Co-parents how do you split the school holidays?

[Chocbicc]

My DS is 10. I split with his father when DS was 2. He has DS a Wednesday night 1 week, then a Friday afterschool to Sunday morning the following week.

We both work full time. He works Mon - Fri finishing at 3pm. I work in a hospital and do 3-4 12 hour shifts a week which can be any day of the week as I don’t have set days. During the school holidays I arrange child care for DS with my retired parents to cover my shifts or I use annual leave to spend time with DS or if my parents are ever on holiday / unavailable. On Wednesdays and Fridays during the school holidays I arrange child care or have DS with me until his dad finishes work at 3pm and collects DS. This has always been the case. We get on fine and my DS has said he would rather be with myself or my parents as he gets a bit bored at his dads (my parents and I like to keep busy with days out or activities and dad prefers chill days in).

I’m used to this set up and it works so I wouldn’t change it now especially because DS is happy, but I do wish his dad would offer to use his annual leave the odd time during the school holidays. He does not have to sort or arrange childcare, his work week and annual leave is never impacted by the holidays but mine massively is.

Just wondered how other co-parents navigate school holidays?

My ex has them for 3 weeks of school hols. The rest is on me.

It’s normal to split the holidays so each parent has 6-7 weeks each and they cover this with annual leave of paying for holiday clubs

I had to arrange it all and relied on a mix of annual leave, holiday clubs, family and friends. I was fortunate to be able to "buy" extra holiday days from work plus having other single-parent friends in the same boat with whom I could swap the odd day here and there, plus a couple of family members who really helped out. That's not to say that's what I would have wanted or what would have been the best outcome but it was the hand I was dealt so that was what I had to play with.

The sad truth of the matter is that you can't force a disinterested parent to be an interested, involved and reliable one. If you approached your ex and said you wanted him to take your DS for a couple of weeks over the summer holidays plus a week at Easter, what do you think his response would be?

We just carry on our 50:50 routine
mon-Tues-they are with their dad
weds-Thurs-they are with me
fri-sun- we alternate the weekend
If any holiday clubs are booked we pay half each. I can wfh so I tend to have them most Fridays until 5ish regardless though. But I don’t mind.
Exh usually takes them away for a week
and I usually do the same.