Two nights, two nights, three nights, then it flips. No gap longer than three nights, and more handovers than any other 50/50 pattern.
One parent has two nights, the other has the next two, and the first parent has the three nights that run across the weekend. The next week it reverses: the second parent starts, and gets the weekend. Over two weeks each parent has seven nights, and no gap away from either parent is longer than three nights.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | A | A | B | B | A | A | A |
| Week 2 | B | B | A | A | B | B | B |
A and B are the two homes. The same seven-night shape repeats, but the parents swap places, so the weekdays flip every week.
Young children, above all. A three-year-old who struggles with five nights away from one parent usually manages three. It also suits two homes that are close to each other and to childcare, and parents whose work can bend around a pattern that is different every week.
The gaps are short, which is the whole point. Both parents get weekdays and weekends, so neither becomes the weekend parent or the homework parent. And it is an honest 50/50 without asking a small child to spend a week in one place.
Six handovers a fortnight, and the weekdays rotate, so Tuesday is at one home this week and the other home next week. Regular activities, carers, work rosters and school pick-ups all have to be planned a fortnight at a time, and the thing that drifts first is who is doing Thursday. Older children often find the constant movement unsettling. Lots of handovers also means lots of chances for friction between the parents, and for a bag to end up in the wrong house.
Put the week’s three handovers in a calendar both parents see, with the time and the place written in, because they will not be the same from one week to the next. Keep a basic set of clothes and toiletries in each home so less needs to travel. Where a handover can go through childcare or school, let it.
Most families treat it as a stage rather than a destination. The usual next step is 2-2-5-5, which keeps the same two weekday pairs but fixes them in place and lets the weekend grow into a five-night block, for four handovers instead of six. Some go to 3-4-4-3 instead, which keeps more of the weekdays stable. The right moment is when the child, not the calendar, is ready.
You set the rotation once and it runs: the calendar shows who has the children on any day, in both homes, with holidays and special dates laid over the top without touching the pattern. Each changeover has its own time and place, each way, so there is nothing to re-agree on a Thursday evening. With the pattern flipping every week, a shared calendar that both parents can see from their own phone matters more here than in any other schedule.
Six in two weeks, three a week. That is the price of keeping every gap at three nights or fewer.
It is most often used for toddlers and preschoolers, who find long gaps hard. Many families move to 2-2-5-5 once the child starts school and can manage five nights away.
Because the same seven-night shape repeats with the parents swapped, so the days one parent had this week are the other’s the next. That is the main thing people dislike about it.
Yes. Each parent has seven nights in every two weeks and gets alternating weekends.
It helps a great deal. With three handovers a week, distance between the homes and the school turns into hours in the car.
There is no perfect schedule, and this is a guide rather than a rule. What works depends on the children’s ages, the distance between the two homes and how each parent works, and it changes as they grow. General information, not legal advice.