3-Day Weekend Holiday Schedule Ideas

Monday holidays like Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day and Columbus Day provide a three-day weekend for many people.

Because both parents usually value having extra weekend time with the child, dividing and sharing these holiday weekends is an important part of your holiday schedule.

Here are some examples of different ways to divide the three-day weekend holidays.

Alternate the 3-day weekend holidays

You can choose the start and end times for the three-day weekends and then alternate the weekends between parents.

For example, if Mom has Martin Luther King Jr. Day, then Dad gets Presidents Day, and you continue going back and forth.

You can also alternate the holidays by assigning them in any order. For example, you could give Memorial Day, Labor Day and Columbus Day to Dad and Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Presidents Day to Mom.

After you figure out which parent has what holiday, decide if you want to swap the holidays every year, have the holidays fixed every year, or have just some switch.

There are typically five weekend holidays in year, so one you can't divide them evenly. You can add your own three-day weekend to your schedule or use other holiday time to make up for this. Using a visitation timeshare calculator can help you make holiday time equal.

Split the weekend holiday time

You can split the three-day holiday weekends and give each parent part of the weekend.

For example, here is a Labor Day split where the mother has the child from Friday at 10 a.m. to Sunday at 10 a.m. and the father has the child from Sunday at 10 a.m. to Tuesday at 10 a.m.

Here the father has the child from the Friday at 7 p.m. to Sunday at 9 a.m. Then the mother has the child from Sunday at 9 a.m. to Monday at 7 p.m.

You can have the same arrangements for all three-day weekend holidays or a different arrangement for each holiday.

After you figure out how to share the weekends, decide if you want to use the same exchange times every year or if you want to decide them each year.

Splitting each holiday weekend makes it easy to give parents equal three-day weekend time. This works best when the parents live close by each other.

Give the holiday to the parent who already has the weekend

You can give the Monday holiday to the parent who has the child at the start of the weekend.

For example, here the parents have an alternating weekend residential schedule where the weekend starts on Friday at 3 p.m. and goes until Monday at 9 a.m. Dad has the weekend before Columbus Day, so his weekend extends through Columbus Day until Tuesday afternoon.

Here the parents have a 2nd, 4th and 5th weekends schedule where the weekend starts Friday at 10 a.m. and goes to Sunday at 7:00 p.m. Mom has the weekend before Memorial Day, so her weekend extends until Tuesday at 10 a.m.

This three-day holiday weekend arrangement is typically used when the child visits a parent primarily on weekends. These schedules don't change when the parent who lives with the child already gets the holiday weekend.

The reasoning behind this arrangement is that a weekend visit is planned around school. Since the parent who has the weekend is dropping the child off at school or returning the child the night before school, when there isn't school on Monday, the parent gets an extra day with the child.

The easiest way to make a 3-day weekend holiday schedule

There's a lot to think about when you build a holiday schedule. You'll want it to give the right amount of time to each parent and work for years to come.

The Custody X Change app makes it easy. Just follow our steps to make a holiday schedule.

If you don't find your holiday on the list, you can create a new holiday.

To make a custody schedule quickly and affordably, turn to Custody X Change. You'll get written and visual versions that meet your family's needs, as well as court standards.