 or a 3/3/4/4 custody schedule.

A 2/2/5/5 arrangement means that the mother gets two days with the children, the father gets the next two days with the children, then the mother gets five days with the children, and the father gets the next five days with the children. (of course you can switch the order of the parents so the father starts–it should be the same in the end) This is a two week repeating cycle. An example of this schedule applied to a month looks like this:

You can see in the calendar that the parents get equal time with the kids and it is pretty regular so you can establish a nice routine. I put this schedule into Custody X Change in the repeating cycle tab and applied it (this isn’t one of the options to choose on the list, but it took me only a minute to put it in–you just have to click on the days and times you want). The exact time share that the mom has with this arrangement is 50.14% and the dad has 49.86%. Of course, no holidays or other events have been added which would make the time even more equal. It sure is nice to be able to see the exact percentage at the bottom of the screen though.

Another joint custody schedule sample that is similar to this is the 3/3/4/4 arrangement. In this calendar, the mother spends 3 days with the child (again, you can start with the father–it shouldn’t make any difference) and then the father spends 3 days with the child. Then the mother spends four days with the child and the father gets the next four days with the child. This is also a two week repeating cycle. When applied to the calendar it looks like this:

This is what it looks like when I put the repeating cycle into Custody X Change. This is also an arrangement that you have to custom–but it is really quick. After I applied the schedule, the time-share percentage with the mom is 50.05% and the time-share with the dad is 49.95%. That also doesn’t include holidays, vacation time, or special events.

It’s worthwhile for parents to investigate different options like these. These schedules may not be the first ones that you think of for a joint custody agreement, but they divide the time up equally and the schedule isn’t crazy. These are very easy to create in Custody X Change so you don’t have to go through a whole calendar counting days.

Have you heard of the Ackerman parenting plan?

This is a joint custody arrangement where the parents set up the custody and visitation as a 9/5 split alternating with a 10/4 split. This means that for a period of time (like during the school year) one parent has the kids for 9 days in a row and the other parent has them for 5. Then they switch for another time period (like during the summer or school vacations) where the parent who had them for 5 days now has the children for 10 days in a row and the other parent has them for 4 days. For more information about the Ackerman parenting plan check out this site.

Now, the great thing about Custody X Change is that it makes it easy for a parent to enter any kind of repeating custody schedule they want. There is a list of common cycles to choose from, but if you don’t find the option you want, you can create your own. It’s very easy to do–in fact, it will only take a few minutes to set it up and then have the computer apply it to the whole program. To set up an Ackerman schedule in Custody X Change, you simple go to the Repeating Cycle tab. The Ackerman schedule is based on a two week repeating cycle, so you enter that in at the side. Then you put in the 9 days with one parent and the 5 for the other (I put the 9 days with the father and the 5 with the mother) This schedule applied to one month looks like this:

To put in the months with the 10/4 arrangement, you click over to the Vacation tab. In this tab you choose the two week repeating cycle and then put the dates you want it to apply. I put it for the months of June, July and August. Then I put in the 10 days for mom and the 4 days for dad (opposite of what was put in before). This schedule applied to a month looks like this:

Since Custody X Change gives the time-share percentage at the bottom, I saw that with this schedule the father gets 56.87% and the mother has 43.13%. This is pretty equal considering that no holidays, vacation time or special events were added. It’d be real easy to even out the time with those.

The Ackerman schedule is just one example of a joint parenting plan and custody agreement. It may not be the first arrangement that you think of, but you may want to consider it if you think it would work in your situation. Custody X Change gives you a lot of flexibility in setting up your repeating cycle so that you can explore alternatives like this. The idea behind that is so you can figure out what’s best for you and your children.