Contact: every other weekend or 1 night/day every weekend?

[ChasingSquirrels]

Spliting up with H.
He has suggested he has the dc's every other weekend for the whole weekend, I think 1 night/day every weekend would give them more continuity.
They are 5.5y and 26mo.
He is also suggesting having them one night a week, picking them up around 5pm, taking them to his for tea, them staying there then droping them at school/childcare the next morning. He says he will try his best to commit to this, I am not totally convinced he will be able to - but only time can tell on that one.
He is away alot in the week anyway, some weeks they see him most days - briefly in the morning and for upto an hour in the evening, other weeks they barely see him except at the weekend.
5.5yo is fine with him, 26mo is only recently (last 6mo maybe) starting to build a relationship with him.
Anybody got any experience on which is best.

Not really - my DS is 2.4 but doesn't stay overnight with XP (for reasons I won't go into now) but sees him twice a week during daytimes.
I think, for your 26mo 1 night/day every weekend might be easier. Two weeks is a very long time to not see Daddy at that age. A whole weekend is also a long time for dc to be away from you if he/she's not used to it. Will be good that older DC is there too though.
Your arrangements don't have to be set in stone at this stage - you can change them as your DCs get older/adapt to the situation. Are you working things out fairly amicably or is it difficult to discuss these arrangements?

my ds1 has stayed with daddy one night every weekend since he was 2, works really well for us, ds2 has just started it and he's 1

I would also say weekly is better. Do you think your relationship will be amicable enough to be flexible about the days so it could be either a Friday or a Saturday night followed by the day after or even a Sunday and a Sunday night, all agreed in advance but allows you both to build some sort of social life?

sorry if i havent seen this until too late. My ds has been staying with his dad every weds and every friday/saturday night since we split up when he was 2. We lived round the corner from eachother for ages and are very amicable (go on holiday together, have sunday dinner together etc) and that helped a lot but your h needs to commit to the same days every week as you say. My ds was helped by knowing exactly where and when he would be going every week and by having the most evenly split time we could manage.

We used to do this with DP's children - one day and night every weekend. It's great for continuity but TBH it's a bit of a pain as you can't make plans to go away for the weekend as you always have to do a switch over half way through.

We have my stepsons every other weekend, from Friday evening after school to Monday morning school drop off.

It works very well as it means everyone concerned has a full weekend in which to plan activities / go away.

They are 13 and 10.

We also have the boys one night a week - my partner leaves work early on Wednesday and picks them up, they are all here by 4.45 pm and my partner drops them at school the next morning.

It works very well. On the very odd occasion that my partner has an unavoidable business trip, the boys still come and spend the evening with me and their sister.

thanks all.
To me a night/day every weekend is better given their age. When they are older it is different but I think that, especially for the 26mo, 2 weeks is too long between.
hopefully will be reasonably amicable.