Children need routines and predictability.
Knowing in advance when they will stay with each parent will certainly help them deal better with parents separation.
Your offspring had both of you before the divorce
and you should think rationally about what’s best for them
and what is possible for you post‑divorce.
To make sure that you can spend the right amount of time with your children,
increase their emotional security and minimize conflicts with other commitments,
you need to plan ahead.
In many jurisdictions, a formal Parenting Plan is part of the Divorce Agreement.
In other jurisdictions, there is no formal requirement,
but it is one of the most important elements of your divorce
as it involves your child(ren)’s well‑being.
Taking the initiative and proposing a detailed visitation calendar
for the coming months will significantly increase the chances of establishing a potentially optimum schedule.
Planning ahead can help you realize limitations and obstacles
that are difficult to spot until you actually try to come up
with a detailed parenting time schedule.
It helps you confront your aspirations with what is actually possible.
Divorce through a Child’s Eyes
If you have current conflict, based on the divorce, it can be difficult to think clearly
about how this looks to your children.
It’s a critical mistake, however, not to do so.
It’s clear most kids, and most parents, benefit from some form of shared custody.
That’s worth repeating: Kids thrive when they spend time with
and are cared for by both of their parents, even when both parents live apart after a divorce.
It’s not the divorce that hurts kids but the conflict between their parents.
So, in addition to sharing parenting time,
it’s important to manage the entire process
from scheduling to drop‑offs and pick‑ups so that your children
do not feel the conflict that may exist between you and your ex.
1. Understand Your Commitments
Finding the right balance between parenting, work
and relationships with family and friends can be challenging.
But it is always better to make informed and timely decisions based on mutual agreement
than to procrastinate and keep coming up with the last‑minute solutions.
To be able to come up with an optimum schedule,
you need to make sure that your calendar contains all important events
that need to be taken into account when planning your time.
Update your Alimentor, iCloud or Google calendar
with events related to your children’s needs and schedules:
Extra-curricular activities
Other school and sports events
School holidays
Parent‑teacher conferences
Add commitments related to your work, health,
hobbies and social relationships:
Business trips and other all‑day work commitments
Workshops, classes and other important events that you want to attend
Doctor’s appointments
Finally, add holidays and family events:
State specific holidays calendar
Family members birthdays and other anniversaries
2. Estimate Your Target Custodial Timeshare
The amount of time you spend with your child is known as “custodial timeshare”.
In many jurisdictions to has a direct impact
on the amount of child support you pay or receive.
While the final custody percentage may differ from your initial estimate,
starting with a realistic target helps narrow down options
and makes it easier to develop an optimal visitation schedule.
In this step, envision as realistically as possible
what timeshare percentage can work for your specific circumstances.
A 50/50 parenting schedule works well for many,
but it may not be suitable for all families.
Begin by reviewing your calendar for the upcoming month
and counting the days when you can care for your children.
3. Determine Changeovers Frequency
The recommended frequency of transitions depends on the age of your child.
A younger child may do better with frequent visits with both parents
(rotation every 2 days),
while older children may find it easier to manage less frequent changeovers.
Infants and Toddlers:
Generally, this age requires more frequent transitions
to maintain a relationship with both parents as primary caregivers
if that is your goal.
An important consideration is whether one parent is breastfeeding
or is not working outside of the home to care for the child.
Young children:
It’s a good idea to have a consistent routine for young children
as they rely on stability and regularity.
They are often “fact based” at this age and can, often, adapt to more frequent transitions
as long as they understand where they will be and when.
They need contact with both parents too and more frequent transitions
can help maintain that connection.
Tweens and Teens:
Often, at this age, a child has more to manage outside the home,
including schoolwork, friendships, sports and extracurricular activities.
This means it is often preferable to have a schedule
that allows the child to stay for a longer period of time
in one household to minimize disruption to their schedule
and allow them to “settle in” one home for a period of time.
4. Consider Travel Obligations
Consider the following questions:
Do I or my co-parent travel for work or other reasons with an unpredictable schedule?
Can I or my co-parent accommodate the desired schedule without creating issues for the children?
If travel is an issue for one or both of you,
it may be necessary to think through a plan before implementing a particular schedule.
5. Decide How You Want to Rotate the Schedule
Based on what you already know, try to decide how you want the schedule to rotate.
Consider the following options for a 50/50 custody arrangement:
Biweekly Rotation:
Two-week stays with each parent
Alternating Weeks:
Children switch homes weekly
3-4-4-3:
Three days with one parent, four with the other, then reverse
2-2-5-5:
Two days with each parent, followed by five-day stays
2-2-3:
Two days with each parent, then three with the first; alternate weekly
Every Two Days:
Children alternate homes every other day
One advantage of the 2-2-5-5 schedule is having your child(ren)
consistent days of the week, that is,
you will always have Mondays and Tuesdays or Wednesdays and Thursdays,
for example, which allow you to schedule particular lessons
or events for consistent days that they are with you.
