50:50 custody question

[theodorgeisel]

For anyone who's had experience of the gut-wrenching issue of shared residence, I'd love your opinion please. In fact, anyone with common sense, please respond!

STBX and I live 3 minutes drive away. Children are 3 and 6 and currently do 2 days with me, 2 days with their dad. Both of us are decent parents, both love the children and both want what's best for them. The children are so young and typically, want to be with mummy (me) all the time. They cry when they have to go to him. They tell me they want to be with me all the time. I am acutely aware of the importance of me being positive about their dad to them, as to do anything else would selfish and have serious life-long consequences. So I'm in the bizarre position of bigging him up despite his hideous behaviour towards me. So far, so similar to many other people's situations.

But he works very early in the morning so frequently has the kids at night and drops them off to me at 7am so I can do the school run. Is this unusual? Would any of you find that unreasonable? Do you think a court would see this as being a reasonable arrangement?

Also, he wants to have them every Saturday night, and wants me to have the every Friday night. I've been going along with this as his work hours dictate this arrangement. But am I being too accommodating again? Is it best to do, for example, 2 or 3 days on and off, or pick particular days of the week? As it's not concrete right now ,I find I can't book gym classes etc., as the days keep changing.

Finally, if we did do the 2/3 days on and off, and it was 'his' day to have the children but he asked me, would it be unreasonable for me to not 'swap' with him but rather stick to the schedule and gain an extra day?

Ah help! Thank you so much to anyone who responds :)

Flexibility is key here and it goes both ways, he cant dictate or expect you to swap if he never will. As for school run, if its his days then its his responsibility to source childcare, its irrelevant if you are not doing anything, he wants 50/50 then he has to deal with before school care, its really not your problem him starting work early!

thanks so much @Phillipa12! You make a great point - what if I want need him to take them when it's my night. So helpful. Have a lovely weekend.

Is it a problem for you to do the school run? What's the alternative? Does he want them on a Saturday for a particular reason?
Why can't you organise clubs etc? Whoever has them that day takes them to the club, surely?
You need to work out days that suit both of you and stick to those days. Do you not like the current arrangement?

Sorry, that's a lot of questions.

Hey i dont have shared care but the children see their father eow and a tea date once a week and half of holidays.
I think you have to consider if it works for the children? and if it works for you? how long have you been separated?
Personally if its amicable between you both then chopping and changing days isnt such a big deal, you just have to make sure it works in everyone's favour and not just his.

Maybe you can sit down with his rota and work out his pattern and work around it.
Personally i would try and encourage him to have eow Friday - Sunday. Which means you both have a weekend off and the kids have a longer more productive time at each of your houses.

My ex has our kids one weeknight one week, two the next and every other weekend. On a Wednesday morning when he’s had them overnight he takes them to school and goes to work a bit later but every other Friday morning he takes them to my parent’s house as they take them to school usually and my ex wouldn’t be able to go in late twice a week.
I think set days work best for everyone, in my opinion so that everyone knows what they are doing and when but if it doesn’t suit you him bringing them home at 7am then you need to ask him to make arrangements on his days as they should be your time out.

Also, I don’t mind ‘swapping’ (meaning me having them extra usually) if there’s a good reason and I have plenty of notice but I did have to have words with him at the beginning as he was a bit too quick to tell me he couldn’t ‘do’ certain days. This has got better over 10 months though.

In reality you need to think about the kids and not yourselves, even though it's great to be able to say 'iv booked a night out can you have them' it's not really fair on them to not know what's what, having a set schedule every week will help them more then you and XH. Especially as they get older at least they will know for example We stay at dads wed thurs fri and Mums sat sun mon tues or what not

We did 50:50 for a bit. Now I have ds 4 nights and he has 3 nights.

Childcare is absolutely the responsibility of the parent whose day it is. Exh works for himself, so works whatever he wants and doesn't need childcare. I spend quite a bit on breakfast and/or after school club.

That said if one of us is really in a bind the other will help out if possible.

We did 2 on then 2 off. Then 3 on, 3 off. Ds hated it. He is much more settled now he knows what days he is at which house.

