50/50 Parenting Schedule

[NotCombatCarl]

I'm a father of a 5 year old girl, I have been separated from her mother for over 18 months now and last January we changed from 50/50 to her being at her mums an extra day a week to settle her before school. We're now making arrangements to go back to 50/50 but struggling to decide what is best for our daughter. We're doing alternate weekends (Fri/Sat/Sun Nights) and either: every Mon/Tues with 1 parent and Weds/Thurs with the other, or alternating the 2 nights per week. Essentially either a 5-5-2-2 or a 2-2-3 schedule.
Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

I just want to chime in again, I don't understand why set days are important. As someone else compared to the "standard" setup of EOW with a weeknight, the weekends obviously change between parents and kids are fine with it. Kids deal with this stuff much better than we give them credit for as long as it's handled amicably and consistently by parents.

That's not to say it's a bad idea, but I wouldn't get hung up over it as a rule, something that you're able to make work and DC is able to predict and understand is what I would aim for.

Depending on age/development "3 days/sleeps" might be easier to understand then days of the week. So i'd take that in to consideration.

Set days makes the child feel secure in knowing their routine, where they’ll be on a certain day.

My friend has this
Week 1 - M/T with mum;W/T with dad;F/S/S with mum and then week 2 starts
Week 2 - M/T with Dad; W/T with mum;F/S/S with dad and then week 1 starts

Another friend has alternate full weeks but changeover day is now a Friday instead of a Monday as the child felt it was too much to go back to school and change houses.

What works for us is XH has her every Mon & Weds, then alternate weekends from afternoon on the Sat.
It fits with work schedules and also has been in place since DD was 3, and she's now 6 so is used to it - we have to communicate and share about school uniform, activities and stuff, but we both live close by so it can work.
DD knows what day is a Dad/Mum day and weekend and it's fine.

Many of you here are not even trying to answer the question. OP didn't ask whether 50-50 is good or bad. That wasn't the question.

@Beansandcoffee the first one you put is seemingly what we're doing, I'd have thought that set days of the week would be easier to understand for her, but we're trying this first. She loves both of her homes and is very happy in both, having her favourite soft toy replicated and we share school uniforms etc so that's never an issue.

She does seemingly sleep much better at mine though, which is a concern. But we only live 10 minutes apart and based on what's been said, making sure that we're more than amicable as parents is the most important thing and i do believe we try hard at that.

@RainbowMum11 we used to have that schedule, but i think it would be easier for my daughter to do Mon & Tues rather than Mon & Weds to have a bit more of a chunk of time before/after weekends. But i agree that knowing her days would be more settling.

@Brakebackcyclebot

Gotcha.

I said back at the beginning why not try full weeks alternating but with her going for the evening (or perhaps overnight) to the other parent either every Tues or Wed.

So it will be a Mummy week or a Daddy week but with tea/overnight every X day with the other one.

Gives her longer to settle and although you and your ex will miss her she will likely be fine with it! Far less to and fro which may actually unsettle her a little. Plus you then get a fair share of grunge and weekend time.