The disadvantage is a relatively short time period between transition,
so it may be more practical with younger children
unless your tweens and teens don’t mind the shuttling around part very much.
6. Adjust for the Level of Cooperation
The level of cooperation between you and your co-parent plays a significant role
in determining the best schedule for your child.
If you have a positive and cooperative relationship,
you may have the flexibility to make almost any schedule work.
However, if your relationship is strained and unlikely to improve,
you might need a more structured and specific schedule to reduce direct contact and potential conflicts.
For instance, you could arrange to pick up and drop off your child at a neutral location,
such as their school or an extracurricular activity, to avoid unnecessary face-to-face interactions.
This approach can help minimize tension and make exchanges smoother.
Regardless of the relationship dynamics, maintaining flexibility is crucial.
Flexibility helps diffuse any existing tension between you and your ex-partner
and keeps your child(ren) from being caught in the middle of conflicts.
By being adaptable, you can create a more stable and less stressful environment for your child(ren),
which is ultimately in their best interest.
7. Model Your Parenting Schedule
This step explains how to model your parenting schedule to see how it aligns with your preferences and existing obligations.
It will also help you calculate the custodial timeshare percentage, which plays a significant role in determining child support.
Regular Schedule
Use recurring events to create a regular visitation schedule for one parent.
For example, to define a 3-2-2 parenting plan, create three events, each repeating biweekly:
Friday-Monday (3 nights),
Wednesday-Friday (2 nights),
Monday-Wednesday (2 nights).
Adjust the recurrence settings until you’re satisfied with the resulting dates and timeshare percentage.
Ensure that your decisions positively impact your children’s well-being.
Holidays
In addition to the regular schedule, consider how holidays, vacations, and other school breaks will fit into your plan.
These details should be part of your Parenting Agreement.
Co‑parents often alternate holidays and school breaks annually or find an arrangement that works best for them and their children.
The key is to develop a plan that minimizes conflict and works for everyone involved.
Individual Adjustments
Review the upcoming months to identify any conflicts with work or other important events.
Decide how you can reschedule visits that require individual adjustments.
When editing individual visitations, always check how these changes affect your overall timeshare percentage.
Accurately calculating your custodial timeshare, also known as custody percentage,
is essential in child custody arrangements.
This calculation depends on knowing the exact number of hours (or nights)
the children spend with each parent.
In Alimentor, two different bases are used for timeshare calculations:
Timeshare percentage (hr %): Based on the total hours spent with each parent.
Nights percentage (n %): Based on the number of nights spent with each parent.
Alimentor also allows you to generate reports that compare timeshares:
Scheduled: Calculated from the planned custody schedule.
Actual: Calculated from the actual time spent by each parent with the child.
These percentages are displayed in two sections of the report: “Calendar” and “Summary”.
For documentation and presentation purposes, the calendar in Alimentor reports can be configured
to automatically allocate unassigned parenting time. Based on the logged time for one parent,
the app can assign any remaining unallocated time to the other parent or designated caregiver.
Review the calculated custody percentage to ensure it aligns with your expectations.
If it doesn’t, consider adjusting your schedule to achieve the desired timeshare.
9. Share Your Custody Calendar
To successfully implement a co-parenting custody schedule,
it’s essential to share and discuss it thoroughly with the other parent and,
if necessary, with other caregivers.
The Alimentor calendar can be shared in several ways:
iCloud Sync
allows you to share your entire database with other Alimentor users. This is the easiest, fastest, and most secure method for sharing your records.
You can set up the
automatic export of Alimentor events to external calendar accounts
configured on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. This allows you to indirectly share your Alimentor calendar with someone who cannot install the app. If your co-parent uses an Android device or a Windows computer, you can share your Gmail, Outlook, or iCloud calendar containing events exported by Alimentor.
If you prefer not to share your data online, you can generate a report that includes your custody schedule calendar and send it as a PDF document to the other parent.
You might also consider asking the other parent to use Alimentor to create their preferred custody schedule
and then exchange data to compare and align your proposals.
To help you document and manage any discrepancies between the agreed-upon custody schedule and what actually occurs,
Alimentor allows each record to store both the planned and actual visitation dates and times.
When updating a record status from Planned to Actual, be sure to adjust the start and end times
to reflect the actual parenting time.
If a scheduled event did not occur, such as a no-show or withheld visitation, mark it as Canceled.
Use the disagreement flag to highlight cases where the other parent did not adhere to the established parenting plan.
Cherie Morris
practices as a Parent Coordinator and Certified Divorce Coach.
She is trained as a lawyer, yoga teacher and is also an author and mother.
