50/50 custody with little kids

[heleftme16]

So yesterday I won full custody (!!) and stbxh agreed to drop all of the petitions and orders in the other state. He's going to work towards saving up and move here to be closer to DS and we agreed to work towards 50/50 custody.

My lawyer advised me to start thinking about what that would like but since DS is little (3 in feb) I don't want to shuffle him around on overnights so much. Maybe I'll have to concede to that but I don't know. My question is those of you who have or had 50/50 physical custody of a littler child, how did the schedule work? What would you do differently? Any words of advice?

[bg]

No advice, but congrats on the win!

[pinkdutchtulips]

Congrats on the win !

I have 100% custody but friends of mine who have 50/50 have it split this way
Mon - Tues * mom's
Weds - Thurs * dad's
Then they alternate every other wknd Fri-Sun

[sessy]

My brother and his ex have a true 50/50. They do it by weeks. He gets one week, his ex-wife gets the next week, and they do that all year.

His daughters are now 2 and 4 and it's been this way for 2 years.

(He cheated on his ex-wife while she was pregnant with my 2 year old niece, he's an ass). 

[sacattack]

I divorced when DD was 1 and DS was 3. At that point we did EOW - Saturday morning to Sunday night and Tuesday nights. As they got older my ex got more and more time. It allowed me to ease into it and also it allowed him to get more accustomed to caring for the kids.

Now at 7 and 9 they still go to their dads midweek and EOW, but it starts Friday after school and goes till Monday when school starts.

I'm really happy with how we eased into this, it allowed me to let go a bit and him to gain the confidence of caring for the kids. So that worked out for me.

In general I wish we had talked about specifics of what child support covers, how it would be adjusted if needed.

It took a while, but we have figured out how to co-parent effectively.

[dancelnow]

My son was just turning 5 when we separated. We alternate weeks with 1 mid-week overnight so he never goes a whole week without seeing the other parent. We live 15 minutes apart and equidistant from his school so not a big deal. We trade typically after church on Sunday, but are flexible about it. The midweek switch is done by who picks up from school (or daycare in the summer). We made sure that DS has a set of most everything he needs at each house so he just needs his school bag going back and forth. I have a friend who only has 1 set of school uniforms so they have to make sure those are washed and packed before trade off and that gets to be a hassle.

[sweetchix]

Nov 3, 2016 14:00:47 GMT -5 pinkdutchtulips said:

I have 100% custody but friends of mine who have 50/50 have it split this way
Mon - Tues * mom's
Weds - Thurs * dad's
Then they alternate every other wknd Fri-Sun

We were going to split the week up this way too but we didn't like how that meant DDs would be away from the other parent for 5 days. So we decided on a 2/2/3 split that works like this:

Week 1:
Monday : transition to mom (after 3)
Tuesday: mom
Wednesday: transition to dad (after 3)
Thursday: dad
Friday: transition to mom (after 3)
Saturday: mom
Sunday: mom

Week 2:
Monday: transition to dad (after 3)
Tuesday: dad
Wednesday: transition to mom (after 3)
Thursday: mom
Friday: transition to dad (after 3)
Saturday: dad
Sunday: dad

Then repeat.

It seems like a lot of transitions, but it's worked well for us.

Congrats on your custody win. I hope you can find a schedule that works out for all of you.

[heywhat]

Here are some examples: www.custodyxchange.com/examples/schedules/50-50/

I am (mostly) on the 2-2-3 schedule, like sweetchix. I really want to switch to a 2-2-5-5 like pinkdutchtulips friend. For me the 2-2-3 doesn't allow for routine. No Monday is the same. It makes planning basic life stuff hard and my son is always concerned about what day it is and checking the calendar constantly.

[sweetchix]

Nov 4, 2016 8:09:57 GMT -5 heywhat said:

Here are some examples: www.custodyxchange.com/examples/schedules/50-50/

I am (mostly) on the 2-2-3 schedule, like sweetchix. I really want to switch to a 2-2-5-5 like pinkdutchtulips friend. For me the 2-2-3 doesn't allow for routine. No Monday is the same. It makes planning basic life stuff hard and my son is always concerned about what day it is and checking the calendar constantly.

The things I like about the 2/2/3 that we do are:

1. DDs do not go more than 2 full days without seeing the other parent (Saturday and Sunday).
2. XH and I share responsibilities for any extracurricular activities since alternate each week. For example, they were taking gymnastics every Monday. Since we alternated every week, we each were able to take them to class. It's not like I'm the one who's always running them around to class.

However, I know that so many transitions throughout the week can be hard on some kids. What works for us may not work for you and your DS. Can you try out a few arrangements and see which works best for you?