My boyfriend has 50/50 with his ex. They have worked out a 2 week rota that best fits for them and the kids, they can ask to swap if needed but generally don’t. He has them Monday and Tuesday, her Wednesday and Thursday, then they do alternate weekends Friday to Sunday. Means they both get a full weekend with the kids and then an adult weekend too. It works well for them.

Wow. Thanks so much. It's amazing to hear other people's situations. I've been agonising about this in my head for a year now. This is so helpful xx

We do :
Week 1 - me-pick up Sunday evening .
Him -pick up from school weds evening
Me- pick up fri eve from school
Week 2 -him pick up Sunday evening
Me- pick up from school weds evening
Him-pick up fri eve from school

On a rolling rota . We both get every other weekend off and childcare is own responsibility on our own day . We do flex if the other needs it for whatever reason but this doesn't happen very often as we plan things around the rota as we always know where we are .

Only caveat is school hols , it's a case of whoever can get the time off or split the cost of a holiday club if neither of us can . I don't tally these days up but I reckon it's an even split ish over the year .

No CM paid to either parent and we buy for our own houses (clothes , toys etc) but the kids bring and take as they please .

Me and XDH get on reasonably well these day but it worked for us even when we didn't as we only had to see each other on a Sunday pick up 

Forgot to mention ,

In the early days he would drop the kids to me in morning as he went to work at 7.30am , I would then take them to school . I soon put a stop to it as (admittedly a bit petty but he was an arse and playing him at his own game was the only way ) I said I was providing breakfast every morning which made it more than 50/50 for me and as he was so insistent that it had to be fair he needed to sort the kids out himself or pay me the extra .

He starts work at 9am now 

We have 50:50 arrangement, and like you we live minutes apart. No CM paid either way. He drops with me early one day a week on his day so I can do the school run. It's my day off and I'm able to, so it's fine. In theory it's his day so he should sort- but I didn't like the idea of them being with a child minder down the road when they could be with me. I guess the way I see it is that I'm still their parent even when they're not with me. The rest of the time he pays for childcare.

He does take advantage sometimes to be honest, but it means i get to see them more. Generally we have a good relationship, and help each other out. The good outweighs the bad. Kids happy and healthy and we communicate well about them for the majority of the time.

My partner has the opposite scenario. Has to do childcare on his days ( which is fair enough) . No flexibility and high conflict. Kids are emotionally all over the place- not a nice place to be in.

We do:

XH has our DCs every Monday and Tuesday night
I have our DCs every Wednesday and Thursday night
We alternate every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night.
We agree holidays/half terms at the start of each calendar year.

It works very well for us because:

1. Our DCs know exactly where they’ll be each night, as it’s our regular routine.
2. Each of us knows exactly when we’re responsible for arranging childcare, if it’s needed.
3. Each of us knows exactly when we can arrange socials, classes, etc - for both ourselves and the DCs. I wanted them to do 1-2-1 swimming classes, so have arranged them for Wednesdays, for example. I do yoga on Tuesdays.

I did shared care with my eldest. Thankfully my ex was very reasonable and was happy to fit around my 24 hours at a time shift work.

At the beginning of the month I'd give him my Rota and that would dictate the arrangements for the rest of the month. Downside for me was that I never got time 'off' as I was always either at work or with the DC, but it worked for us and I was really grateful as it allowed me to work and have an income.

Just be aware that what works when you are single with preschool kids is very different from what will work as they get older and family circumstances change.

My DSC (now 10&12) do 50/50: 1 week, 1 week and 1 month, 1 month in the holidays. This has evolved over time though.

It used to be 1 week, 1 week from Friday, with Tuesday night at the other parents. Both parents are flexible about it and change weeks as work or trips require.

We have a 60/40 arrangement. This was stipulated by him when we spilt up.

Boys are with me Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday

With ex Monday, Wednesday and Friday

Holidays are split

I have given arrangements to change this many times as I feel it is too much for them to back and forth every day. My eldest hates it. But he also hates the holidays being away for a week and won't consider a longer stretch than a day. Ex also won't consider changing the arrangement.