What should your child custody arrangements look like?

When you’re getting a divorce, one of the first topics to discuss is how you’re going to handle child custody. You want to set up a good custody schedule and have a parenting plan that you and your ex-spouse can agree on.

There are dozens of ideas for parents who want to set up custody schedules, but among them are a few common plans that work for many families like yours. Of course, you will need to adjust any plan to suit your specific schedules and responsibilities.

The 50-50 schedule, bi-weekly

The first schedule that is relatively common is a biweekly schedule sharing custody 50-50. With this schedule, parents switch custody every other week on a specific day. Doing this, each parent should receive equal custody over the course of the year. To make this work, it will be necessary to live near each other or at least in the same school district, in most cases.

The 2-3-3-2 schedule

Another common schedule is the 2-3-3-2 schedule. With this schedule, your children will stay with you for two days, go to the other parent’s home for three days, return to your home for three days and then go back to the other parent’s home for two days. This is a good schedule for younger children who cannot spend weeks away from a parent at a time.

The weekend arrangement

When one parent has considerably more custody time than the other, a weekend arrangement may be a good plan. With a 5-2 arrangement, one parent has custody through the week, and the other has custody on the weekend. This can be an excellent plan for parents if one parent works throughout the week and the other doesn’t, as an example.

These are just a few ideas of how you can arrange your custody schedule. Of course, you can also come up with different variations that suit your specific schedules and responsibilities. Your attorney can help you learn more about custody and what kinds of schedules they’ve seen work for families like yours in the past. Remember, if this schedule ever stops working for you, then there is a possibility to modify it as well.