Anyone with experience of 50% shared care and how does it work?

[wheredowegofromhere]

XP wants for us to alternate on a weekly basis who DS spends time with, he?s under 2. Monday, Tuesday with A, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday with B, Saturday and Sunday with A, and the opposite the week after.

This looks very complicated and even slightly disruptive for DS. Also, not very practical when he starts school.

Any thoughts welcome!

i think it sounds a tad confusing for such asmall person, even for an older child.

Exh and I do 50/50. But we don't alternate weekdays. I always do Monday Tues each week. He always does Wed Thurs each week. The Friday Sat Sun is alternate weeks. I hope this makes sense. What your ex is proposing sounds overly complicated.

Mine were alot older than your lo though, and with some organisation, it can work. It's good for some consistency ie. when starting school, arranging after school child care etc.

We both work full time. However, we are at the stage where one of my dd's is mentioning that she would like to stay in one place, and not keep shuttling around.

It helps that he lives only half a mile away, and we're both within spitting distance of the schools our dd's attend.

Good luck

MCT, I think your arrangement makes more sense. Less change and also full weekends for parents. Do you have a shared residence order or is this done informally?

He's convinced himself that if DS doesn't see him for more than 3 days, he will forget him.

He?s also expecting me, as a driver, to come and collect the LO every Saturdays, independently to whom he stayed with.

My head is spinning at the moment!

we started with Alt days, so monday, wed, fri, sun, tues so that we both got all the days and DS got to see both everyday. But then it became DS (3) wanted to only stay overnight here, so all those plans changed.

I don't think the OP original plans were that bad. Nice mix, I hate the week here week there ones. Draw a calendar if its complicated

wilsfish, what are your arrangements at the moment?

Hello, wheredowego.

It is informal - we haven't gotten round to our divorce, (3 years separated ), but it will be included in the final agreement. My New Year resolution ....

But what is this with the Saturday's? You would either be dropping off or picking up on Saturday from some other place? My view is that each partner's weekend 'off' is sacrosanct, and each partner's weekend 'on' is their total responsibility. So my dd's do horse-riding every other weekend, but it was their dad's choice to fund this and ferry them back and forth etc.

Little bump, no one else having a 50% shared care arrangement?

Arrangements are now like 2 evenings weekdays and 1 3/4 or 1/2 day weekend and a few random extra short visits in the week. The simple part though is DS stays overnight here, and never away. But it is down to the fact DS will only stay overnight here now.

wheredowegofromhere I dont know anyone who does a 50/50 share, would you be happy with this arrangement ? the thing with that is the child wont seem to have a 'base' and who would be the parent with care and be the one entitled to the benefits ? what about you having the main care and your ex having your son overnight twice a week ? I dont agree with you ex on the child forgetting him if he dont see him for more than 3 days.

Here in France there is a certain amount of 50:50 sharing of children (though not masses).

One week with each parent is about 25% of cases.

More common is each week split in two, mother Mon/Tues/Weds, father Thurs/Fri and alternate weekends.

However for children under 3, it is recommended that they reside with their mother, and see their father frequently but for short times.

Tinkerbel, I am not against 50:50 per se, yerblurt has some very valid arguments on the legal and lone parents forums on share residence.

XP has read that for under 3s: ?the child should be able to be away from either parent for two or three days. Depending upon the child?s temperament, parenting may be shared on a reasonably equal basis.? And concluded that DS should see him every 2 to 3 days for 2 to 3 days.

Anna, I know some of my French friends have a week with one and a week with the other arrangements; he doesn?t want to talk about it because that would mean a week without him seeing DS, not even thinking that I wouldn?t see DS myself.

Anyone, please let me know your thoughts and ideas!

I do 50/50 with older children. Have a very clear calendar worked out well in advance and spend a lot of time saying 'don't forget you are with your dad on Saturday'. Not entirely happy with it - not the way the rota works but in my heart feel that the kids would be better off with one home/parent they can feel is their main home and carer rather than just half time with each of us. And of course I think it should be me! . but he thinks it should be him, and I think that would be bad for them, so we are stuck at 50:50. Do see a time coming where DD will start digging her heels in and insist on more time with me - which will be the start of WW3!

wheredowe... - I think your XP has drawn a very liberal/generous conclusion from what he has read , and I think that you could probably find a whole lot of other quotations that say other things, if that is what you want and feel best for your child.

At the moment I feel he thinks he?s King Solomon, that there is only one fair solution to our separation: DS must be split in two, each parent receiving half of the child.

