I've always been a fan of this one: https://www.google.com/search?q=2-2-3+custody+schedule&source=lnms&tbm=i...

Ex and I initially did week on/off and I did not like it at all. I guess it's good for stability but #1 I didn't like being away from BS for a week. Ex felt the same way.

We did the 2-2-3 for a bit and I liked it because it rotated weekends and we still got days during the week and it didn't feel like so long in between visitation. BS was in kindergarten though when we did this so not sure how it would work with school now.

Now I have BS 90% of the time 8)....

We were every other week for a few months (when BM lived with her parents and they were doing all the childcare). Besides just being with us full time, that seemed to work out the best for the girls. They weren't being displaced every few days, and had a VERY consistent schedule so they knew one week here and one week there! (everything else was a mess, but since the ex's sister and SM were taking care of the girls we at least knew that was happening!)

My SO and his ex do a 2/2/5/5 schedule, which essentially means he has them Monday, Tuesday and every other weekend. They think the kids (youngest is 2) are too young to do EOW. This is a nice schedule, as it gives each parent a nice chunk of time with the kids, and then a nice break, in a 2 week period while not keeping the kids from seeing the other parent for more than 5 days. but wouldn't solve the problem of being in different school districts, though

I don't think they've had any problems with this schedule. However, they parent cooperatively so if they need to make a change to the regular schedule it's not a big deal. For instance, SO and I wanted to take the kids on vacation for a week last month. We could only do that if his ex traded days with him or gave up her days that week. She agreed to it right away, because she wanted the kids to have the vacation. He's done the same for her.

For school age kids our mediator recommended every other week with a dinner visit. We have Monday drop off at school to Monday pick up at school and Wednesday upon release until 8pm on the opposite parents week. This has made it easy for SD10 to understand consistently. She knows Monday is a switch day and Wednesday is a visit day. The full week does make it easy to schedule vacations without a hassle of switching or making up time. The mid week visit is skipped during vacations but we allow facetime or phone calls.

For

Honestly? I think parents that do 2/2/3/3 5- 3/4 bullcrap whatever do it for themselves and not because it's best for the kids. Their own feelings take front seat.

There is no way, even if a kid does adjust that this kind of back/forth/multiple days in week transition is good for stability, routine, etc.

BOTH parents deserve and SHOULD have weekend/down time with their kids to do FUN stuff-not just day of week chores/homework, etc. They need that time to bond, travel, have fun, take a trip-

Go with week on week off/ as for the parents-they can SUCK IT UP when it comes to missing little Timmy and do what's best for HIM.

I'd trade off Monday at school if it were me.

So you take him to school Monday am BM picks up and starts her time, the following Monday you guys pick up.

Again, this is NOT about the parents- I have spoken to PLENTY children of divorce and they hate broken up schedules-I don't care what age they are. It gives consisten if a parent needs to discipline/take away priviledges, get use to the other house rules.
After visitation kids take a day or two to decompress and adjust to new home/new rules/new adults/new routine- by the time they adjust they are going back. I can't fathom why judges even allow this kind of insane schedule to appease grown as* adults who can't live a week w/out the kid. Seriously, it's disturbing. Let the kid have 1-1 time w/his home/other parent w/no calls for a week then the same for you.

We do 5:2 during the school year which is difficult because we work during the week when SS is in school (homework and after school activities) and then BM gets weekends so she gets to do all the fun stuff with voluntary school participation on her part. During the Summer it’s 7:7 and transitions for SS6 are harder. He gets worked into living one way then has to take double the recovery time to reset to our house rules.

My DW had full physical and legal custody while BioDad had ~7wks of visitation per year (5wks summer, 1wk+/- winter, 1wk spring).

 This worked well. We did not have to deal with constant interference in our family life by the blended family opposition and they got dedicated time with the Skid.

We also got regular opportunities to have 1:1 time without being overwhelmed by all kid all of the time stuff.

Professionally I have spend many years of my career leading shift based organizations.  This is a constant battle between effective coverage and quality of life.  Little is different in a visitation schedule situation IMHO.  Both parents have rights to time with their children.  The kids need to have a stable and sustainable situation and to have meaningful time with each parent.

A schedule that repeats during the course of between 7 and 14 days makes the most sense to me. A schedule rotation that takes more than  2 weeks to cycle through does not seem to be the most stable for anyone.  Particularly for kids who are growing up, making their own friendships, and learning  how to be their own autonomous person.

From my professional leadership experience a 4/3-3/4 makes very good sense.  With the pivot day being Wed.  In those organizations the schedule was divide into front half and back half of the week.  Front half shifts worked Sun, Mon, Tues and alternating Wed and back half shifts worked Thus, Fri, Sat and alternating Wed.  If applied to a visitation schedule for a 50/50 custody split this gives each parent one weekend day a week and 2 or 3 week days per week depending on the week.  Should the need arise the parents should be able to trade a day upon occasion to meet a particular need.  Holidays can either fall where they fall or they can be addressed separately in a CO.\

An interesting characteristic that invariably arose in a 4/3-3/4 shift structure was that there was a polarization between single and married people and people with kids and people without kids.  The  younger single crowd wanted to work front half of the week so they had every Friday and Saturday night off.  But that may not be relevant in a Skid visitation schedule situation.