Making Your Parenting and Visitation Schedule

If you're new to child custody, making a schedule can be confusing. Here's what you need to include to make sure yours is complete.

Regular / residential / school schedule

This is the regular schedule of when each parent has parenting time with their child. This is also called the repeating cycle of custody and visitation or the basic cycle.

A joint physical custody arrangement, or shared custody, gives both parents significant and frequent time with the child.

A sole physical custody arrangement has the child living primarily with one parent and visiting the other parent.

50/50 schedules are joint parenting time schedules that divide the child's time equally between both parents and allow the child to be consistently cared for by both parents.

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60/40 schedules give one parent 60% of the time with the child and the other parent 40%. These schedules are used with shared custody because both parents have significant time with the children.

70/30 schedules give one parent 70% of the time with the child and the other parent 30%. These schedules allow a child to have a home base with one parent but still spend time with the other parent.

80/20 schedules are usually sole custody schedules where the child lives with one parent 80% of the time and visits the other parent 20% of the time.

Summer break schedule

A summer break schedule is when you have a different schedule during part of the year. Usually, parents adopt a different schedule when their child is out of school for summer break or for other longer breaks during the year.

To make this schedule, you come up with a new pattern that applies for a certain amount of time. You then decide on the start and end dates for the different schedule.

Vacations

You can put each parent's vacation time with the child directly into the schedule, or you can use vacation allowances. Allowances give each parent a certain number of vacation days and let each parent choose their exact dates later (with advance notice to the other parent).

Some examples of vacation allowances:

• "Each parent may take a vacation with the children of up to five days two times a year."
• "Each parent may take a vacation with the children of up to two weeks once a year."

Holiday and special occasion schedule

The holiday schedule shows where the children spend holidays and special occasions.

The holiday schedule has priority over the regular schedule. This means that if a parent usually has the child for a weekend, but the weekend is a holiday and the other parent is scheduled for that holiday, the parent scheduled for holiday time has the child.

Considerations when making your parenting time schedule

Here are some things to consider when making your custody or parenting time schedule:

• Your schedule is part of your parenting plan, which must describe your schedule in clear wording.
• You can use a visual custody calendar to help parents, mediators, lawyers and judges make sense of a schedule at a glance.
• Your parenting time schedule must comply with your state custody guidelines.
• Some schedules work better for certain children's ages.
• Your parenting time schedule should fulfill the your child's physical, emotional and social needs.
• Parents who live a long distance from each other should choose a schedule with few exchanges.
• If one or both parents are in the military, your parenting plan should address deployment and relocation.
• Don't use an AI chatbot to make a schedule. It may not be ready for court, and you won't get a visual calendar.
• When you first separate, you can make a temporary schedule until you have a permanent custody arrangement.
• You can modify your schedule if you and the other parent agree to small changes. Otherwise, you'll have to ask the court to make changes.

Get help with parenting and visitation schedules

Creating a parenting and visitation schedule on your own can feel overwhelming. You have to be sure to use airtight legal language and can't omit any required information.

The Custody X Change app takes the guesswork out of the equation by helping you build a schedule piece by piece.

Try this with Custody X Change.

As a result, you get a written schedule and a visual calendar. They meet your family's needs, as well as the court's standards.

For quick, reliable and affordable help making a schedule, turn to Custody X Change.