Joking apart, I really don?t know. Instinctively I would have said that it wasn?t good for routine, feeding, tantrums, that it would make discipline a lot harder, can?t it be confusing if you?re not allowed something in house A but you are in house B when you are a toddler?
However, if we agree on the broad lines and there?s not detriment to DS then it should be possible.

I?ve noticed (from reading on the net mainly) that older children resent changing to often, so this would not be practical in the long run.

Anna, can you remember where you read that 'for children under 3, it is recommended that they reside with their mother, and see their father frequently but for short times'?

Tx

CAFCASS guidelines state child should see the non resident parent frequently (i.e. an hour a day) and state overnight stays at the age of 18 months onwards are fine. In the same guidelines there is no presumption as to whether the child should be with the mother or father.

Of course, these are just guidelines. If you and your ex are able to come to a compromise, the use of conflicting and contradictory research to `prove' the point you are making is redundant.

Once again, I'd recommend mediation. The National Family Mediation service (www.nfm.org.uk/index.php?page=Home) has a lot of experience of this sort of thing and will be able to come up with solutions that are in the best interests of your son, as well as helping you and your ex work together.

Personally I'd say the benefits of a child seeing his or her parents work together amicably far outweighs anything else which quite frankly the `jury is still out' on.

wheredowego - yes, I can surely find that again, but it will be in French on a French site - do you read French?

Is there a right answer. Our 50/50 (of alternate nights) had positives and negatives.

We Parents saw DS every day, DS saw both each day. But also meant we saw each other every day! Also meant in theory both homes should have been home. But I am sure we all want a single place to call home, and when school starts how would the above work out. Poor boy would be carrying his house in his bags.

But a week away on off, personally I think is even harder.

The original 2 days on/off is to me just another feasible variation. There is no right and wrong. Try it, but remember in my view its more about the dc, and their happiness than our own.

Forget to add DS still sees both everyday (groan) but it makes him happy

lostdad, I?m not really trying to prove a point but rather to have as much knowledge as possible for myself, so that if I don?t feel I?m ?liking? the arrangement, at least I will know that it is beneficial to DS. The arrangement he?s proposing (first post) doesn?t seem to be common.

Do you have personal of mediation?

I will book an initial appointment with a mediator and would appreciate any input you might have.

Anna, yes I read/am French.

wheredowego - if that's the case, I'll look for the quote but I suggest that you google "droit de visite et d'hébergement" and read all the stuff that comes up.

Try to read Claude Halmos on the subject, too.

Merci Anna.

Hi. I have 60/40 arrangement with ex-h and 3 kids. They have 4 nights with me and 3 with their dad each week. It tends to work out Sun/Mon with me, Tues - xh, weds/thurs - me, fri/sat - xh.
They have been doing this for about 2.5 years. We tried alternate nights and it didn't work as the kids hating changing every night and as are slightly older they had always left something with me that they needed for the next day or vice versa. This involved constant trips back and forth in the car delivering things to school. Son (13) would like to be with me all the time and has started to resent having to spend so much time at the other house - he feels more settled with me as he and dad have never had great relationship. Other 2 are fine but younger and take it in their stride although dd sometimes says she misses me too much if she's away for a couple of days.
I think the situation will change a lot over the coming few years but it has worked fairly well - let's face it the situation is bloody rotten anyway - this way I felt at least my children didn't lose anyone!
Hope this helps - feel free to ask questions!

We did a 50:50 split for two years, from when the children were about 4/5 to 7/8. I had them from Wednesday after school/nursery until either Saturday evening or Sunday morning (alternate weeks) and then dh had them the rest of the time. We used the same child care arragements, and had our nanny carry their bag on the Wednesday, and then dh picked them up in his car at the weekend. Whe we changed to a child minder they took their overnight stuff to school and dh brought around the rest in the eveing. But we only lived about 5 mins drive/15 mins walk apart, which made that easier. I think as a split it worked really well. It meant that we both could make regular arrangements to do things (swimming lessons etc) and that we both had predictable time off. Also there was no issue about costs, as we each pay for our half of the week, and the only shared costs really were clothes (much less tension as a result). The children didn't seem to find it too difficult, and felt both houses were their homes. We were careful to call them houses "home1" and "home2" not Mummy or Daddy's house, and I think that worked well too - although it did confuse school for a while! Having said that they have been very happy since we all moved back together again.

We used to have just under the 50/50. First week it was Tues/Fri/Sat drop back late Sun. The following week it was Tue/Wed/Thur. Everyone felt it was too interruptive. Then they moved so we had to swap to weekends only. So now we have 3 weekends, the DM gets 1 weekend for some quality time. It's more settled, everyone knows where they're at.